I was born in an African village, literally in a mud hut. I spent the first 9 years of my life in a village. The town I grew up in wasn't far from the village so I spent holidays in the village too. I now work in IT and try keep up with the latest frameworks. That is I am not concerned with starving to death and I have health insurance.<p>If I compare my upbringing with my daughter's, there is nothing to compare. We walked around barefoot, unsupervised, climbed trees, ate wild fruit, made spears from wood and once you were four you had to take your two year old sibling with you and look after them. There were no nannies. Here is the interesting thing, none of us ever had to see an occupational therapist to help us with our hand eye co-ordination. Falling out of a tree was enough incentive to figure it out on your own. I digress, the point I am trying to make is that I remember my childhood as a happy time. Full of activity and adventure. I would have been classified as poor because I we slept on the floor, shared blankets as kids. Kids ate from the same plate, grouped roughly by age group. No toys except ones we made ourselves.<p>I am not advocating returning to the village. Running water and healthcare are good things. I often wonder about who is better off, me in town with access to water and health but with all manner of rates and taxes and social pressures?<p>Edit: typos
I noticed when traveling through Central America, that while extreme poverty is everywhere, homelessness seems to be quite rare (with the caveat that I didn't spend much time in the capital cities, so the situation there may be different).<p>I think there are two reasons for it:<p>1) People don't seem to be as mobile, in general, and you'll find 3 generations of family living very close to each other quite often. I was hanging out with a local in Leon, Nicaragua and met like a dozen of her family members walking around a couple of blocks. People who are having hard times seem to just take up with family. We found one drunk lying on the side of the road, and she insisted we stop and find out what was wrong with him and take him back to his family. I had barely registered that he was there.<p>2) There don't seem to be as many zoning or construction safety laws, so building a shelter by yourself with almost no money seems to be quite easy. It might be a shack on the side of the road with no water or electricity, but it's better than sleeping on the street.<p>I was also struck by how jovial even people with very little seemed to be. Like having cable tv, food, friends and family was enough for people to be satisfied with where they are with life. They also seemed relatively fatalistic about health and safety issues. When you don't really have any expectation that someone is looking out for you, the idea that you could die from an accident or sickness any day doesn't seem to be that unlikely. People there in general just seem to take it in stride. I guess you have to if you want to get out of bed in the morning.<p>I think it made me realize that loneliness might be worse than poverty, and that the lack of social support for poor people in the us is worse than the lack of money. We could do more for people by creating social connections than we could be just giving them a check. I don't really know what the answer is there. I don't think it's a problem at either the market or government can solve.
I think a lot of the resentment felt by the rural American poor has to do with their perception that they are constantly ignored or overlooked, while similarly impoverished inner-city minorities are at least given some kind of institutional sympathy. It's hard to say how true this really is, or how much of it is simply further fuel for pre-existing racism, but apparently this perception is ubiquitous enough that it can be leveraged to win national elections.<p>I will say the events of the last year have definitely opened my eyes to the situation. The thing I've noticed is that it actually <i>is</i> harder to sympathize with the white, rural poor than it is with the inner-city minorities, at least for me - even though I want to sympathize and I acknowledge their suffering is probably more or less equal to the inner-city minority poor. I suppose the reason I find it more difficult to feel equivalent sympathy is that it's hard to get over the fact that the white rural poor seem to constantly cling to counter-productive political/world-views that perpetuate their poverty and act against their interests. I mean it's just really hard to allocate significant sympathy towards a large voting-bloc that seems to blame all their problems on terrorism and immigration. But then again, perhaps I am generalizing - I mean I'm just a clueless liberal living in my NYC bubble so what do I know anyway?
I am a Bangladeshi who is now a grad student in US. Perhaps I can give a generalized peek view of the health system of Bangladesh. I feel much more safe being in Bangladesh if I were to have some urgent/serious health problems. There are public hospitals where doctors are always available. You go and buy a ticket which is very cheap(in the order of 1-2 dollars in BD currency) and you get to see a doctor. Sure, there are lots of people, you might have to wait for 2 hours, but it beats the insurance system here in US any day. In fact, the concept of having a health insurance is so alien in BD that I feel there will be riots if someone wanted to introduce that. Also, the quality of the doctors in the public hospital is almost on par with the private hospitals. Because for any up and coming doctor, if they want to gain recognition, they first have to get a job at a public hospital. Then they may also practice at a private hospital at their extra hours. If you do not want to wait and you have the money(which is in the order of 10 dollars in BD currecy) you can visit the same doctor at a private hospital. Medicines are really cheap mostly too. This is one of the reasons many Bangladeshi green card holders or US citizens would go to BD for health care if they have some serious issues. I feel there is a huge cultural difference regarding the solution of healthcare between US and BD. The public in BD expects the government to take care of its people through public hospitals. That is why when I came to US and got acquainted with the system of healthcare here it was a huge shock to me.
The author of the question does not have a straightforward answer but puts this forward as a thought provoker.<p>For example while Appalachians have higher income on average (PPP) than a typical Bangladeshi, Appalachian life expectancy is lower. So maybe the marginal increase in income is more impactful in a place like Bangladesh -where people are less able to commit self-harm (even unintended like poor diets). Maybe people in Bangladesh, not having much in the way of comfort do more with marginal incomes. Maybe we can learn from these social forces to take advantage of our higher income and provide better living for people who while not at extreme poverty levels do worse then people living in extreme poverty.
The answer is simple, don't take what I say seriously, take what I do seriously.<p>7 out 10 times you are better of in Mississippi delta.<p>The other 3 times are both cultural and relative wealth.