Comment 50929

By Undustrial (registered) - website | Posted October 30, 2010 at 13:35:33

We need to stop thinking about "poor people" as some disadvantaged minority. For every person who drives a Lexus in this town there's several with beat up old Cadilacs. By statistically defining the LICO and other measures relative to median income, we define them as minorities, even if sixty or eighty percent of the population were struggling, the poverty line would just drop.

If you look at actual income distribution in this country (or city, or planet), the richest 20% of the population makes nearly half (46%) of our national income. Of them, the richest quarter makes nearly half of that (the top 5% control 24%), with the richest fifth of them taking nearly half of that (1% of earners make over 11% of income.) Of them - the richest 0.1% of our country's earners (one in a thousand) earn between a third and half of that (4%), roughly the same as the bottom fifth of all Canadians.

http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publica...

The "poor" aren't the minority - the "rich" are, even among the wealthy. And while some people are far worse off than most, even a lot of people with very "good" incomes in what is a very rich country are still struggling.

"Today, the notion of progress in a single line without goal or limit seems perhaps the most parochial notion of a very parochial century." — Lewis Mumford

Permalink | Context

Events Calendar

There are no upcoming events right now.
Why not post one?

Recent Articles

Article Archives

Blog Archives

Site Tools

Feeds