Now I'm Feeling Poor...

"In all events, it turns out that the financial resources of the poor in the US tend to be undercounted. For example, the poor tend to underreport income to the Census, perhaps because they fear it will be reported to the IRS. Consequently, Census figures on income relative to spending indicate that the poor spend $1.94 for every dollar of reported income.

Poverty measures ignore the value of household assets like housing. Consider the following facts about the poor in America. Data from 1995 indicate that 41% of all "poor" households owned their own homes with an average size of 3 bedrooms, 1 ½ bathrooms and most had a garage and a porch or patio. Among the poor, 750,000 owned homes worth over $150,000 (an amount that should be much greater given the US housing bubble).

The average poor American lives with 1/3 more living space than the average Japanese, 25% more than the average Frenchman, 40% more than the average Greek and 4 times more than average Russian. Among the poor of America, 70% of "poor" households owned a car and 27% had two or more cars."