What makes a nation third world?
Despite everevolving definitions, the concept of the third world serves to identify countries that suffer from high infant mortality, low economic development, high levels of poverty, low utilization of natural resources, and heavy dependence on industrialized nations. These are the developing and technologically less advanced nations of Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Latin America. Third world nations tend to have economies dependent on the developed countries and are generally characterized as poor with unstable governments and having high rates of population growth, illiteracy, and disease. A key factor is the lack of a middle class — with impoverished millions in a vast lower economic class and a very small elite upper class controlling the country's wealth and resources. Most third world nations also have a very large foreign debt.
(What makes a nation third world? from Encyclopedia of World Geography)

Scot Dutchy wrote:The old chestnut about the poor of America are not poor compared to the rest of the world is easily demolished.

How Poor Are America’s Poor, Really?

Some of the figures from Europe and Australia predate the Great Recession, which put a dent in incomes worldwide. But the list should still give you a sense of how far behind America's poor are compared with their counterparts in other affluent countries. At the 10th percentile, for instance, Norwegians have almost 60 percent more income than Americans. (Their data may only be good through 2004, but the country is currently enjoying a 3.8 percent unemployment rate. Chances are, living standards haven't fallen off much.). Canadians have about 30 percent more income.

If we used the exact same criteria to measure poverty in the U.S. as is used by the World Bank to obtain official poverty estimates for the developing world, we would conclude that no-one in the U.S. falls under the $2 threshold.

Seabass wrote:Why aren't other third world countries hated for being third world countries as much as the US is hated for being a third world country?

Thommo wrote:Yes, that's the text accompanying the list that shows the US placed 15th or better in the world for people with incomes at the 5th, 10th, 20th, 30th, 40th and 50th percentile that you posted.

What I am suggesting is that "13th in the world at around 63% of Norway's income at the 10th percentile" doesn't apparently debunk any myths related to the third world or the relative prosperity of Americans.

For that matter a methodology which concludes that "estimates of the number of Americans living under $2 a day [that] range from 12 million all the way down to zero." might not be hugely illuminating either.*

ETA: * There is clarification on this point at this link:-
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front ... -answered/

If we used the exact same criteria to measure poverty in the U.S. as is used by the World Bank to obtain official poverty estimates for the developing world, we would conclude that no-one in the U.S. falls under the $2 threshold.

That compares with world wide (so not restricted to the third world) figures that show Nearly 1/2 of the world’s population — more than 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day. More than 1.3 billion live in extreme poverty — less than $1.25 a day.

Notice how the entire line for the United States resides in the top portion of the graph? That’s because the entire country is relatively rich. In fact, America’s bottom ventile is still richer than most of the world: That is, the typical person in the bottom 5 percent of the American income distribution is still richer than 68 percent of the world’s inhabitants.

laklak wrote:Who cares? I got mine, fuck everybody else.

South India: it will give a unlimited servings of rice with rasam, sambhar, curd, papad, 1 piece sweet on a banana leaf. - Tarun

India: ‎1USD = around 50 Indian Rupees which can get you a hearty meal of boiled rice, dal, vegetables, pickles, chutney and papads in a Kolkata 'basa' ...and it's usually eat as much as you want! - Priyanka

Costa Rica: you can buy one papaya, one watermelon, one pineapple... and perhaps a cup of coffee of decent quality. - Luis
Los Angeles: one hour of street parking - Christina
Paris: about 40% of an espresso at Starbucks. - Michael
Dubai: a dollar will get you a 'Jabal Al Noor' shawarma. - Ineke
Portugal: 1 espresso coffee. Except if you are in the airport - Nuno
Australia: a scratchy (lottery ticket) with the chance of getting enough cash together for your next trip - Kin

When Obama took office in January 2009, almost 32 million people received SNAP benefits. The number increased during the Great Recession as more families turned to the program for assistance, averaging an annual high of 47.6 million participants in 2013.

A report by the Food Research & Action Center, a hunger and nutrition advocacy group, applauded the 43 million figure in April as the lowest level of participants since October 2010. From April 2015 to April 2016, participation is down 1.9 million participants.

Macdoc wrote:Is this being ignored?? What will one dollar buy

This is tongue in cheek but has to be accounted for

South India: it will give a unlimited servings of rice with rasam, sambhar, curd, papad, 1 piece sweet on a banana leaf. - Tarun

India: ‎1USD = around 50 Indian Rupees which can get you a hearty meal of boiled rice, dal, vegetables, pickles, chutney and papads in a Kolkata 'basa' ...and it's usually eat as much as you want! - Priyanka

Costa Rica: you can buy one papaya, one watermelon, one pineapple... and perhaps a cup of coffee of decent quality. - Luis
Los Angeles: one hour of street parking - Christina
Paris: about 40% of an espresso at Starbucks. - Michael
Dubai: a dollar will get you a 'Jabal Al Noor' shawarma. - Ineke
Portugal: 1 espresso coffee. Except if you are in the airport - Nuno
Australia: a scratchy (lottery ticket) with the chance of getting enough cash together for your next trip - Kin

Poor people in the US and Canada ....especially urban simply pay a larger percent of their income for basics that in third world countries would cost a fraction.

Reality - 10% of Americans are on food stamps...

When Obama took office in January 2009, almost 32 million people received SNAP benefits. The number increased during the Great Recession as more families turned to the program for assistance, averaging an annual high of 47.6 million participants in 2013.

A report by the Food Research & Action Center, a hunger and nutrition advocacy group, applauded the 43 million figure in April as the lowest level of participants since October 2010. From April 2015 to April 2016, participation is down 1.9 million participants.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... od-stamps/

Macdoc wrote:Is this being ignored?? What will one dollar buy

This is tongue in cheek but has to be accounted for

South India: it will give a unlimited servings of rice with rasam, sambhar, curd, papad, 1 piece sweet on a banana leaf. - Tarun

India: ‎1USD = around 50 Indian Rupees which can get you a hearty meal of boiled rice, dal, vegetables, pickles, chutney and papads in a Kolkata 'basa' ...and it's usually eat as much as you want! - Priyanka

Costa Rica: you can buy one papaya, one watermelon, one pineapple... and perhaps a cup of coffee of decent quality. - Luis
Los Angeles: one hour of street parking - Christina
Paris: about 40% of an espresso at Starbucks. - Michael
Dubai: a dollar will get you a 'Jabal Al Noor' shawarma. - Ineke
Portugal: 1 espresso coffee. Except if you are in the airport - Nuno
Australia: a scratchy (lottery ticket) with the chance of getting enough cash together for your next trip - Kin

Poor people in the US and Canada ....especially urban simply pay a larger percent of their income for basics that in third world countries would cost a fraction.

Reality - 10% of Americans are on food stamps...

When Obama took office in January 2009, almost 32 million people received SNAP benefits. The number increased during the Great Recession as more families turned to the program for assistance, averaging an annual high of 47.6 million participants in 2013.

A report by the Food Research & Action Center, a hunger and nutrition advocacy group, applauded the 43 million figure in April as the lowest level of participants since October 2010. From April 2015 to April 2016, participation is down 1.9 million participants.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... od-stamps/