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Think you're poor?
StaticToybox
Veteran
This really puts things in perspective.
I live on disability, my income is approximately $8600 (US) per-year. I'm considered "poor" by American standards. But, according to the site listed above I'm still in wealthier than 86% of the world. My wife is on disability as well. Taking both of our incomes together this puts us at having more wealth than almost 90% of the world. I've long considered myself blessed to have had the good fortune to have been born into such a society where even someone "poor" like myself is still able to enjoy great stability, comfort and even luxury. This really drives the point home however.
I live on disability, my income is approximately $8600 (US) per-year. I'm considered "poor" by American standards. But, according to the site listed above I'm still in wealthier than 86% of the world. My wife is on disability as well. Taking both of our incomes together this puts us at having more wealth than almost 90% of the world. I've long considered myself blessed to have had the good fortune to have been born into such a society where even someone "poor" like myself is still able to enjoy great stability, comfort and even luxury. This really drives the point home however.
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It doesn't take local cost of living into account, and its all relative.
I currently have a salary that apparently puts me in the top 4% of the world in earnings. That would be overwhelmingly wealthy - if I lived in Rwanda, for example. But I don't.
This scale doesn't take into account what your local living expenses are. This is just a way of poking people's guilt buttons.
I happen to live in one of the most expensive towns in my country, because my partner attends university there.
I fully financially support my partner and have diligently done so for the past 4 years, during his studies. Had it not been for the overwhelming unconditional generosity of some very kind friends, especially at the beginning of his studies, there is no way he could ever have achieved what he has.
some of these friends are still out of pocket, and we owe several people their money back. I'm desperate to pay them back, but it will probably be another while before I can.
But I will.
Only now, that he has gained his degree, can my partner focus on building his chosen career, but it's been the hardest 4 years I've personally ever known, and we have had to change homes twice, sell belongings and move according to the rent we could afford to pay which currently means we live in what can only be kindly described as a hole. Because I earn just £100 more than the acceptably lowest limit, we do not qualify for any assistance, support or financial relaxation.
We are up to our ears in debt, and my bank account is perpetually in the red. we do not own a car, and have a computer because it's been necessary for my partner to pursue his studies that way.
I could go on for reams and reams explaining, clarifying and justifying.
I could add so much more to build a picture but I'm telling you - that calculator is simply fatuous and utterly misleading. It's designed to make you feel guilty for living in the so-called affluent west, but it's just wrong.
It's utter rubbish.
I don't think that their situation represents a conscious choice of poverty. While I do see your point about having more money than many people in the world, I think the real point is that the amount of income is relative to where you are living.
Frederica is correct, we have to assess wealth in terms of buying power, which is conditioned upon cost of living, but the cost of living when compared on terms of equal affluence is not nearly as great as some make out. Much of the reason behind our higher cost of living has to do with greater affluence, i.e., we have comfortable homes, secure supplies of power, ease of transportation and communication, and a whole host of benefits that would be considered luxuries in some of the poorest countries.
Now, I understand that to a certain extent, the structure of our society demands these things of us, and so it is simply a part of the necessary reality we live in, but even granting these, we still receive benefit from these, a benefit that greatly enhances our quality of life, at least in terms of the procurement of basic necessities, and I would argue social and economic opportunity as well.
So, while I understand that it is necessary to take into account cost of living in these types of assessments, I am not convinced that it presents as significant a modification to our calculations as we may be led to believe upon first glance.
Yes, and even with a low amount of income relative to where I'm living I am still much better off than most of the rest of the world. I'm sure the same is true for everyone of us here. The fact that we're even able to discuss this on the internet is testament to that.
Takeahnase, how much is a McDonalds where you live?
How much do you pay for a gallon of fuel?
How much do you pay in income tax?
How much rent to pay for a typical 2-bedroom condo, per calendar month?
Bear in mind my salary is prior all deductions...
let me tell you what we pay here, and the equivalent in Dollars:
Macdonalds big mac meal: normally just under £5.00. That's just over $7.50
Price of one gallon of fuel, £7.00, that's around $11.00
Standard income tax & deductions for my salary is 30% - I think yours is 15%.
My rent, for a small, 2-bedroom apartment (ground floor, no garden, kitchen, sitting room/diner, Tiny - we have one 2-seater sofa, a chair and the tv in there, bathroom (bear in mind, standing in the middle of the kitchen and bathroom I can touch all 4 walls) is £875.00/PCM - that's $1350.00
To put it in a nutshell, whatever you pay as a figure in the USA, add 1 - 2.5 as a number and we pay that in pounds.
We have a higher cost of living than you do, for roughly the same salaries.
I hate to say it, but the UK is one of the most expensive places to live, on the planet, and most Americans who have never been outside the USA (apparently 65% of US citizens don't possess a passport!) live a pretty insulated life, with little or no idea of really how good they do have it, over there.
Ive been dirt poor and struggling, middle class, and now lower middle class (post recession) and consider myself in all cases vastly wealthier than the majority in the south. I hear people say that the person living in a corrugated tin hut next to an open sewer in Mexico is "happier" because of community, religious belonging, ... eating lemon ice in the town square on a warm evening with the family .... and so forth, but, in the coming years it will be the north that builds walls to protect it's privileges from desperate migrating southerners, not the other way around.
And yes, I know quite well how good I (and indeed all of us here) have it, hence this thread. Your implication otherwise makes me think that you're simply knee-jerk reacting rather than considering what I've actually said (almost makes me wonder if you've even bothered to fully read my posts).
