.........who are the poor?
To qualify, a family of four in 2010 needed to earn less than $22,314. Some 46 million Americans, 15 percent of the population, qualified.
And in what squalor were America's poor forced to live?
Well, 99 percent had a refrigerator and stove, two-thirds had a plasma TV, a DVD player and access to cable or satellite, 43 percent were on the Internet, half had a video game system like PlayStation or Xbox.
Three-fourths of the poor had a car or truck, nine in 10 a microwave, 80 percent had air conditioning. In 1970, only 36 percent of the U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
"... In 1970, only 36 percent of the U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning..."
ReplyDeletePerzactly!
I grew up where 90-100+ degree summers with 100% humidity were the norm. We lived mostly in big old "victorian" style houses with screens that you inserted in the partly-open window.
I didn't have A/C, MOST of the time I didn't even have a FAN! There WAS an air-conditioner - in the window of my parents' room. As a kid I thought that was the most horrible, selfish thing, but I now realize that (1) that's all they could AFFORD and (2) the people who earned the money deserved the comfort MUCH more than those who did nothing but CONSUME!
(There's an important lesson there - if you missed it, go read it again, and repeat until you Get It!!!)
In the winter, we had (2) oil space-heaters downstairs, with a round grate through floor/ceiling to allow some of the heat upstairs...
A glass of water would freeze on my night-stand!
I see "poor" with $300-500 leather coats, $200 sneakers, iPhones - driving cars with $5000 worth of SPINNER-RIMS... I'm DAMN TIRED OF HEARING ABOUT IT!!
Yes, we didn't have A/C in the sixties and only two fans. One huge one at the end of the long fall which blew by all the bedrooms. My room was in the very back at an angle and I had a small fan there. My mother bought my clothes at the second hand store and bought my shoes too big, so I could grow into them. AND my father was a country doctor who owned about 4,000 acres of farms, but still my mother used coupons. We have lost all sense of perspective. I carried my sandwich in a brown bag to school and always folded it back up, to be inserted in my right rear pocket to be re-used until gone.:)
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