re: The poorest people in this country have 4k tvs and 1000 dollar cell phones.

quote:

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Probably because OP is a fricking loser that craves someone to judge. I don't give a shite if a poor person owns a cheap arse TV and anyone that does is a moron.

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It seems you miss some of the point here.
Poverty is a moving target. It shouldn't be, but it is.

The levels of destitution inherent in US Depression Era poverty, or current African poverty is something virtually inconceivable to Americans below our current poverty line. There is no comparability, nor is there an effort to point that out. Our glass is always portrayed as half-empty.

E.g., Median income in Italy would rate as poverty-level here. Yet middle class Italians have a far better outlook than do Americans living at the same relative level.

As pointed out in the OP, today's US poverty includes flat screen TVs, cell phones, heated & air-conditioned living spaces, etc. Those are things uncommon to middle-class or affluent Americans 3-5 decades ago.

Those folks 3-5 decades ago, who got along without luxuries common even to today's US impoverished households, are said to have lived in an American Golden Age.

According to many of the same folks lamenting today's US poverty levels, middle class households of the 1970's "had it made." Conceptually, those are wildly discordant beliefs.

One or both of those holdings need an adjustment. My inclination is an empathy for both, but with a realistic edge. Rather than lamenting what we don't have, our emphasis should be on what we do have (much of which we take for granted).