[CardenB]

True metric of an economy is not just poverty rate.

I can have 3x the income of monthly food budget (poverty threshold). What happens when housing per month is also 3x the cost of food per month?

Poverty threshold is a poor indicator of the economic health. Poverty can lower while the ability for the average citizen to support a family continues to drop.

> Are you arguing there's not increasing mobility, with this new fangled internet and the series of tubes and what have you?

That's not an argument. Technological improvements can result in consolidation of capital and rising inequality. Something like that would be indicated by... top 25% of wage earners outpacing inflation while bottom 25% continue to stagnate or fall behind.

EDIT: The last poverty rate publication showed the supplemental poverty rate rising (taking into account more factors that traditional poverty rate). Previous to the pandemic, they were largely correlated. We will have to wait until the 2024 results to see if the inversion holds true.

source: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...

[ta2234234242]

Hard disagree here.

One way to think of an economy is GDP/stock market/etc. Another way to think of it is: "What is the maximum level of poverty before there's a revolution?" Moving people from the poverty class to the middle class should be a basic goal for any economy -- because it's likely to affect the most citizens.

> That's not an argument.

So if you're in small town Nebraska in 1910/20/30/40/50/60/70/80/90's, it was super hard to learn calculus (one example) unless you enrolled in college and traveled to the university/college, etc. Why? No one else knew it, nor could they teach it.

Back before 2000's era, people were held back, mostly based upon where they were born. In the internet era, you can be a millionaire/billionaire without having to travel to the shit hole that is silicon valley. Amazing!

Edit:

I saw your edit, and yes, you would expect poverty to go up in a down turn economy. But you would also expect it to go down if economic gains are truly affecting everyone, and not just the rich or upper middle class.