America's Poor Still Live Better Than Most Of The Rest Of Humanity
Consider that the average poor American lives in a 1,400 square foot dwelling. That’s more space than the average non-poor European citizen can claim. The average resident of the United Kingdom averages 935 square feet of living space. French and Germans average 980 and 968 square feet, respectively. The average across all of Europe is a mere 857 square feet, across ALL income levels.
The median poor family with children in the United States lives in an air-conditioned home with three color televisions, cable or satellite TV, a DVD player, a video game system (such as a Playstation or Xbox), a personal computer, and a kitchen stocked with every necessary appliance, including a refrigerator, both an oven and a stove, a microwave, and a coffee maker. Almost 75 percent own their own car or truck (about a third have two or more). And 42 percent of these households actually own their own home
Consider that in 1970, only 36 percent of Americans had air conditioning. Today, 80 percent have it– and the remaining 20 percent includes regions of the country where in-home A/C isn’t always common (only 44 percent of residents of the cooler northeastern states use central air conditioning). In 2005, 38 percent of poor Americans had a computer. Just four years later, in 2009, that number had already increased to 50 percent.
In a 2014 Pew poll, nearly 60 percent of Americans disagreed that success was largely determined by forces outside our control.” Compare that to the nearly 75 percent of Indian respondents who agreed with the sentiment. Likewise, 73 percent of Americans agreed that working hard was key to getting ahead in life, compared to 25 percent of French respondents, 21 percent of Greek respondents, and 18 percent of Chinese respondents.