8600 a year will buy you a lot more in michigan than it will in san fransisco or new york.
Yeah or so they say, until you actually get into an ER and have to wait 8 hours because the nurses felt like sleeping and ignoring you when you said you were getting worse and oops it turns out you have pancreatitis and should have been admitted immediately, and oh shit the one guy who is qualified to shove a camera down your throat is on vacation and, dammit, the MRI is broken but if you want you can travel down to the states and pay for it out-of-pocket...
And you can get in to see a doctor for free....... after waiting "probably 1-2 years" on their waiting list...
Yeah, Michael Moore didn't mention that crap.
Ok ok I totally agree, though. Costs of living here are fairly high here although not to the same degree as the UK. I'm on Assistance right now. I'm given $572/month for rent + all utilities for myself and my son. I don't think a place even exists for that cost here so I have to significantly dip into my personal basic needs funds. Yet I'm still well-off enough now that I'm comfortable helping out the local homeless Jesus reincarnate when I see him. I'm extremely grateful and blessed to live in such a place.
What you don't seem to realise is that actually, I'm not taking issue with your posts. What I'm taking issue with, is the brain behind that stupid link which is blatantly designed to hit everybody's guilt buttons in a "woo-hoo, I earn far too much I am so rich, here have the lot!" kind of way. It is blatantly completely and totally inaccurate, and yet it's supposed to make us dig in our pockets an donate?
I have less than £5.00 to last me until next Wednesday. How much would they like?
When feeling poor because of debts and commitments leaving too much month at the end of the money, I have found it well to situate my discomfort on Maslow's famous pyramid. I usually find that I can get a meal, am housed and at a livable temperature. The 'poverty' that I experience is only financial.
Fede argues that the calculator or comparator is there to make us 'feel guilty'. Right again! We should. Whether we are Christian, Buddhist or humanist, have we the right not to feel guilty that so many starve or suffer and die from treatable diseases because of protectionist national policies? Are we not our brothers' and sisters' keepers? Doesn't the Buddha tell us that we should support and aid each other? Isn't it integral to our stumbling along his Noble Eightfold Path?
The comparator may be wrong but it serves to remind us that we should hold in our minds and hearts that, however hard we may imagine our lot to be, we are part of the great body of humanity and that most (yes, most!) of that body is sicker and hungrier than we are.
If you are not taking issue with my posts then what was that "Americans don't know how lucky they have it" dig about?
This....exactly my point in making this thread.
Look, I'm sorry. I admit, things like this really rile me, and to be perfectly honest "now is not a good time" for me, so I shamedly admit I permitted my temper to run away with me, and thus, I do apologise. But this kind of financial propaganda (and it is just that) is so unfair, and plays upon people's good nature. I think it grossly unfair, and I simply refuse to take such a thing at face value.
And here's something else I learnt on BBC Radio 2 last night.
The people touting for business on behalf of Charities here, (Charity Muggers, or 'Chuggers') on the street (they convince you to set up a direct debit) actually cost the charity MORE to pay them a fee, than you donate in one year. They are freelance collectors, who demand payment. So your annual donation, actually goes towards paying them their salary, for collecting a direct debit mandate off you!
so before I start clicking here and there to donate, I want to make sure that what little I do give - goes where it is intended!
No argument here. The advantages are the advantages of general societal wealth, and that can't be denied. It doesn't mean we have any less Dukkha. Old Age, Disease, and Death are of course equally distributed, one way or another, sooner or later.
Incidentally Valtiel spellchecks as Volatile.:D
Eh, the default currency is the Pound, so I figured it was British. Could be Ghanaian for all I know though.
Fair enough.
Personally, whenever I donate to a charity I prefer to donate locally, and in person.
i can see both sides of the argument. yes, this "rich test" is a ploy to make you feel guilty that the money you spend on a big mac meal could have provided water for an entire village for a day (or whatever)... but doesn't it also make you think about how completely lucky you are? at least, that's what it did for me. by no means am i rich, and i definitely live pay check to pay check... but even so, i see homeless people every day and feel thankful that i live in the "comfortable poverty" of america (meaning, i have a roof over my head, transportation, and a job). and even then, the homeless here have soup kitchens and shelters that are run on donations, so even these people could be called luckier than those starving in underdeveloped countries where they walk miles just to get to a truck delivering basic nutrients because their own soil is too infertile for them to sustain themselves agriculturally. i think these people would feel completely blessed for a chance to struggle as we struggle in modern society.
http://www.hrmguide.co.uk/jobmarket/unemployment.htm
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=usunemployment&met=unemployment_rate&idim=state:ST260000&dl=en&hl=en&q=unemployment+rate+in+michigan
We have clean water, sanitation, paved roads and highway maintenance, public safety officers, hospitals, libraries, food stamps, cash assistance, homeless shelters and charity organizations that provide free meals, public transportation.
Most of our working poor have roofs over their heads, and TV sets.
I always had kind of a poverty consciousness until I traveled to India and Nepal on pilgrimage.
I have never been on a waiting list for a GP. I would think that Michael Moore didn't mention that crap because that crap doesn't happen with any more regularity in Canada than in the US. Try an HMO or Medicaid on for size if you want to see bean counters making decisions for care rather than doctors.
In most of the Global South, they do not have any access to even elementary modern medical care. This is such a precious thing we have in the developed world. As long as I have food, a roof over my head and healthcare, I feel wealthy beyond measure.