[fsaneq2]

This reads like a huge tautology. If you cut down bills people have to pay, they'll have to pay less. Brilliant..?

> The good news is that reducing poverty by cutting monthly expenses would be a big boost for people on the lower end of the economic spectrum, without hurting the middle or the top

Oh, well if you also assume you have a source of money appearing out of thin air (!), then, well, this is just pure genius.

[toomuchtodo]

Notice how one of the largest expenses for the poor are energy and transportation. Then note the cost of renewables driving down the cost of energy, and electric cars on a steep cost curve decline.

Technology is deflating costs (to the chagrin of central banks trying to stoke inflation). We must continue to innovate.

Remember, there is no need for poverty if clean energy and automation can provide for everyone's basic needs. We are almost there.

[fsaneq2]

Okay, but what does that have to do with the article? It brings nothing to the table.

Of course we should innovate and keep bringing costs of everything down; this will happen with or without city planning.

[toomuchtodo]

But it does! If you're performing city planning, you should be requiring the installation of solar panels on low income housing. You should be ensuring electric vehicles can be supported (as simple as making a weather proof NEMA dryer plug available for each vehicle parking spot). You must ensure that low income citizens can directly benefit from these cost-reduction technologies.

EDIT:

The only three resources that have been inflating in cost are real estate (can be fixed with policy), education, and healthcare. Those last two can also have their costs driven down with technology.

It's first principles all the way down.

[fsaneq2]

I agree with you, I'm just disappointed with the article I guess -- it seems to dress up completely banal information as research/news.

For instance it basically says that a largely fixed dollar amount that doesn't vary that much by house, electricity consumption, looks large if you make $10,000 a year but looks tiny if you make $100,000 a year.

[stuaxo]

I guess having denser cities where cars aren't needed would help too.

[ruste]

If you do that then they'll just build less low income housing...

[toomuchtodo]

Then we build low income housing ourselves:

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/these-tiny-hou...

[ruste]

Good. Do it, but raising the cost of building low income housing is going to lower the rate that it's build at.

[ThomPete]

I think the point is that the cost of living is exceeding the income of working for most Americans.

The claim have always been that the market makes things cheaper which I would hold is still true. Yet more and more people become working poor because their income doesn't follow the increase in cost of basic necessities.

So something is out of sync and it's worth investigating what that might be.

[_andromeda_]

> This reads like a huge tautology. If you cut down bills people have to pay, they'll have to pay less. Brilliant..?

Au contraire; this is the very essence of what capitalism is. If you employ time preference and amalgamate CAPITAL through savings, chances are that you will be able to use that capital to invest in something – yourself (through skill acquisition), a business, your children, etc. When this is done iteratively, one outcome is often guaranteed; wealth creation. As a millennial myself, I'll be the first to admit that when I learnt of Adam Smith's philosophy on free markets and how self-interest is the best way to fuel an economy, I was irked as many others are. However, I've come to agree that economically you'll have a better outcome if you go with praxeology. A rarity is when you come across an article advocating for forms of laissez faire and fiscal responsibility especially on hacker news. It's refreshing.