[dahart]

> Income inequality isn’t the same things as government resources available per person.

Correct. You clearly understand that your citing of averages papers over the poverty rate and conflates the gains of the rich with the plight of the poor.

Louisiana is literally ranked the #1 poorest state in the nation today counting the percent of people who don’t have enough to pay rent or eat properly.

“Government resources available per person” is cold comfort to the over one in four children in Louisiana who are living in poverty. How are those government resources actually being used, and if it ranks so well, why isn’t that reflected in LA’s health and education? “Government resources available per person” includes tax credits for oil and gas…

[sarchertech]

You’re arguing with a different person than you think you are.

I’m arguing about available resources, not willingness to use them.

If you want to define poor purely by percentage of people who are living below the poverty line instead of median income, average income, gdp per capita or tax revenue, go ahead. But in the context of whether the government has the resources to do something, that’s not a good metric.

And beyond this scope if you look at average or median personal income, the average or median person in Louisiana is not poor, which is the metric I would use if I was going to call a group of people poor.

[dahart]

Okay I see your point; the state has money, even if a significant portion of the population doesn’t. That in itself is a problem. I was arguing, and many others here are arguing that the population of LA is poor, and you’re arguing that the state isn’t poor, and has options (whether or not it uses them). Both points are true - the state has resources, and the population has the greatest poverty in the US. Poverty rate is a valid objective metric of whether a state is “poor”, but it refers to the population and not the state budget, which is also a valid objective metric of whether a state is “poor” or not.

> if you look at average or median personal income, the average or median person in Louisiana is not poor

This is one to be more careful with. Neither the average nor the median inherently tell you anything about the state’s poverty rate, and having a poverty rate that’s the highest in the US and almost twice the national average absolutely supports the viewpoint that LA is relatively poor. When it comes to median household income specifically, the LA Budget Project says “These numbers obscure stark racial disparities” and points out that the median Black income is around half that of White non-Hispanic household income. (Page 9 - https://www.labudget.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/LBP-Cens...)

It might seem like the median $60k household income isn’t poor, but 50% of households are below “ALICE” levels and having to compromise on basic necessities. This doesn’t support your claim that the median resident of LA is not poor. https://www.unitedforalice.org/introducing-ALICE/louisiana

[sarchertech]

That metric makes Louisiana look relatively better because cost of living is low. For example, 48% of households in New York are below ALICE levels.

It highlights one problem with using percent of people below the federal poverty level as your metric. Median income doesn’t tell the whole story, but neither does percent below the poverty level. $33k goes a lot further in Louisiana than it does in New York.

https://www.unitedforalice.org/state-overview-mobile/new-yor...

[dahart]

> Median income doesn’t tell the whole story, but neither does percent below the poverty level.

You’re equivocating. Poverty rate is a much better metric for measuring poverty than median income is.

Louisiana has a higher poverty rate, and a higher child poverty rate, than New York State. New York’s ALICE level seems comparable because New York’s cost of living is so much higher, but it’s actually true that around half the people in New York (and Louisiana, and make other states) are struggling to afford all their basic necessities. Poverty rate isn’t ALICE, poverty rate is high probability of compromising on nutrition.

Come on, be honest, are you willing to live on $16k/year in Louisiana? (Or any state??) I wouldn’t want to, and I bet you don’t either. Are you really going to argue that’s not poor?

[sarchertech]

> ALICE level seems comparable because New York’s cost of living is so much higher

That’s my point. You’re the one who brought up ALICE as a metric to show how someone making the median income is still poor.

If it applies to Louisiana, it applies to New York as well.

> Louisiana has a higher poverty rate, and a higher child poverty rate, than New York State.

If you adjust for cost of living, New York and Louisiana have the same poverty rate.

> Come on, be honest, are you willing to live on $16k/year in Louisiana? (Or any state??) I wouldn’t want to, and I bet you don’t either. Are you really going to argue that’s not poor?

No but I’d rather live on $16k in Louisiana than New York. I’m not making a value judgement on what constitutes poor or not, I’m saying that if $16k is poor in Louisiana, then $22k is poor in NY.

Incidentally for big chunks of my childhood my family was below the poverty level in the Deep South, and so were many of my friends.

[dahart]

Yes I understand your point and yes I brought up ALICE - as an aside - and I see that was my mistake because you’re using it to dodge the core fact that LA has very high poverty relative to most other states. ALICE levels are a completely different tier of wealth metric than the federal poverty line.

Cost of living is less applicable to the federal poverty line than it is to the ALICE threshold or the median income because the cost of food and several other basic necessities don’t vary geographically as much as the price of housing does. The poverty line of $16k/person is set in part because it’s the line where going below likely means you can’t afford enough food no matter where in the U.S. you live.