The standard of living for people in poverty today is (a lot) higher than the standard of living for people in poverty decades ago.
By many of these standards, on average, poor people are generally better off today than they used to be. By other standards, they're worse off. Upward mobility, for instance, is more stagnant today than it has been in many decades. Health care costs and access have been getting worse, not better -- and recent reforms are unlikely to have changed much, despite what Democrats or Republicans would tell us. (Fucked health care costs are offset, to some degree, by advances in medicine and science, of course.) Access to food is generally a lot better, but the quality of the calories has grown worse, leading to health problems -- for which our health care system is inadequate. Housing is...well, kind of a fucked situation, but has been for quite some time; our interest rates and tax system create a lot of perverse incentives in the housing market. That market is now pretty warped and dysfunctional, with no return to sanity in sight.
On the balance, I think you could say that a poor person today is better off than a poor person would have been in the 1920s. But is a poor person today better off than he would have been in the most recent era of prolonged stagnation, the 1970s? Very debatable.
I'd certainly feel worse off if you took away my TV - or replaced it with a 1970's black-and-white version. Isn't it obvious that the cost and quality of TVs affects people's "standard of living"?
Cancer was essentially a death sentence back then. So was a heart attack.
No MRI. No CAT scan. No minimally-invasive surgery.
They were still performing major surgery to "treat" ulcers back then. Now we know they're caused by bacteria and can clear them up with no surgery needed.
Really poor people in the United States do get free healthcare. It's called "Medicaid".
People living in abject poverty also enormously value their TVs. Here is an example of a man who goes hungry in order to watch TV, from the book Poor Economics [1]:
We asked Oucha Mbarbk, a man we met in a remote village in Morocco, what he would do if he had more money. He said he would buy more food. Then we asked him what he would do if he had even more money. He said he would buy better tasting food. We were starting to feel very bad for him and his family, when we noticed a television, a parabolic antenna, and a DVD player in the room where we were sitting. We asked him why he had bought all these things if he felt the family did not have enough to eat. He laughed, and said, “Oh, but television is more important than food!”
If you think the cost of rent and house prices affect the standard of living then so should the availability of TVs and internet.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Poor-Economics-Radical-Rethinking-Pove...
Decades ago? Like 1990? 1980? Or 1930?
After half-heartedly searching for some data on living standards in the US, I came across this report that tries to argue the point that poverty isn't all that bad in the US, seeing as how most poor families have coffee makers and a stove (I'd imagine it's difficult to cook food over a fire and remain free from police harassment in most parts of the US...):
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/07/what-is-pov...
It offers such bright points as:
"It is widely supposed that the poor are unable to obtain medical care, but in reality, only 13 percent of poor households report that a family member needed to go to a doctor or hospital at some point in the prior year but was unable because the family could not afford the cost."
"Only" 1 in 7 households needed medical help, but couldn't afford it -- and that's among those that had a family member that needed medical attention for that year.
More in the same vein:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/06/01/astonishi...
(I don't think living on the level of poor people in Finland is quite so glamorous as the commentary makes it out to be)
Some more numbers (less commentary):
http://www.nclej.org/poverty-in-the-us.php
For some links to international numbers:
http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty
eg: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTPREMNET/Resources/EP12...
And: http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/publication/food-p...
I'd love to see some numbers that go further back, though. Some casual googling didn't reveal much (I did not try very hard).
If we think about poverty as almost "always having to worry about money" then poverty is probably very much like it was.
Sure people living in poverty may have a mobile phone, and TV. Will giving up those mean giving up the constant stress of not having enough money? For a month or two maybe. Then you will be back to square one.
So? Would you be satisfied living with the sanitation, health-care, technology level, etc of "decades ago" today?
There's no absolute "poverty level". You can perhaps starve (that is absolute), or be homeless (also absolute), but there's no such thing as absolute poverty level against which to measure all ages.
You have to measure poverty as it relates to what others have now.
[1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multidimensional_Poverty_Inde...
Sure, the poor of today can have access to electricity and running water, and even basic drugs like penicilin. Things that even the kings of 18th didn't have.
That doesn't mean the kings of 18th century were "poor", nor that the trailer-park people of today are "rich". Both would be absurd statements.
What's acceptable is not static.
People didn't have fancy sneakers but shoes were usually made with a Goodyear welt to be rebuildable and long-lasting, and such shoes usually cost hundreds of dollars today. Sears and similar stores sold durable, American-made clothing— visit a vintage store some time (acknowledging survivorship bias, though).
Houses were also small in 1950 because the housing pipeline was essentially clogged up from 1929 to around 1950, due to depression and war. Housing also was a much smaller percentage of most families' consumption baskets at that time, as well— there was a lot of buildable land at the edge of major metro areas, and the capital-GDP ratio was low so asset prices were low.
Working-class (evolving into lower-middle-class) employment was much more stable in 1950, and stability is a big part of being middle class.
It's not really possible to live a 1950s lifestyle today, since a significant proportion of lifestyle comes from living around, and being respected by, peers. And from the better availability of stability in employment, which one cannot get via personal finance.
But ~40% of the population lived in rural areas, and what I understand from relatives who lived there during that time, travelling to town was considered a luxury. Today, nobody thinks twice about hopping into the car and going to town every day.
Not everything in life is about possessions.
http://books.google.com/books?id=SNkDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA178&dq=sm...
http://books.google.com/books?id=xdwDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA65&dq=smo...
Now, it's true that pollution is still generally worse in poor areas compared to wealthier areas, but the pollution issue alone makes me prefer a "poor" lifestyle today over a "middle class" one from 50 or 60 years ago. We also have additional consumer protections for food and medicine compared to 60 years ago, which makes it hard to compare products across decades.
Homicide (and presumably other violent crime) is about the same as 1950.
Further, "poor" people have always had lower social status and higher stress, so there's no change there.
In 1950 it wasn't uncommon for people to still use outhouses and not have electricity.
Life expectancy reference: http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/unpp/panel_indicators.htm
homicide rate reference: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0873729.html