I'm thinking MIT economists haven't lived in a third world. (I was born in one) The U.S is not even remotely close to being a third-world or will be one anytime soon.
I've seen places in Mississippi, Arkansas and West Virginia that looked every bit as third world as rural Philippines/Vietnam.
What the US lacks is urban poverty in the form of shantytowns. This is because unlike most third world nations, we quickly raze them when and find excuses to incarcerate the people who live there. If we were more permissive, we'd certainly have them too.
That's such BS. Have you actually lived in a developing country?
If you're American and you care about poverty -- as in relative poverty -- in your country and you want to do something about it, more power to you. It's not like someone being much poorer elsewhere prevents you from caring about a problem in your country. But please don't trivialize abject poverty by implying that the American working class have it as hard as the lower classes in the developing world.
It doesn't matter what some parts of the US anecdotally and subjectively "look like", they don't measure nowhere near as poor as rural Philippines or Vietnam. Or urban Philippines/Vietnam for that matter.
In those countries, the literacy rate is around 95%. Imagine 5% of people around you are illiterate. Even in Brazil, a so-called "emergent" country or "upper-middle income" country, the literacy rate is only 92%. So 8% are illiterate; not "functionally illiterate" as in unable to correctly interpret certain texts, mind you, but actually unable to read. You cannot get a fast-food job or work as a Walmart greeter if you're illiterate! In contrast, in developed countries the literacy rate is >99%.
In the Philippines, 1 in 3 children are malnourished.[0]
This isn't some vaguely defined "food insecurity" concept; it's actually malnourishment, kids being severely underweight and stunted.
In the US millions of people can take advantage of welfare benefits. So even the non-working poor in the US have much, much better living standards than the working poor in the developing world. Also, when exactly did the US bulldoze a shantytown? And so on.
The US Census says the US has a literacy rate of 86%. This is a controversial metric, though. The CIA factbook defines literacy as having completed 5 years of schooling. By that definition, the US is at 97.9% literacy. Better than your 95% number, but not Nordic country levels.
Also, shantytowns aren't really allowed to exist in the US. They are becoming more common in progressive cities like San Francisco and Seattle, but even there the cops sweep through and make everyone leave every few months. There is no "bulldozing" because the structures are highly temporary, being made of old tents and tarps. You just don't see the multi-generational shantytowns common in developing nations.
Public benefits aren't very easy to get in the US. There is a lot of beaurocracy to work through and there really isn't any push to help people sign up.
> Better than your 95% number, but not Nordic country levels.
People were talking about the US being "third world", you're clearly moving goalposts.
> Also, shantytowns aren't really allowed to exist in the US.
... so? You're essentially saying that the US government doesn't allow poverty to exist. Virtually all of the US lower class lives in places with a proper roof, proper running water and electricity. Might not sound much but the point is: there's no part of the US that is like a 3rd world country.
> Public benefits aren't very easy to get in the US.
21% of the US participates in governments assistance programs.
There are no goalposts. I'm just trying to add nuance to the discussion.
Also, governmental assistance varies wildly in the US. I was part of the reduced price school lunch program, but my family never received raw cash like is often conjured up by the term "governmental assistance."
> In those countries, the literacy rate is around 95%. Imagine 5% of people around you are illiterate. Even in Brazil, a so-called "emergent" country or "upper-middle income" country, the literacy rate is only 92%.
"Developing countries" is a much better term. "Third world" is vague, outdated, and means something completely different.
Not that the US is a developing country; it was developed, and is currently degenerating. It's still very rich, though. So instead of trying to catch this in a single ill-fitting word, perhaps it would be better to simply discuss the actual issues: the rise of poverty, lack of social mobility, crumbling infrastructure, etc.
They might look terrible but the utilities work. Biggest differentiator in 3rd world is poverty AND non functioning government.
The water, sewer, and electricity work well enough to be relied upon even in the poorest most remote parts of the US. This is not so in any 3rd world country
I am curious about the state of water in Flint, do you know the current status? Do you know how long families had non-potable tap water, even if it is drinkable now?
EDIT - Please reply if you don't like my comment. Just downvotes do not tell me anything. Also, please consider that I just asked questions, I made no statements and I did it that way because I actually seek answers.
If the water in Flint is perfectly fine, then please tell me and explain how public perception got so out of sorts. I would appreciate sources.
I also don't think we are a 3rd world country, but we clearly have more problems than people who believe in American Exceptionalism are willing to accept.
Lead levels are only elevated in certain areas. Getting clean water might be as easy as your neighbor's hose. Flint authorities weren't treating the water properly and it corroded the pipes in some areas. Lead levels were expected to drop as soon as treatment resumed but it spooked everyone bad enough that it doesn't matter if the water is safe, they want new pipes. Lead pipes are not unusual at all in older cities and nobody else has this problem.
I don't see how a single small city whose water supply was tainted by incompetence of local water utilities is representative of the US as a whole. 99.99% of us have access to drinkable water.
No one is talking about the US as a whole but how low it has sunk in some places and/or for some citizens.
