Is it true that what’s considered poverty is much higher in America then other countries

KEY TAKEAWAYS
The international poverty line, which is currently $1.90 a day, is the threshold that determines whether someone is living in poverty.
The line is based on the value of goods needed to sustain one adult.
This metric, however, does not take into account access to sanitation, water, and electricity and what effect that has on their quality of life.

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$1.90 a day for 365 days is less than $800 a year.

Even with exchange rates and cost of living differences ours has to be more than that.

People in the US have no idea what abject poverty is without a Federal Entitlement safety net.

I've flown in and out of India, and what's considered poverty here is beyond the comprehension of an Indian living in a tin and cardboard slum literally 250ft from an active runway in Mumbai.

Absolutely. If you travel and get outside of tourist areas you can see poverty that people here can't imagine.

We should offer to send our poor to these other countries with a guarantee to make them middle class there. We’d save trillions.

The "poor" of the USA are solidly middle class in most other countries.

With very limited exceptions, they have zero concept of true poverty.

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Is it true that what’s considered poverty is much higher in America then other countries

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I have been to many other countries and for the most part the poorest American would be considered well off in most countries. We really don't have poverty the way other places do.

The truth is that no one is truly without in America especially in comparison to other countries. There are many programs to help the homeless, hungry, unemployed etc. Even those considered to be in poverty in the USA have it 100 times better than in other countries.

I sponsor a few children through Compassion.

For Christmas I sent one in Africa 50 dollars. He sent me a picture with himself and what he bought. He was 14 years old at the time.

1 pair of flip flops.
2 pair of cheap athletic shorts.
3 brandless t-shirts.
2 pencils.
And about 25 one pound boxes of spaghetti.

The fact that he spent so much on plain pasta to avoid going to bed hungry was heartbreaking.

Give a 14 year old in America 50 dollars and they are buying luxuries because they don't know what hunger is.

The middle class in most of Europe live in smaller quarters, fewer have air conditioning, a vehicle, more than 1 TV, X-Box and a few other "essentials" of the American poor. You're better off in America's underclass than being in the middle class in all but a few European countries.

I often argue on the board for taxing the bejeezus out of the super rich in America, but it's not because I think our poor need/deserve more. My argument is political. The super rich are revolting against the middle class/upper-middle class. We are their enemy, the last group in American they don't control. And our only real weapon is the threat of taking their money, and actually doing that if they don't respond to the threat.