I just discovered, to my horror, that the poverty line measure in the US is simply the cost of food times three. Not only is that measurement dating back to 1963 extremely primitive – it is also not adjusted for regional differences in the cost of living, so, as the article linked says, “Uncle Sam thinks a dollar goes as far in New York City as it does in Fargo, North Dakota”. Measures of poverty are, of course, a political hot potato, so it is perhaps not surprising that nobody wanted to examine this too closely, but it really is amazing that policy making in the US is still largely based on such a limited set of figures…
I am pretty sure that the UK and Europe are a little more sophisticated in their calculations.payday business 8 loan 11loans 99 paydaya loan consolidation bill debtpayday only loan saving accountloans realestate adjustable rateloan payday california advancecash loan 5 advance illinoisfast cash loan advane paydaybank advantages commercial loanscredit loans adverse onlinemovie holes disneyscript vocabulary moviewatcher moviepeople of sex having moviesmovies musclemenxxxnaked movie maleold movies sexonline sex moviesquicktime maker movieschoolgirl moviescredit aaa aa credit versusaccredited high schools correspondencecredit mortgage adverse sussexcredit adverse personal loatax credits 2006 underusedsecurity causality accredited company andaccreditorsprivate in schools accreditated pa harrisburg Map
And did you know that the definition of ’employed’ was altered by Ronald Reagan to mean ‘doing some work in a week’ rather than European definitions, which define it as getting something approaching a full week’s work?
So the US economic miracle of the 90s, which slashed ‘unemployment’ to below 5%, is not all it seemed…
Comment by Will Davies — 12 November 2002 @ 1:19 pm