That was the second thought that occurred to me as well (the first was to be absolutely horrified). The reporter said the rent for one of those cages is 12 (AUD I believe) per month. Likewise, that only left each cage dweller with 13 AUD per day from their welfare check for other expenses (which the narrator said was not enough to afford 3 meals every day after other expenses). So if the cost of living in a cage for a month is roughly the cost of 3 meals (though that must be calculated at the cost of eating out, because even in the US you can eat quite well on $13 a day if you are frugal and know how to cook and budget) then they are spending less than many U.S. homeless shelters charge (it's not uncommon for homeless shelters to charge anywhere from $5-12 per night here). It's by no means a comfortable lifestyle, but it's better than being homeless and I believe many Americans receiving welfare and/or disability actually have far less buying power with what they receive, considering it's usually not nearly enough to meet rent, utilities, and food and transportation costs).

it was AUD12 per square foot. So something like AUD180/month for one of the cages.

$1 per meal: http://abuckaplate.blogspot.com

Do these people have access to cooking facilities? Also a lot of the stuff there is being bought in bulk, and I imagine that storing stuff might be a problem. And of course, there is the omnipresent fact that many poor people do not have the time/knowledge to prepare many kinds of meal.

20+ years ago I worked at a food store frequented by urban poor including some homeless and as a starving student at that time I fit right in.

At that level "cooking" is buy a bun (or two) from the bakery for 50 cents (or less if day old), a dollars worth of sliced meat from the deli, a slice or two of deli cheese for a quarter, grab a handful of condiment packets from the deli, and "cook" that into a sandwich lunch for about two bucks while laughing at the $7 premade subs from the deli or the fast food joint. And frankly the ingredients are probably higher quality than the fast food restaurant.

Some is bought in bulk, but not all. In response to similar concerns, some meals listed were prepared & cooked with just a knife, pan, spatula, and open fire of scrap wood.

I would think time would be more abundant for poor people.

why? if you're poor, the amount of time you need to spend just taking care of life's basic necessities goes way up. getting things done efficiently, getting other people to do things for you, and deciding you can sacrifice a few hours' earning potential to do something else, are all things that require you be well-off first.

I don't know about Hong Kong, but not in the States. Time is a luxury.

Only if you wrongly assume that poor people don't work.

In the US it's generally true.

http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2010.pdf (Note: read past the title.)

However, the US is an unusual place, so we should certainly not extrapolate that the same is true in Hong Kong or anywhere else (besides Canada).

> Only if you wrongly assume that poor people don't work.

Fiscal conservatives must assume this or their philosophy does not work.

Most disgusting comment i've seen in quite a while. Maybe you can go live in one of these cages too and see how thrifty you can be.

Disgusting? My food budget disgusts you? I write that blog to help people know how well one can eat at that price, and to refute people like you.

If you had read the parent post you'd have deduced I was responding to "even in the US you can eat quite well on $13 a day if you are frugal and know how to cook and budget".

Thank you for the blog and for this comment.

However, access to cooking facilities can be a huge problem. A lot if the stuff in your blog can be done with a few pieces of cookware and a hot plate, but even that might be hard to get a hold of for some.

That may not be much help for the poor in HK.