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Originally Posted by host
aceventura3, do you live in the same country that I live in?
Three basic criteria.....affordable housing, the number of residents living below the poverty line, and the trend, and the numbers and percentage of people covered by private health insurance, and the trend:
In early 2003, qualifying income to purchase average priced house in the US was $40,320, and average income was $52,500 annually.
Less than 4 years later, in 2006, qualifying income to purchase average priced house was $52,512, an increase of 30.4 percent.
Annual income rose in the same period from $52,500 to $56,784, an increase of 8.16 percent.....the percentage increase of income that was required to purchase the average priced house increased nearly 4 times the amount that salary increased, in less than 4 years.
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Good point. Here is a better one.
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There was a slight decline in homeownership rate in 2005 from the recent high recorded in 2004, according to the Housing Vacancy Survey, conducted by the US Census Bureau in conjunction with the Current Population Survey.
The home ownership rate for 2005 was 68.9%, down slightly from the recent high of 69.0% recorded in 2004. The 2004 rate was the highest rate since the Census Bureau began reporting these statistics in 1965.
By region, home ownership in 2005 was highest in the Midwest at 73.1%, followed by the South (70.8%), the Northeast (65.2%) and the West (64.4%).
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http://www.danter.com/STATISTICS/homeown.htm
Remember many factors other than income go into the home affordability issue. 25 years ago mortgage rates were about 15%, today they are about 6%.
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If you are a non-hispanic white American, your poverty rate as a percentage of your total number is declining. there are however, 37 million Americans living in poverty, including nearly 25 percent of blacks and 17.6 percent of all challenge. The total poverty percentage is up more than ten percent in just 5 years, from a low of 11.3 percent in 2000, to 12.6 percent in 2005.
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That also is a good point. I can not reconcile those statistic with reality. I can say that there were four periods in my life when I was officially in poverty. As a child after my parents divorced, while in college, after getting laid-off once, and my first year of owning my own business. I always had food, shelter, and other basic necesities. I think there is a difference between real poverty and the government's definition. I was never in what I would consider real poverty.
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In the area of private healthcare coverage, there are statistics that show a total of 8.3 percent of Americans not covered by an insurance plan for the entire 1997 year, By 2003, that number nearly doubled, to 15.6 percent were without health insurance for the entire year.
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First ther is a difference between being able to get healthcare and having healthcare insurance.
Most people without healthcare insurance choose not to purchase healthcare insurance. The coverage is available, and if more healthy people purchased coverage rates would go down. Many who choose not to purchase the coverage are taking a calculated risk.
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Your description of the economic condition of Americans seems inaccurate to the point of disconnection, in view of the numbers that I've presented, ace...
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I disagree. I think there is a disconnect between the way people actually live and their perception of the way others live.
Compare your lifestyle to that of your parents, grandparents. Do you live better or worse? In my case, I did not grow up in a "leave it to Beaver" world. My dad worked two jobs, minimum 60 hours per week in a factory and he would work overtime at his primary job at every opportunity my mother worked too. I have never worked as hard as my parents and I would bet that is true of most Americans when compared to their parents. Yet, I have more material things than they ever dreamed of having.