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Cranialscrewtop t1_j2tfqmd wrote

IThe US poverty rate at present is 12.8% source: https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/10/poverty-rate-varies-by-age-groups.html

At present only 4 of 27 EU countries are lower than the US average. Even Germany, the financial powerhouse of Europe has a poverty rate of 15.8%. Source: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.NAHC?end=2020&locations=EU&start=2019

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sanzy1988 t1_j2thji7 wrote

You will see America is higher than most European countries:

https://data.oecd.org/inequality/poverty-rate.htm

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Cranialscrewtop t1_j2to3w2 wrote

I would say the world bank has good data.

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hydrOHxide t1_j2ue95g wrote

I think you missed that the World Bank explicitly states that they are using national, country-specific poverty lines. What it means to be below the poverty line in the US is something substantially different than what it means to be below the poverty line in Germany.

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Cranialscrewtop t1_j2v0i3z wrote

Exactly. Poor in NY is a different income than North Dakota. Same between countries. That's what makes the World Bank's data more meaningful, not less.

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sanzy1988 t1_j2tqfok wrote

OECD has more up to date information and you can compare more easily.

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secderpsi t1_j2skn9i wrote

These two might be correlated. Maybe if your metrics aren't only share holder profits, and you actually care about the health of your society, your outcomes will look different to those who only care about and measure profits. Maybe comparing these two on the metrics of only one of them isn't a genuine comparison. Just thoughts.

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JSmith666 t1_j2typqu wrote

>The US wildly outperforms the EU in homelessness, incarceration, poverty and bankruptcy also.

Thats because the EU uses taxpayer money just giving people homes and money (and healthcare) whether they deserve it or not. They basically buy stat points. If people had to truly earn things maybe it would be more similar to the US

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Cybugger t1_j2u3foy wrote

These systems have better outcomes, overall, though.

The best way to defeat homelessness? Give people housing. It may seem simple, but the impact is massive. Without a house/fixed residence, you can barely function in society. Among other things, you'll find it supremely difficult to... you know... find permanent residence.

Incarceration rates? The EU has lower recividism rates, lower incarceration rates overall, and spends less on average per prisoner. The system works better.

Who cares if they "deserve it", if you're getting better results for similar or lower costs?

Healthcare is the best example of this, whereby overall health outcomes are better in most places in the EU, for a far lower cost per capita. You spend less, to get more. Who cares if someone reaches some arbitrary definition of "deserve it", if the system works better for less cash.

You, the taxpayer, could get more for what you're putting in.

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JSmith666 t1_j2u4txu wrote

So the ends justify the means? Force decent hardworking people to pay more in taxes so others can get a handout? Just to check a box of lower homelessness?

Give people healthcare they don't deserve at the expense of taxpayers just to check a box? We can also spend less by reducing regulation...stop programs like medicare/medicaid and stop forcing ER to treat people who admit they have no intention of paying their bills.

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Giving bad actors handouts isnt a better result. It rewards greed, selfishness and failure.

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Formal-Cow-9996 t1_j2xng25 wrote

Talking to you is useless, you can't read. The dude just said taxpayers spend less for more effective welfare that helps them as well, and you're talking about forcing taxpayers to spend more

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JSmith666 t1_j2xtaps wrote

Or you can spend even less and have no welfare. They are ways to spend less witnout the negatives of welfare programs existing. He made the argument "we waste money still just more efficiently " people use that argument but wont look at..."what if we eliminate welfare all together"

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TheLordGeneric t1_j2u3wso wrote

Ah yes, "buying stat points."

Also known as ensuring their people have places to live and lives worth living.

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Beverley_Leslie t1_j2u4gnz wrote

Everyone deserves shelter, healthcare, and personal safety; the lack of any of those three is more a failure on the wider society than on that particular individual.

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JSmith666 t1_j2u54wm wrote

Do you have any evidence everybody deserves those things? Based on what do you make that statement? Seems pretty selfish and arrogant. How is it societies job to make people responsible for themselves. People are responsible for themselves...not others.

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Beverley_Leslie t1_j2u72dy wrote

The mouth-breathing hypocrisy of saying it's selfish that everyone deserves shelter and healthcare is beyond me.

Prisoners, even the ones in American for-profit prisons, get shelter and healthcare even if it is of a poor/negligent quality. Zoo animals get shelter and healthcare. Why do you think people who do not have as much resources as others due to where they were born or life circumstances deserve homelessness or suffering.

Do you prefer tax cuts for billionaires so they can sit on mountains of digital equity they could never possible spend; rather than using the potential tax revenue to reduce child poverty, or homelessness or incidence of drug addiction. Would you vote against reducing price gouging by medical companies so people can afford medication without fear of bankruptcy.

Americas's rugged individualism may have created an economic superpower but it's one where robber-barons, tech-entrepreneurs and big-pharma siphon all of the wealth; and in exchange the American individual can own a pet tiger, an AK47, and hundreds of thousands in crippling student/medical debt.

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JSmith666 t1_j2uatav wrote

I didnt say they deserve homelessness but that doesnt mean they deserve homes. And natural consequence is why they are homeless. Prisoners getting those things (at a far higher quality than they should given they are criminals is a neccesary evil to keep them deperated from polite society) zoo animals are a wierd comparison considering its not exactly a better deal for them to be locked up compared to being in their natural habitat. If rather tax cuts for everybody so they can keep more of their money. Its not a rich v poor thing. Anybody should keep their money. If people choose drugs or make choices that end in homeless they can face natural consequences. Parents who refuse to care foe thwir children should be charged with abuse and neglect accordingly.Im perfectly fine with reducing regulation that would increase competition for medical needs but the govt already interferes too much in cost regulation. People choose to take on student debt.

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Beverley_Leslie t1_j2ufamb wrote

I can only tell you in all honesty, that your vision for a society would be considered a dystopian nightmare by the majority of European cultures. There's too big a gulf between what you see as the value of unchained capitalism to promote competition and a darwinian survival of the fittest society, to ever reconcile with European efforts to create a bottom up social structure which puts the moral onus on the strongest/wealthiest actors to lift up the weakest/most vulnerable.

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JSmith666 t1_j2ug76k wrote

So those at the bottom hacno mral obligation to be of worth to society are in fact rewarded for bot doing so while those with worth are penalized? Why is Europe so against natural consequence for peoples choices...good or bad

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