Flint is not an isolated case, it's distinctive because it got bad relatively quickly due to clear mismanagement (with a big serving of partisan politics on top). How's this for a headline? "Reuters finds lead levels higher than Flint's in thousands of locales." [0] All it took was searching for "lead worse than flint."
The water used to get turned off for a few hours quite often when I lived in a project in DC. I mean, it was never a serious health issue, but utilities aren't as reliable for poor people in the US as you might think.
This may be the case, and be a serious problem, while still coming nowhere close to validating the comparison made upthread to the third world, where toilets are effectively a luxury.
I guess it depends on where the "third world" stops being third world (beyond the original definition of "any nation that isn't aligned with either NATO or URSS"). If third world is used as "developing nations", not every country that would fall under that label is necessarily a failed state. Not all Latin American countries are Venezuela, and not every county in California is San Mateo. In LA and SF I've seen huge amount of people in homeless encampments, to the point where family from Latin America pointed it out, and where European family and friends were completely horrified.
I completely understand your point, and a rich person in the US is in a better situation than in other countries, but I wouldn't say that the poorest among the population US are _that_ much better than in other countries. My guess is that the people pushing for the view "parts of US == third world country" might be looking at the top of the list for those countries, while you and others that seem against this comparison are looking at either the average or lower half of countries considered third world.
I personally found it horrifying to see a Lamborghini waiting for the traffic light to change while a legless homeless veteran coughing up blood was on that intersection asking for food. Worst part of it though, is that once you live in that environment, very quickly it fades in the background and turns into "just the way things are". Poor people in this country have access to more goods than poor people in other countries, that's true, that doesn't mean that services are up to the task for them.
But is does dismantle any objective attempt at asserting American Exceptionalism. We are not exceptional when it comes to water delivery, and there is no reason we couldn't be, like we once had been.
About 60% of people in the poorest, most remote parts of America don't have running water. So what do you say if the utilities work but are too expensive to hook up?
I may have mistaken electricity or running water for just running water, and any numbers are sketchy as they don't have a lot of trust in the federal government, but life in the SD reservations is fucked up. Lack of utilities, 25% of children are born with fetal alcohol syndrome, people are dying from packs of wild dogs, and ~90% unemployment. You could argue it isn't third world conditions, but a slow burning genocide.
Try visiting Portland, Oregon. A small shanty town has formed in the last year about a block from my home. In the last 2 years there has been a marked spike in homeless encampments along freeways and on public land owned by the OR Department of Transportation. There has been a persistent downtown homeless encampment, I think called Right2Dream. Protests are afoot to find new / additional / different places for permanent encampments.
If these aren't shanty towns, I don't know what is. Other Portlanders beside myself have taken to calling them shantytowns.
Read the article. The title is click-bait, but the actual claim is that the social and economic structure has changed in such a way that, increasingly, it fits economic models reserved so far for third-world countries. ("dual economy", power imbalance, etc.)
That's a more nuanced but imo not less worrying claim.
Being born in a third world country probably blinds one to some issues though, as they don't have a historical basis within the US for comparison -- they only compare with their own country.
Of course the US wont be a "third world country" anytime soon. But it can regress closer to one than it was before.
That said, there are places in Mississippi, South Dakota, Alabama, Colorado, the Appalachia, etc. that are not that better of (if at all) than some developing nations.
I remember my first trip to the Philippines back in 2003. I saw these little children about the age of 5 wandering around at night trying to sell these little flowers. I ended up giving them some food instead of money as any money would be taken from them.
Again on a recent trip this year, I met two young children that were selling shells on an island near the food market. They should have been in school, but they were not. There has been an effort by the government to get all children in larger cities to attend school. The rural areas still have plenty of children who never see a classroom.
I think the US is very far from developing countries. Yes I have seen some extreme poverty in the mountains of West Virginia, but nothing like the Philippines.
I've ridden with a Mexican friend through the poorer parts of my Mississippi hometown, and he said, "Wow, this looks just like Mexico. . . The cars are a little nicer, though."
No, but this is a certainly hallmark of unstable governments. The big difference between Mexico and Canada is a strong middle class. Happy people who can feed their families and educate their children tend to stay quiet and go about their lives without stirring the pot. Once you've completely lost faith in government, why not look the other way when a drug cartel sets up shop in your town?
Trump's election slogan was "Make America Great Again" implying that USA is at the bottom and we need him to bring it up. But then so was the campaign of Hillary or Bernie or any one else (Perhaps except Garry Johnson).
I think this is a standard trick employed by elites. That to make a very serious claim that paints USA in a bad light and then propose themselves as the "problem solver".
> The antidote, as prescribed by Temin, is likely a tough sell in today’s political climate. Expanding education, updating infrastructure, forgiving mortgage and student loan debt, and overall working to boost social mobility for all Americans are bound to be seen as too liberal by many policy makers.
At the risk of being down-voted I think the MIT economist is playing political games here. In the absence of stronger contrary evidence I would simply call him a shill.
What the US lacks is urban poverty in the form of shantytowns. This is because unlike most third world nations, we quickly raze them when and find excuses to incarcerate the people who live there. If we were more permissive, we'd certainly have them too.