Quote:
Originally Posted by Azure
Sadly, the definition of 'poor' has been skewed. Today, 'poor' people have air conditioning, drive nice cars, own their own house, but pay for their food with food stamps.
I would venture a guess that a lot of 'poor' people have no idea what the poor is you're talking about.
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I would hazard a guess and say that the number of people living under the poverty line and having everything that you listed is going to be pretty small. Go down to the womens shelter, the DIC or whatever the youth center is called in Calgary and then you will see poverty and poor people who don't have anything let alone the luxuries that you listed there. In my experiences I think that the biggest issue is the people who are living with a mental illness and don't receive adequate care and that in turn leads to higher rates of poverty... which is of particular concern when you factor in the genetic predisposition to many mental illnesses and the social determinants of health... a lot of people aren't really given a fair chance.
I worked with one lady, Calgary in January, no heat, no windows on her place, neighbors electricity being used in exchange for her driveway, awful landlord, no plumbing (would have frozen anyway) and was getting 1,000 dollars a month on AISH. While not every poor person in Canada is this bad, this is not an unusual case... it is just unpleasant to look at.