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Comment by akhilcacharya | Hacker News Reader

The economy is growing steadily...it has for 4-5 years now...

Last time I heard of it, the gap between rich and poor wasn't just growing, but at an increasing rate. Has it been shrinking in the last 4-5 years? If not, the fact that the economy as a whole grew makes the problem worse.

The post-2008 economy replaced many middle class, and even upper middle class, jobs with ~$9/hr retail jobs and the gig economy. Both lack sufficient benefits, like health insurance, and the former ensures you never work 40 hours a week because the ACA requires businesses to offer health plans to full time workers.

If you're relatively young and in a metro area, you probably don't see it. Step out into the suburbs or more rural areas, and growth means that there's a new Dollar Tree and it's hiring.

There are more people insured post-ACA than before.

This doesn't change anything for the people who are purposely scheduled for under 30 hours weeks so they aren't considered full-time.

The problem isn't with the ACA, it's with employers who are willing to save a buck by disadvantaging their employees.

Sure, but overall the impact of ACA is positive in that more people have medical insurance.

GDP is an imperfect measure. For example, the number of people below the 50% poverty line grew too.

The poverty rate has dropped for the 3rd year in a row and is almost to same levels as pre-2008 crisis.[1] In fact, near record lows over the past 50 years.

[1]https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2018/09/poverty-rate-...

I think what you are saying about the data is misleading. Look at the chart.

The reason the poverty rate had a three year drop was because it was at at 10 year high around 15% starting around 2010, and only recently started dropping significantly.

The "50 year low" is very misleading. If you actually look at the graph, the poverty in 1970 was 12.6%, and in 2017 12.3%. That's not a "50 year low", that's 50 years of essentially no progress on the poverty rate, especially when ten years ago it was higher.

If you look at the people falling below 50% of the poverty line (deep poverty), that's had it's ups and downs too, but has had an overall slow increase of rate over the same time frame.

https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/what-current-poverty-rate-un...

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