[jamn]

It is sad to see some areas where people on average are doing significantly worse than the richest parts of the United States.

However, I find the choice of the term 'Third World America' to be particularly deceiving. Let's take Louisiana, for example, marked as amongst the worst regions according to the infographic. Median earnings are 28,000 and about 75% with at least high school education.

Now let's compare against Mexico's average. Mexico is not nearly as bad as other third world countries. Average earnings are about 7,000 USD/year [1] (and median earning is probably worse). Roughly have of Mexicans haven't completed their junior high school education (6th to 9th). These are national averages, though, which --unlike the infographic -- do not focus only on the poorest areas. The poorest areas are, of course, much worse.

I'm not trying to say with this that you shouldn't complain if others have it worse. I am just saying that this particular choice of wording is not realistic and, in my mind, took away from the credibility of the rest of the site .

[1] http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2010/12/07/index.php?section=econ... [2] http://simposio.asu.edu/2004/docs/mesas/2/suarez.pdf

[wladimir]

I don't get it either. Why the ongoing comparisons with countries that are even worse off? Wouldn't it be better to look at countries in which there is less poverty, and see what they do better? (For example: many North European countries hardly have poverty as in "can't pay for food/housing" at all)

[locopati]

Because that angle has been tried repeatedly and is usually shrugged off by conservatives as 'too European, too socialist'. So, this is an attempt to point out that we're not in great shape and shame politicians into doing better for the people.

[notahacker]

Conservatives will find it even easier to shrug off comparisons between the indebted, undereducated and underemployed in the US and the extreme poverty of the "Third World".

Whilst there is a significant amount of evidence to suggest that relative poverty is actually more detrimental to people's happiness than absolute poverty, comparisons like this which conflate the issues and don't provide any stats to back their claims up are counterproductive.

I'm not saying extreme rhetoric doesn't work (see for instance effective campaigns which characterise a lifestyle more than half the world would consider well-off as a "living wage"), but I don't think it helps in this instance.

[wladimir]

I think this angle doesn't work either. At least, on a personal level it wouldn't work: You can't shame someone who's not doing so well into performing better, by pointing at people that perform even worse. They would reply with "Right, so I'm doing comparatively well?".

BTW: I find it very typical that our posts get modded down.

[Cadsby]

You know things are bad when people start saying at least we're not Mexico.