Zogby asks: a person is NOT poor if he/she possesses which of the following

The following question relates to your own, personal definition of "poverty."
In my opinion a person is NOT poor if he/she possesses which of the following (Choose one):

A pet
Internet Access at home
A car payment
Cable TV
A dishwasher
None of the above
Not sure

I had a hard time answering. What do you think?

Poverty is having to go and get food stamps. I know first hand. You don't have cable, a car, or any of that other BS. You don't have food and you worry about your house because you can't pay the mortgage. You worry about the utility bills.

be poor and still make a car payment.

That would be my guess from personal experience.

This question is a push poll.

You can be poor and have all those things.

But the least "necessary" would be cable TV. Then again, mine is $13 a month so having it is hardly a luxury.

A car payment could be $100 a month on a rundown piece of crap. Even ratty apartments come with dishwashers. And I see homeless people with pets all the time.

Some crappy apartments have dishwashers.

Plenty of poor people have pets. Even a lot of homeless people have dogs.

For way too many people car payments are as essential as rent payments.

Cable and internet seem the most uneccesary to me - but just the same, I'm not about to rule out anyone as NOT being poor based on just that information.

public access, a few shopping channels, and CSPAN. It doesn't include Discovery or Turner Classic Movies or any other such stations.

I get FX, TBS, WGN, TLC, E!, Style Network, VH1 and Oxygen, and I get Comedy Central in one room (not sure why that is, every time they "fix" the cable after a storm or whatever, I get different channels).

But yes, lots of shopping channels, religious stations, Spanish stations and local cable access.

In any case, I watch more TV than I should already, so more channels would be bad. I kinda miss Animal Planet, USA, TNT and HGTV though (which I got for years until they "fixed" my cable).

And if one could afford all of that at once, they'd probably be bumping the poverty level anyway. I really hate this shit. I understand we're fortunate to not have refugee camps like third world countries. But seriously, we should just pretend a $13 cable bill is making all the difference in anybody's life?? :eyes:

This one seems a bit vague.

A pet - what if it's a stray that showed up on your doorstep?
Internet Access at home - Not all that expensive.
A car payment - What if it's a 1978 AMC Pacer beater at $100/month?
Cable TV - Comes as part of the rent in some apartments
A dishwasher - Yep, that 1959 Maytag last worked in 1975.

That's about the only common item poor people might posses that upsets me. All those other options are standard expenses.

I also lived in a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath 2 story house with a screened sunporch, a gas fireplace, a garage, and a fenced in back yard for my dog and was a tenure track asst. professor.
The car payment, outside of most of the US, is a sad reality of life...either that or saving up one's money and buying a clunker for cash. Pets are ubiquitious, and once the puppy shots and neutering are over, not a very expensive burden, and should push come shove, one can feed them quite cheaply using low grade human food.
Internet access is the most telling thing in our current digital divide in the country, and it isn't just money that limits it, but interest, age, familiarity, etc. For me, it is invaluable and I am certainly no longer dishwasher class any longer.
Dishwasher, luxury. Cell phone, luxury.

Passion and love in life equals genuine wealth, the other things listed are lifeless possessions or ties to them.

(I'm assuming a good relationship with the pet. ;) )

One can have any of the things listed and remain poor, jobless and unable to feed their family without assistance.

... 'cause I have all of the above, but:

a. my pets don't have cute little outfits or go to doggie spa's or eat high priced chow
b. my internet access is sbc dsl at $11.00 a month
c. my car payment has a ridiculously high interest rate because my credit was shaky
d. i have very basic cable at $22.00 a month
e. my apartment had a dishwasher when i moved in
f. ??
g. ??

and trust me, i'm nowhere near "NOT poor".

that question seems flawed. or, the choices at least.

I'd say a correct answer would be "a positive net worth and investments yielding a comfortable income".

By that definition, most of us are poor. And, we are.

especially with kids in the house. It's getting to the point where kids (and adults) find it difficult to access the opportunity that will get and keep them out of poverty without internet access. Which explains why public libraries and labor depts see fit to spend the money on high speed internet.

Unless it happens to come with the housing you're living in. If you're poor and paying for it yourself, there are probably better uses for your money . IMHO.

