What does the size of the US economy have to do with the rate of relative poverty?
The fact questions like this are asked - questions that compare two unrelated measures - makes me think the analysis isn't all that rigorous.
As a society we like to cast moral failures to circumstance. It’s easy to roll your eyes at the trailer trash and ignore the reasons why those folks are where they are.
Poverty isn't voluntary - it's violently enforced at the point of a gun.
> Why do many of us seem to accept that the problem is one of scarcity—that there is simply not enough to go around in our very rich country?
to me, it seems like a question worth asking.
A larger economy roughly means that more value is created in that country. Combining that with a higher relative rate of poverty means that the extra value created is not captured in a similar proportion. How are those two unrelated metrics?
Then it adds India, a poor country where the poor are much worse off than in the US.
Then it compares the size of the economies of that mish-mash of countries to relative poverty in the US.
So what exactly am i supposed to draw from this comparison?