Comments on: The Poverty of Ownership

By: GOP Congressman Scapegoats Low-Income Americans In Campaign Against Cell Phone Program | News Talk One

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 19:46:24 +0000

[...] proposal to restrict the program to landlines is also impractical, as people living in poverty are very unlikely to own a permanent residence they could install a landline. A CDC survey in 2010 found that adults [...]

By: sr

sr — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 05:43:01 +0000

This is interesting and, yes, it’ll be instructive. It speaks to how we define “affordability” and how we define “poverty.” Glad to hear consideration for the plight of seniors who own their housing but struggle to pay taxes and maintenance and buy medicine (esp in the donut hole) as well as food. However, to say that someone who has the asset of a home is poorer then someone with no asset to fall back and the worry of living on the street if they can’t make rent seems to be a fundamental flaw in logic. Perhaps this new measurement is defining “kinds of financial hardship” or “the spectrum of financial hardship” rather than redefining “poverty”

By: Erin

Erin — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 02:39:57 +0000

It seems backwards to include subsidies (for housing or anything else). These people are poor, so we give them subsidies to help them out. Because they have subsidies, they are no longer counted as poor. Therefore we should stop giving them subsidies? Bureaucracies often use official “poverty lines” to decide who should receive benefits, so this sort of unhelpful circle could easily happen.

By: Roger Valdez

Roger Valdez — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 22:35:44 +0000

Thanks J. Typo fixed. Where would we be without our diligent readers?

By: J

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 22:18:50 +0000

“The old measure found that 35.3 percent of all people in poverty are homeowners while 62.2 percent of all people in poverty area”?