Most of the 46 million Americans living below the poverty level have adequate food, and three-quarters of them have a motor vehicle, according to federal household consumption surveys collected by pollster Scott Rasmussen.
Among Rasmussen's findings, reported by
The Washington Examiner : 74 percent of the poor own a car or truck; 70 percent have a VCR; 64 percent have a DVD player; 63 percent have cable or satellite TV; 53 percent have a video game system; 50 percent have a computer; 30 percent have two or more cars; and 23 percent use TiVo.
“What the government defines as poverty is vastly different from what most Americans envision,” Rasmussen writes in his book,
“The People’s Money: How Voters Will Balance the Budget and Eliminate the Federal Debt.”
The Examiner reports that other details from two recent Department of Agriculture surveys in the book include:
-- In 1 percent of households, someone must miss a meal, on an average day;
-- Children are hungry in 0.25 percent of U.S. homes;
-- 96 percent of poor parents say their children were never hungry during the year because they couldn’t afford food.
-- 83 percent of the poor said they have enough to eat.
“About 40 million Americans are officially defined as living below the poverty line. Yet most of those have adequate levels of food, shelter, clothing and medical care. Sixty-three percent of American adults believe such a family is not living in poverty,” Rasmussen writes, according to the Examiner. “Only 16 percent believe that a family is living in poverty if it has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV, a DVD player, and a VCR, but that’s what the average family living in poverty has as defined by the U.S. government.”
Earnings of $22,314 is considered the 2010 poverty level for a family of four.
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