http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/won ... e-it-easy/"... But I have a hard time understanding how you could read about the experience of families relying on food stamps to eat, or those trying to manage chronic conditions with Medicaid, and conclude that these people somehow have it easy. For context, here is a brief and wildly incomplete list of the ways life is "easy" when you're poor:
Compared to middle and upper-income Americans, the poor are three times less likely to have health insurance coverage, and more likely to put off or skip necessary medical treatment as a result;
They are three times more likely to be victimized by crime;
The daily stresses of living under poverty impose a cognitive burden equivalent to losing 13 IQ points;
Poor children are three times more likely to be affected by food scarcity and obesity;
Poor children receive a lower quality education in public school, and the ones who make it to college are more likely to drop out;
Poorer Americans breathe dirtier air, they sleep less, and the even have less sex;
And in the end all this "easy living" literally shaves decades off their lives.
The notion that poor people have it easy is at odds with the data. "
If 80% have beliefs "at odds with the data" what does that tell us about the group overall?
yrs,
rubato