I don't know about America, but one stat I saw recently that intrigued me: 12% of all the jobs in Canada are in Toronto, but only 6% of the population is there. If that holds true for American cities, and I suspect it does, then a huge number of working-poor and lower-middle-class folks are by necessity living near a major city, if not actually in it. You know the first thing that happens when someone in a small town falls on hard times - loses a job, leaves an abusive spouse, etc? They move to the nearest big city, because that's where services, both government and charity, are located. So in order to access what help is available and in order to have a decent shot at finding a job that will support them, they have to go to a place where basic expenses are higher.
And as for the frills issue: I work at a school that is considered "medium needs," because it includes areas of extensive subsidized housing but also some fairly affluent suburban housing. That means I have a mixture of well-off kids and kids whose parents are either working poor or on welfare. Some stats from the grade threes at my school:
Fewer than 50% have access to a computer. Fewer than 30% had access to the internet at home, as of two years ago when I heard these stats. About sixty percent owned at least one book of their own; about 40% had more than five books of their own; fewer than 30% had parents who read or who bought them books (that is to say, most of the books they had, they had acquired at school through cheap book sales or library cast-offs.) Less than 25% had a newspaper coming into their home. About 80% had a phone, but less than 20% had a cell phone in their family (again, two-year-old stats.) 60% of their parents were working; stay-at-home moms with dads who worked made up about 15%, leaving only 25% of families with no working income. Most of these were single parents for whom childcare would have cost more than their paycheque would bring in from a minimum wage job, so they were effectively forced out of the workforce until their children were at least in school.
There are certainly families that spend a lot on frills that they could be using to feed their families. There are large numbers of poor who don't know how to make do - they don't know how to cook, and rely on expensive processed foods because it's all they know. There are many more who do away with all frills and still have trouble getting by. One American stat that is quite telling is the bankruptcy one: 50% of bankruptcies in the States are the result of a major illness in the family, and 85% of those were people who had insurance and were working at the time they filed bankruptcy.
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And as for the frills issue: I work at a school that is considered "medium needs," because it includes areas of extensive subsidized housing but also some fairly affluent suburban housing. That means I have a mixture of well-off kids and kids whose parents are either working poor or on welfare. Some stats from the grade threes at my school:
Fewer than 50% have access to a computer. Fewer than 30% had access to the internet at home, as of two years ago when I heard these stats. About sixty percent owned at least one book of their own; about 40% had more than five books of their own; fewer than 30% had parents who read or who bought them books (that is to say, most of the books they had, they had acquired at school through cheap book sales or library cast-offs.) Less than 25% had a newspaper coming into their home. About 80% had a phone, but less than 20% had a cell phone in their family (again, two-year-old stats.) 60% of their parents were working; stay-at-home moms with dads who worked made up about 15%, leaving only 25% of families with no working income. Most of these were single parents for whom childcare would have cost more than their paycheque would bring in from a minimum wage job, so they were effectively forced out of the workforce until their children were at least in school.
There are certainly families that spend a lot on frills that they could be using to feed their families. There are large numbers of poor who don't know how to make do - they don't know how to cook, and rely on expensive processed foods because it's all they know. There are many more who do away with all frills and still have trouble getting by. One American stat that is quite telling is the bankruptcy one: 50% of bankruptcies in the States are the result of a major illness in the family, and 85% of those were people who had insurance and were working at the time they filed bankruptcy.