[This post first appeared on The Phalanx in March 2005, we are re-posting it because of its relavancy, given recent grumblings about poverty in America]
According to a UN study on child poverty, the United States has one of the highest child poverty rates among the world’s wealthiest countries. At first glance this would appear alarming and embarrassing, but then one reads the study and comes to a very different conclusion. According to the study 22% of Americans under the age of 18 live in “relative” poverty. Relative poverty is just that, relative. The UN, however, defines poverty as earning less than 50% of the median income in that country. So for example if the median income in Country X were $100,000, then anyone making under $50,000 would be considered living in poverty. The study doesn’t look at purchasing power, health care, access to goods and services only relative income. So we at ThePhalanx.com, decided to do a little research ourselves. According to the US Census Bureau, the median income in the US is approximately $44,000/yr, using the UN methodology that would indicate that anyone earning $22,000/yr or less is considered living in poverty. Now, $22K per year certainly isn’t a stellar salary by any means, but it isn’t exactly poverty either. Now lets take a look at other countries in the study. In Canada the median income is approximately $20,000 US, now that’s not the income for those living in poverty, that’s just the median income. Median income in the UK is about $28,000 US, in Germany its $25,000, in Belgium its $26,000, in Hungary income is a whopping $6300 and in Sweden income is $29,000. In case you haven’t realized the gist of this article, the point is that on average overall income in the US is much higher than in many other “industrialized” nations. Therefore the UN’s statistics are essentially useless. According to the UN a person in the US is living in poverty if they make $22K or less, but if that person were living in Canada with the very same income he’s now middle class? His purchasing power hasn’t increased nor has his income, they only thing that has changed is his residency. These statistics are meaningless, and further demonstrate that statistics can be used to create virtually any scenario you desire. What’s next a UN study saying people who breathe oxygen are more likely to die from cancer, after all everyone who has ever died from cancer has breathed oxygen, so there must be a correlation…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/4307745.stm#map
