Poor Americans have access to nearly as many tangible goods as the rich, but the cost to survive in America has increased, with food, vehicles, child/health care and college topping the list, according to Pew Research Center.
“In 21st century America, it’s entirely possible for poor people to have much of the same material comforts – cars, TVs, computers, smartphones – as more affluent people, yet be trapped in low-paying jobs with little prospect of improvement,” Pew writer Drew DeSilver reported.
The report outlines how prices for manufactured goods have plunged, making it possible for many Americans to afford products once considered luxury items, even as wages remain stagnant for workers.
It is, however, a steep move up the socioeconomic ladder as services such as education, child care and health care continue to rise, it was reported. These services make it possible for people to find and secure better employment.
“Without a doubt, the poor are far better off than they were at the dawn of the War on Poverty,” said James Ziliak (in a New York Times news story), director of the University of Kentucky’s Center for Poverty Research. However, he noted, relative to middle- and upper-income Americans, “they have also drifted further away.”
According to DeSilver, the federal minimum wage has not been enough to elevate the majority of Americans out of poverty.
“Without a doubt, the poor are far
better off than they were at the
dawn of the War on Poverty”
The Pew Center, for example, analyzed annual minimum-wage earnings in 2013 dollars (full-time work, 40 hours per week, 52 weeks per year). It then compared it with the poverty threshold (adjusted for inflation) by household types and revealed that an annual salary of $15,080 is below the $16,057 that would place one adult and one child at the poverty line. When the number of adults and children increases, so does the descent further into poverty.
“For decades, politicians and social scientists have argued about whether (President Lyndon) Johnson’s antipoverty programs have lifted people out of destitution, trapped them in cycles of dependency or both,” DeSilver reported.
Using the Bureau of Labor Statistics data, DeSilver illustrates how the drop in the price of consumer goods such as electronic devices is due in large part to “an increase in quality over the past 10 years.”