Top Romney Adviser: If You Own A Microwave, You Aren’t Really Poor

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/10/25/1091501/top-romney-adviser-if-you-own-a-microwave-you-arent-really-poor/

By Igor Volsky posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Oct 25, 2012

A top adviser to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign denied the nation’s income inequality gap in a Wall Street Journal editorial on Thursday, brushing off the growing concentration of wealth in the hands of the very wealthy by arguing that lower-income Americans are buying more consumer goods.

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Yet the access of low-income Americans—those earning less than $20,000 in real 2009 dollars—to devices that are part of the “good life” has increased.

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The percentage of low-income households with microwave ovens grew to 92.4% from 74.9% between 2001 and 2009. Fully 75.5% of low-income Americans now have a cell phone

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But this argument, a favorite of conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, is highly misleading. Appliances and commonly used consumer gadgets like cell phones are necessities in the 21st century and are significantly cheaper today than they were just decades earlier. In fact, were families to sell their appliances in order to help pay for food and other basic necessities, many would still struggle — for while prices on microwaves and air conditioners have fallen, “the real everyday basics such as quality child care and out-of-pocket medical costs” are “squeezing the budgets of the poor and middle-class alike.”

Hassett argues that safety net programs like “unemployment insurance, food stamps, Medicaid” help families afford basic needs, further shrinking the nation’s income gap. But these programs are already failing to keep up with need and Romney and Ryan have proposed massive cuts to the safety net in order to pay down the deficit and finance a tax cut plan that is heavily skewed towards the rich.

Their approach would only exacerbate the differences between the rich and poor — a gap that has grown dramatically since the late 1970s. Indeed, compared to the 34 countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United States has a Gini coefficient — a number that measures the distribution of income on a scale of 0 (perfectly equal) to 1 (perfectly unequal) — of 0.47 and ranks near the very bottom in inequality. America also suffers from the absolute highest “percentage of national income that went to the top 1 percent” and “has seen income inequality increase at a much faster rate than most other countries.”

This trend is already devastating the American democratic ideals of equal opportunity and upward mobility. Unfortunately, neither Romney nor his advisers can see the problem or offer the kind of tax and economic policies that will help solve it.

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If you think this makes sense, you are totally ignorant about poverty. Eg., apartments usually have refrigerators, etc. People who are renting a room usually have access to the kitchen. There may be several generations of a family living in an apartment sharing expenses. And how do they expect poor people to eat? Go to restaurants? I guess they don't think someone is poor unless they scavenge for food from dumpsters. A microwave can be bought fairly cheaply, and is the cheapest way to cook.

Many people need a phone to find out whether and what time they are scheduled to work, because they don't have a fixed schedule. A friend who works at Chik-fil-a has to check on a computer to find out. An employee at Barnes & Noble said she had to phone in daily to find out if she was scheduled. And the only "address" a homeless person has is their phone! Homeless or not, people need a phone to get a job in the first place.

I know people who have some things only because they were gifts from their parents or other family members.

Comments in on ThinkProgress also point out that many people have second-hand possessions.