"I'm not even convinced that standards of living have begun to fall in the US. The poor today have access to many things today that even the richest didn't have access to a couple of decades ago. I work daily with large numbers of "poor" children who have smart phones. They have access to the internet and can text. Many have large flat screen televisions with cable or dishes that provide them with hundreds of channels. They have access to medicines, electricity, running water and plumbing that was not available to kings 150 years ago and much of the upper class less than 100 years ago. We simply don't have a good way to factor these kinds of advancement into our standard of living measures. "
This is such nonsense. You don't compare to what the rich or poor had 20, 50 or 100 years. You compare who has access to what today. A perfect example is Wake Forest. Other than the athletes I knew there, I'd say less than 25% of the people I knew when I was there would have a prayer of affording wake today.
Why would we measure with 150 year old standards?
Seems to me the new paradigm for a country like ours - given all our technological advances and massive wealth - would be a standard of living that was immeasurable 150 years ago in terms of educational opportunity, health care opportunity, environmental opportunity -- in harmony with economic and investment opportunity.
You make a good point, but your standards are antiquated and myopic. What you are describing the poor as having today are equivalent to crumbs being snatched by peasants 150 years ago. Yes their standard of living has raised, but the standards of all classes has risen much farther much faster.
Are you saying you'd prefer a system where everyone is worse off as long as their lifestyles are closer together?
Are you saying you'd prefer a system where everyone is worse off as long as their lifestyles are closer together?
If you don't like phones and televisions how about the ever increasing life expectancy that PH referenced?
Nice answer Mangler but it kind of misses the point. We've got a lot of untapped talent just sitting around underutilized. That's a problem that keeps getting worse due to a number of factors. Increasing life expectancy among many factors distinguishes the problem now from the problem 150 years ago.
150 years isn't a good comparison, but 10-20 years is and should be. My phone is much more powerful than my computer was 10 years ago.
Seems to me the new paradigm for a country like ours - given all our technological advances and massive wealth - would be a standard of living that was immeasurable 150 years ago in terms of educational opportunity, health care opportunity, environmental opportunity -- in harmony with economic and investment opportunity.
Are you saying that since the poorest among us are a little bit better off than they were 30 years ago, that that is good enough since the best-off among us are exponentially better off?
By that measure is there any sustained period of time in which the poor were worse off than 30 years before?
That doesn't seem like a great measure.
You are simply wrong. As shown here, if you American father was in the lowest 20% of US earners, you have a 66% chance of never getting above the bottom 40%:
http://www.verisi.com/resources/prosperity-upward-mobility.htm
The chances of getting out poverty in the US is lower than EU countries and other nations. The income equality is growing in the US making this even more difficult.
Yes, the poor in America is doing better than the poor in Mali, but the poor in America have less of a chance of improving their economic status than the poor in other industrialized nations.
Owing a few trinkets doesn't change this.
It's the measure I was presented with only a claim was made that our poor were a little bit better off. I on the other hand claim that they are much better off.
Nice answer Mangler but it kind of misses the point. We've got a lot of untapped talent just sitting around underutilized. That's a problem that keeps getting worse due to a number of factors. Increasing life expectancy among many factors distinguishes the problem now from the problem 150 years ago.
Your concepts are of little value. Your idea that the poor are "better off" in spite of falling farther behind the middle class and the rich is of no value. If your life sucks because you are poor, who cares if you might have electricity when your great-great grandparents didn't.
Your idea about the poor having access to the Kahn Academy is ludicrous. They still don't get into better schools. Many don't qualify for loans to go to second and third level schools. They are also preyed upon by the scammers of for profit schools.
Your premise has no value.
Mangler's "the poor are better off" is exactly what white southerners said about blacks in the south under Jim Crow and legalized segregation. "They are better off that if segregation didn't exist."
It's exactly what white South Africans told me about blacks during apartheid. "Our blacks are better than they ever have been or than blacks in other countries."