If DC was a state they would be the highest.
If DC was a state they would be the highest.
I've lived in both Florida and California. More recently in California. I think any metric that shows California and Florida as the two states having the highest poverty rates in the country is just crazy. It's only saving grace is that it is crazy in a bipartisan kind of way.
"I am a victim, I will tell you. I am a victim."
"I am your retribution."
Because there's big money in certain spots and as I've seen from you you pretty much see what you want to see. Cal is leading the nation in homelessness too. You can't blame the metrics on that.
My Texas is high too which doesn't surprise me. You wouldn't know that while living on the I-35 corridor like I do because we're well off here. However, if you go to east and south Texas it's a whole different animal. If you go to one of our border towns you would think you're in the 3rd world instead of Texas.
I have a feeling it is they're both big states with some areas having high costs of living and others not. So if you live in a low wage/low cost of living part of the state applying the state average of cost of living is going to generate what looks like a high poverty rate. Same reasoning would apply to other big (and heterogenous) states like Texas and New York.
Last edited by nsacpi; 03-23-2024 at 06:44 PM.
"I am a victim, I will tell you. I am a victim."
"I am your retribution."
You could have a point there but you have to realize those states like Texas/Cal with large illegal populations will have issues with poverty.
California obviously is not working for a lot of people. Mostly due to the cost of housing. As I've said they need to figure it out. The politics is not easy due to nimbyism and the fact that people who already own a house don't want to see prices come down. When I talked to my mother a few days ago she was complaining about cheaper housing going up in her town. Mrs Nimby.
Last edited by nsacpi; 03-23-2024 at 06:57 PM.
"I am a victim, I will tell you. I am a victim."
"I am your retribution."
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/...epresentation/
On retirement, Sanders delivers a litany of misrepresentation
In a recent op-ed written for Fox News, Sanders made one of his favorite claims: “In America today, almost 45 percent of older Americans between the ages of 55 and 64 have no savings at all and no idea how they will be able to retire with any shred of dignity or respect.” Sanders attributes this figure to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which calculated it from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances. So it’s rock solid, right?
In fact, not at all. What Sanders calls “retirement savings” are only balances in retirement accounts such as IRAs and 401(k)s. But there are many other ways to save.
What about state and local government employees who have generous traditional pensions but may not be offered a retirement account? They’re without savings, Sanders says, despite having accrued $9.3 trillion in future pension benefits. This is indeed ironic, given that Sanders’ op-ed was released in conjunction with a committee hearing focused on expanding Americans’ access to traditional pensions, which Sanders’ oft-cited statistic does not consider to be “retirement savings”
And what about people who save for retirement outside of a formal retirement plan? Another Fed dataset, the Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking, asks specifically about these other sources of retirement savings.
Among 55 to 64-year-olds in 2022, 58 percent reported having retirement savings in an ordinary taxable investment or savings account, 14 percent owned real estate that would generate income in retirement and 19 percent owned a small business that could generate retirement income. In total, 90 percent of Americans aged 55 to 64 in 2022 told the Fed they had some form of retirement savings, dwarfing the 55 percent figure Sanders cites.
But it goes on, with Sanders’ claiming that Americans have “no idea how they will be able to retire with any shred of dignity or respect.” The Fed’s Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking sheds light on the claim as well.
Among households aged 65 in 2022, just 4 percent described their financial situation as “finding it hard to get by,” with another 13 percent “just getting by.” Eighty-two percent said they were “doing okay” or “living comfortably,” up from 62 percent when the survey began in 2013. Moreover, seniors report much higher financial security than younger Americans.
But it keeps going: according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Sanders says, the United States has “one of the highest rates of senior poverty compared to other wealthy nations.” Twenty-three percent of U.S. seniors live in poverty, Sanders claims.
That would be news to the U.S. Census Bureau, which in a 2023 analysis using IRS data found just 6.4 percent of U.S. seniors with income below the federal poverty threshold. The OECD figures Sanders cites are not measures of poverty as commonly understood but of inequality. The OECD sets the poverty threshold differently for each country, at anything less than half that country’s median disposable income. And yes, the U.S. has greater income inequality than most developed countries.
But the OECD finds that the typical U.S. senior has the second-highest disposable income in the world, trailing just the tax-haven city-state of Luxembourg. Our median senior’s income is 50 percent higher than Denmark, 29 percent above Germany and double that of Japan. Does it make sense that to avoid “poverty” a U.S. senior needs twice the real income of a Japanese retiree?
In reality, Census Bureau researchers have found dramatic reductions in elderly poverty even since 1990, with the share of seniors with sub-poverty level incomes falling from 9.7 percent in 1990 to just 6.4 percent in 2018.
"I am a victim, I will tell you. I am a victim."
"I am your retribution."
Cal is number one in the nation in homelessness, unemployment, and people leaving the state.
It's not a stretch to think the poverty rate is the worst in the nation.
Stats relying on COL might not be perfect (nothing is) but you sure as hell can't trust anything that doesn't have it factored in.
Last edited by Garmel; 03-24-2024 at 09:32 AM.
in spite of its manifest problems real per capita GDP in California was 36% higher than Florida in 2010 and 53% higher in 2022.
it is what it is
i'm glad to see the concerns about income inequality and homelessness and the high cost of living...California seems to work pretty well for some people...not so well for others
Last edited by nsacpi; 03-24-2024 at 09:39 AM.
"I am a victim, I will tell you. I am a victim."
"I am your retribution."
Last edited by nsacpi; 03-24-2024 at 09:51 AM.
"I am a victim, I will tell you. I am a victim."
"I am your retribution."
Garmel (03-24-2024)
Consumer Price Index for Medical Care
1997 to 2010 up 65%
2010 to 2023 up 41%
Looks like the curve got bent.
Bigly.
"I am a victim, I will tell you. I am a victim."
"I am your retribution."