This is getting absurd. Poor people in America aren't as poor as you think. I absolutely hate it when people like you generalize how poor people live. Reading a blog post does not make you an expert on the poor or the bottom 1%. Try living it, like my family has. None of us are starving (a lot of us are fat in fact), and we all have smart phones and game consoles.
I have just come back from a trip to Vietnam in which I visited homes in the Mekong delta. We're talking about a place where half the homes are made of palm, there's no running water at all, and the people are dirt poor. I've seen some of these palm shacks with large-screen TVs - older CRT types, admittedly, but it drove home the point that "big screen TV" is no longer a sign of opulence.
Similarly, the people aren't starving, but that doesn't not mean that they aren't poor - if "electronic gadgets and absence of famine" is all you need to define as "not poor", I disagree with you.
Suggesting the bottom 1% has game consoles and smartphones is a) ridiculously wrong, and b) irrelevant.
Regarding wrong, The bottom 0.2% don't even have housing, which is going to make a game console hard to use. The I was talking just this morning with somebody doing financial literacy programs, and they decided against doing a web or smartphone tool because most of the people they are trying to reach don't have regular web access. And that's in the San Francisco Bay area, where tech adoption is very high.
It's irrelevant because having a few hundred dollars worth of consumer electronics says nothing about whether they have important basics like physical safety, a sound education, decent medical care, regular dental care, reliable transportation, clean water, and healthy food. All of which are necessary for people to reach their full economic potential. That shit costs a lot more than a game console.
This is getting absurd. What I find a ridiculously disgusting is your pretentiousness is assuming how poor Americans live. You're justifying your argument based on a shoddy and superficial experience with poor people?
My family immigrated from a third world country and the adult members earn ~$20K salaries. The children have a free and subsidized $10K+ education, is safe (yes, the ghetto isn't on high alert for drive by shootings 24/7), have access to clean water (yes, we use the same water that you use), healthy food which can be purchased at Walmart for a price much less than prices you can pay for food at a fast food restaurant. (Yes, we all don't eat at fast foods).
We also have access to the free emergency room when needed, and dental services for my family goes for about $35 per visit (it's subsidized in a lot of cases actually). The poor in America do not live like the poor in third world countries. Quit insinuating that and stop assuming how poor Americans in 2011 live. We're not as poor as you make us out to be.
As I explained elsewhere in the thread, adult members (plural) earning ~$20k means (depending on number of children) you probably aren't poor, or at least not very poor. 12.9% of households earn under $15k, 24.7% earn under $25k, and 35.6% earn under $35k:
The use of subsidized education and dental services helps to prove my point, which is that the poor in America don't have much to give up, and need the assistance (government and otherwise) that they're getting.
Also, emergency room access does not equal medical care. It does mean emergency care, but it does not mean preventative or chronic care. For example, it means you won't have a doctor helping you avoid diabetes and you won't get your diabetes treated. However, they will amputate your gangrenous toes once the disease develops that far.
I'm really glad that your family has done well. Every family should do at least that well. Many don't.
It's cheaper to buy off the Dollar menu than to buy out-of-season, expensive fresh produce (like raspberries, red peppers, etc.)
It's much, much cheaper to buy rice, beans, corn, potatoes, and pasta and supplement with cheap proteins (eggs, chicken) and cheap fresh fruits and veggies (melons, bananas, apples, cabbage, carrots; see the list starting on page 34 of http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/EIB71/EIB71.pdf ) Page 36 of the same report shows how an adult on a 2000 calorie diet can meet their recommended fruit and veggie intake for about $2 per day, with a pretty good variety (including some expensive options like strawberries.) This is more or less how I eat, and I'm just above the poverty line.
