An interesting article on the living conditions of the American poor.

Overall, the typical American defined as poor by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrig­erator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family is not hungry and he had suf­ficient funds in the past year to meet his family’s essential needs. While this individual’s life is not opulent, it is equally far from the popular images of dire poverty conveyed by the press, liberal activists, and politicians.

I’ve often said that poor Americans of today live better than kings did only a hundred years ago. Even thirty years ago poor Americans didn’t have many or most of the luxuries on the above list, yet to listen to poverty advocates, the poor are just treading water at best, if they aren’t being left behind. There’s more to this than just numbers, and complaints that the income gap is growing between rich and poor ignores the facts that incomes are growing for all.

Besides, I have little to no sympathy for the American poor anyway. If you can’t make it here, you probably can’t make it anywhere, so you should make room for a motivated African or Chinese peasant who would take your place in oppressive America in a nanosecond.

Actually, there’s an idea.. Maybe we can implement a system somewhat like foreign exchange students, where we send an unhappy poor American to rural China for a month, to gain some needed perspective on life.