What the heck is TAKS Testing?

[AutumnFOG]

The average "poor" person, as defined by the government, has a living standard far higher than the public imagines. The following are facts about persons defined as "poor" by the Census Bureau, taken from various government reports:

The Census Bureau makes a definition on poverty, not on "poorness".

Forty-three percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.

See above.

Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

What does this have to do with poverty? The numbers would be similar for any technology. Poverty and "Poorness" do not imply that while middle-class citizens move forward in time, poor people stay in time. Why would the author choose 1970 to make a comparison to? The answer is because the year is arbitrary, and the author has an invested interest in portraying the idea that because the number of air conditioners in the world is higher, the number of actually "poor" people is lower. This would be like a defining the number of poor people based on horse-and-buggy ownership a couple decades after the invention of the automobile.

Only 6 percent of poor households are over crowded; two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.

Why does the author make no attempt to define "over crowded"?

The typical poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, Lon don, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)

Again, these cities are cherry-picked and arbitrary. The typical American poor has more living space than an average citizen in Paris because of the cost of living in a world class city. Living in 450 SQ Feet in one of the greatest cities in the history of the planet likely subjects one to the opportunity to have a greater quality of life than living in a 475SQ Foot home in the middle of nowhere with little opportunity. At least, I suppose, they have their air condition.

Poor Americans have nearly three times the living space of average urban citizens in middle-income countries such as Mexico and Turkey. Poor American households have seven times more housing space per person than the general urban population of very-low-income countries such as India and China.

Mexico is not a "middle-income" country. China is not a "low-income" country. Additionally, most of China's land is uninhabitable, which is why their population density is much higher. Living space does not equal quality of life.

Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 31 percent own two or more cars.

Again, these numbers are inflated by the fact that anyone of 18 in a house is assigned ownership. So even a family with 4 adults and one car are the equivalent in the Heritage Foundations method of 1 adult with 4 cars.

Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.

See air conditioning.

Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.

See air conditioning.

Eighty-nine percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a more than a third have an automatic dishwasher.

See air conditioning. This was really even worth a line in this guy's study? Microwaves?

The principal nutrition-related health problem among the poor, as with the general U.S. population, stems from the overconsumption, not underconsumption, of food. While overweight and obesity are prevalent problems throughout the U.S. population, they are found most frequently among poor adults.

Well, not only is obesity not implicit to overconsumption, but the author went to great lengths at the beginning of this nonsense to proclaim that the poor have access to "nutritious" foods, which would seem to indicate that he thinks that they simply desire to eat non-nutritious foods. He also, in the same article, as I've stated, referred to children as "supernourished".

Overall, the typical American defined as poor by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family is not hungry, and he had sufficient funds in the past year to meet his family's essential needs. While this individual's life is not opulent, it is equally far from the popular images of dire poverty conveyed by the press, liberal activists, and politicians.

Define for me "essential needs". Because if "essential needs" means the socioeconomic tools necessary to allow their children a equal, fair chance at a quality education and an opportunity at and access to similar resources as those in better of community, I would say that the suggestion that "essential needs" have been met is preposterous.