A pet? Depends on the pet and other factors. If you have the resources to stable a horse in NY, you're not poor. In Appalachia, you might be.

Internet access? Poor people have phones. If you have a phone, you have dial-up.

Car payment? Depends on the amount of the car payment.

Dishwasher? Living in an apartment that happens to have one doesn't mean you're not poor.

For most people horses are not pets.

Since even homeless people have pets, I think we can safely conclude that poverty does not necessarily exclude pet owning.

address the question"

Happiness is the only thing really worth having.
If only material things make you happy, then you are poor indeed.

From from socio-economic view, I think having children are often a hedge against feeling poor among the economically poorest. I offer this opinion without judgment. I see this more and more among minimum wage earners. Of course, having children these days is one of the most expensive undertakings one can do.

Some people live in their cars.
There is free internet access by NetZero and others.
A lot of cable companies have a low-cost service for people on reduced income; it doesn't cost them anything because the wires are already there.
Lot's of rentals come with a dishwasher.
People who share a house can share the internet access and the dishwasher.

I know our income for 2007 will be $14,856 (SSDI).

We have:
-a pet chicken
-cable modem (no newspaper)
-car is paid off
-no TV
-the dishwasher came with the mfg. home


We qualify for:
-free food give away
-electricity discount
-base-rate on land-line telephone
-Medicaid (Hubby)

Our two splurges are the cable modem and cell phones (I am on-call 7/24 as Hubby's caregiver).

We are much luckier than most at this income level- we have the material things left over from when Hubby had work and a decent income. We just can't afford to replace them when they wear out.

maybe it's the wording or maybe it's the hot toddy i just took for my cold but i have known families who are poor by any definition as in had to get bankruptcy because of a medical crisis and they had all of those things

i've never had cable teevee, car payment, or a dishwasher yet i would consider myself not as poor as some people who do

if you can't pay for your medicine because it's $4000 a month you're poor, selling your dishwasher for $25 won't make any dent in it, crap

Being poor is about not being able to afford the things that you need.
Many consumer goods are relatively cheap. It's day to day living that is expensive.

But I'm living at poverty level myself, and I have most of those things--pets, satellite TV, a dishwasher, DSL, but no car payment--I own my car outright.

Most people don't start off poor, they get that way when jobs disappear, when they end up with bills that pretty much destroy anything they have and so on. My brother and sister-in-law are on the verge of becoming poor because of my SIL's medical bills--she had cancer, and even with my brother's excellent health insurance, the cost of chemo and radiation treatments has caused a severe dent in their income. In my own case, I went from decent jobs to disability, and an income of over $30,000 to less than half of that.

The priorities in my life (everyone has their own set of priorities) include internet access and satellite TV, even if they don't make the lists of other people. My lifelong passion for television and the need to be in contact with other people fuel these desires, and thus they are of great importance to me. As someone who is disabled and doesn't socialize much at all (practically non-existent, in fact), the 'net is my social outlet. And owning a dishwasher--something I bought when I got my SS backpay--helps me get something done despite the pain and fatigue I have. As for the cats, they've been with me for many years--in fact, the current oldest one is almost 13 years old. It's unfair to consider pet ownership s "perk" or something only non-poverty stricken people can own.

The notion that some people aren't poverty stricken just because they "own" something is ludicrous. People often become poor because circumstances change, they lose jobs, they end up with massive debt, their health declines to a point where they cannot work, and so forth--there are as many unique situations as there are people who are in poverty. And often poor people will try their damnedest to maintain certain elements of their lives before they were left with nothing--depending on whether they have a family or not, for example, their priorities will always differ from another's.

As we've seen since this administration began, in fact, the decline of the middle class is horrifying, and the divide between the upper and lower classes, many more people are feeling the sting of that divide. And while most people will never have to go through abject poverty, the concept of tightening their belts is already obvious and will become increasingly apparent.

So to me, "ownership" does nothing to decide whether someone is poor or not. The real test of poverty is this: if a person loses his job right now, how long will his or her savings last to keep them from becoming homeless? If someone is living paycheck to paycheck and they suddenly are left with no income at all, they are considered at the very bottom rung of the middle class and it would take no time at all for them to lose everything.

To be ignored.

:shrug:

It's a blatant push poll to humiliate the struggling and to buck up the self-righteous.