The author makes a good point about the difference between merit and luck in social outcomes.
But, here in America we need not have Food insecurity. With a bit of good financial planning, you can live off 2$/day/person or less. There's so much food you can buy for less than 1$/lb: Corn, Oatmeal, apples, banannas, etc. With many of these combinations, you can reach 2000 calories for less than 2$/day.
And who needs a super expensive cell phone plan? I make do with 9$/month using USMobile. Driving insurance can be less than 25$/mo if you get metromile.com There are many ways to be more cost effective. When i was growing up, my parents would clip every last coupon on the magazine, to get the best deals.
The biggest problem for the poor and everyone else too: is Housing. This is a huge hurdle that we still need to tackle. There's millions being evicted from apartments, and most people have to pay way too much housing. But this too is mostly a manmade/govt/voter issue. With the right land use policies and a massive reduction in regulations we could open up the floodgates to housing innovation and allow the price of housing to come down.
"But, here in America we need not have Food insecurity."
Except if you're homeless in which case planning, storing and saving become uncertain.
And given that you've admitted that today becoming homeless is extremely easy, all the rest of your reasoning goes out the window.
A person can live manageably in very tight poverty only if they have stability in all the other aspects of their lives, a situation that has become impossible today (but once was possible, in the America of 1960 or 1970 say) - if you have a medical emergency, if your car breaks down, if a relative needs a place to stay, if your landlord suddenly raises your rent, etc., those careful preparations go out the window. And given this it is neither illogical nor that irrational that today's very poor don't live according to these careful plans since such plans seldom save them from the problems they face.
> a situation that has become impossible today (but once was possible, in the America of 1960 or 1970 say) - if you have a medical emergency, if your car breaks down, if a relative needs a place to stay, if your landlord suddenly raises your rent, etc., those careful preparations go out the window
Why these things were less of a problem in 1960/70?
"Why these things were less of a problem in 1960/70?"
The family as safety net was more intact, job churn wasn't as common, medical expenses weren't insane, rents weren't in constant flux, whole industries weren't being continuously disrupted...
>There's so much food you can buy for less than 1$/lb: Corn, Oatmeal, apples, banannas, etc. With many of these combinations, you can reach 2000 calories for less than 2$/day.
That's a pretty horrific measure.
You can technically live off of rice and WonderBread, but not healthily.
All the foods you list are primarily carbohydrate sources. Humans are incapable of synthesizing proteins and (some) fatty acids. I would suggest it costs a lot more if you consider protein and fat sources and opportunity costs of preparing them.
Whole Wheat flour, Rolled oats, and many Fruits and Vegetables have more than enough protein.
If you ate, 2000 cals of whole wheat flour or Rolled oats (which can be used to make many other things like pancakes, waffles, cookies, crepes, tacos), you would get roughly 80g of protein, which is 60% more than your daily protein (52g) requirement!
There's protein and then there's complete protein. You need to consume enough of all of the essential amino acids to avoid protein deficiency even if you're consuming "enough" grams of protein. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_amino_acid
Where I live $2 a day will get you a hand of bananas and a couple ears of corn, which doesn't seem like it'd be enough to subsist on. What would your grocery list for a weeks worth of food on a $14 budget look like?
$2/day on food is a load of shit. It sounds straight up like /r/frugaljerk advice.
I mean, you won't starve, but it would be one of those things contributing to the poverty mentality. Children, especially, need meat, physically active people need creatine, not easily gotten from plant-based foods. Not to mention fruits and vegetables will add extra (even frozen ones)
A 4-pack of fresh tomatoes alone is $2, at the very least.
Not to mention forcing people to eat boiled corn or lentils every days for years is damn near cruel.
I guess you could supplement it by dumpster diving for produce, but at that point you could also make the ridiculous claim of not having to pay for food at all.
He did get one thing right though: the biggest cost is housing.
>Children, especially, need meat, physically active people need creatine, not easily gotten from plant-based foods.
This is entirely false, some meat marketers have duped you.
"Creatine is not an essential nutrient[8] as it is naturally produced in the human body from the amino acids glycine and arginine." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creatine
There are entire countries that grow up vegetarian and turn out just fine.
It's still near starving and probably very fucked up in the long term, not to mention socially and psychologically bad as well. I don't think I could pull some of that off on a long-term basis, and there's also the studies that say that being poor predisposes you to buy fatty foods:
Are you suggesting that the poor follow this "advice"?
