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comment by steve
steve  ·  2956 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Everyone in America is More Broke Than You Think - What About You, Hubski?

    Why does the poverty line increase when there are more mouths to feed in a household? The Department of Health and Human Services appears to recognize that people, on average, create more than they consume, which goes a long way to explaining the success of our species.

I know my experience varies wildly from most... but as a single income household full of kids... I have basically impoverished myself. The poverty line goes up because children are FRIGGING EXPENSIVE. it's not just food. It's clothes. It's seats in a car. It's school field trips and supplies. It's co-pays and hospital visits.





wasoxygen  ·  2956 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yeah, I think I got this point exactly backwards. When you have more household members, you need more income to get by and stay under [edit: over, duh] the higher poverty line. This reflects the pattern that "additional household members" are usually children, and when they grow up and start earning their own income they usually move to their own household.

Children are frigging expensive. I've seen "total cost of ownership" numbers estimated, including higher education, and it ends up sounding like "have kids or retire 20-30 years early."

This article, and the one I mentioned in response, focus on household income, not well-being, so the children are left out of the picture. But I don't think this changes the explanation of the gap.