> With a bit of good financial planning
How do you plan financially if your income (and your life in general) is uncertain? A major point in the article was that poverty leads to an inability to plan for the future, and increased stress as a result.
> Corn, Oatmeal, apples, banannas, etc.
So now you need bowls, utensils, hot water, a microwave, stove. You need safe and comfortable access to these things, you need a way to store food so that it won't be stolen. You might think that these are givens, but I lived in an illegal (but very cheap) apartment for a while with a communal kitchen where my food was regularly stolen / thrown out. The landlord would unplug the refrigerator almost every day to save on electricity costs, so a lot of wasted food and I stopped using the fridge. I was harassed and threatened in the kitchen, by residents who were on drugs/frustrated by life and taking it out on me. This made it very difficult to eat well on food stamps.
> And who needs a super expensive cell phone plan? I make do with 9$/month using USMobile.
You also probably have your own computer and Internet access. Without that, a smartphone could be your only way of accessing the Internet (something that's almost a necessity, especially for the poor) "Just go to a library" right? That's great if your town's taxes warrant a decent library with available computers and Internet access within walking distance (or convenient driving distance if you're fortunate enough to have a car).
> my parents would clip every last coupon on the magazine, to get the best deals.
My parents did the same thing. In their copious spare time, with ads delivered to the door of their home, and the ability to travel to multiple grocery stores, all vying for their grocery dollar, in pursuit of the best deal. Look at the trailer with the plywood extension in the article again. Do you think they're getting a stack of local grocery ads every Sunday morning from the neighborhood mailman? Do you think they peruse them over coffee in the morning saying "Wow honey, the single convenience store in town that survived the recession has eggs $1.09/dozen today!" "Oh? Sounds good! And the gas station is having a sale on milk!"
> Driving insurance can be less than 25$/mo if you get metromile.com
Great if you already have a car and can afford to maintain it and put gas in it. And that insurance probably isn't comprehensive, which leaves the poor more vulnerable to expensive emergency situations, especially if they require a car for work. A minor repair might be complete disaster if they don't have the cash, don't have access to credit, and then lose their job as a result.
"Feeding himself has been the toughest part of the challenge to date. “I’ve not been able to buy enough food,” Mr. Brar said, as he walked through the Downtown Eastside to his latest residence, a small, depressing room inside a sketchy-looking hotel. “I’ve already lost eight or nine pounds.” He buys mostly cereals and grains, instant noodles, some fresh and frozen vegetables, tofu and milk.
Local activists trailing behind him said his luck is about to change, at least on the dietary front. No one need go hungry in the Downtown Eastside, said a man named Dave, himself a local welfare recipient. “There’s lots of free food down here,” Dave said. “The thing is, though, you have to line up for every meal, and that becomes a full-time job.”"
Go into the store and mostly buy only things that cost less than 1$ per lb. Even if you average 1$/lb that would mean you could buy 900 grams per day. Just as an example, if you only bought rolled oats and whole wheat flour (which by the way are excellent sources of protein and fiber, magnesium and potassium - far more healthy than the average person eats), you would get about 3000+ calories from that. Though you'd probably want to mix it up a bit and buy some fruit and veg for a small part of your budget, arriving at close to 2k calories per day. And you'd still be eating more healthily than the vast majority of middle class peoples.
Even here, in the insanely expensive bay area, you can buy Costco spinach for 1.60$ per pound. bannanas 47c/lbs, rolled oats for 0.80$ per pound. etc. There's more examples of foods you can find that are cost effective.
Admittedly, you wouldn't be able to eat at restaurants, ever.
But, here in America we need not have Food insecurity. With a bit of good financial planning, you can live off 2$/day/person or less. There's so much food you can buy for less than 1$/lb: Corn, Oatmeal, apples, banannas, etc. With many of these combinations, you can reach 2000 calories for less than 2$/day.
And who needs a super expensive cell phone plan? I make do with 9$/month using USMobile. Driving insurance can be less than 25$/mo if you get metromile.com There are many ways to be more cost effective. When i was growing up, my parents would clip every last coupon on the magazine, to get the best deals.
The biggest problem for the poor and everyone else too: is Housing. This is a huge hurdle that we still need to tackle. There's millions being evicted from apartments, and most people have to pay way too much housing. But this too is mostly a manmade/govt/voter issue. With the right land use policies and a massive reduction in regulations we could open up the floodgates to housing innovation and allow the price of housing to come down.