Article

2009-09-30 Economy

Buffalo named third-poorest city in U.S.

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Fred 2009-09-30 00:00|| || Front Page|| [5 views ] Top

#1 How does our 'poverty' level rank against that of, say, Mali or Bangladesh?

Posted by no mo uro 2009-09-30 05:59|| 2009-09-30 05:59|| Front Page Top

#2
And what percentage of these folks "in poverty" are overweight?

Posted by Parabellum 2009-09-30 08:23|| http://sidemeat.wordpress.com/]">[http://sidemeat.wordpress.com/] 2009-09-30 08:23|| Front Page Top

#3 recently saw a stat that the 'poorer' you are, the more obese.

think it was being used to spin more welfare dollars. :(

Posted by abu do you love ">abu do you love 2009-09-30 08:32|| 2009-09-30 08:32|| Front Page Top

#4 ..Mali or Bangladesh?

Or Haiti. Or for that matter what is the standard of poverty in Buffalo compared to poverty in Gallup, New Mexico or on the Sioux Reservation in the Dakotas. Wonder how many in Buffalo would want to swap places with those in poverty in the invisible flyover hinterlands.

Posted by Procopius2k 2009-09-30 08:39|| 2009-09-30 08:39|| Front Page Top

#5 Huh. Toledo's there at eighth. Seeing a pattern here, people? Cities on Lake Erie. Wonder what the common issue is. Although I'm pretty sure that some of Ohio's other problem cities aren't there just because they fell under the 250k threshold - Youngstown springs to mind.

Miami? How the hell can anyone afford to be impoverished in Miami?

Posted by Mitch H.">Mitch H. 2009-09-30 08:44|| http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/]">[http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/] 2009-09-30 08:44|| Front Page Top

#6 How the hell can anyone afford to be impoverished in Miami?

They have their Liberty City. Not the one in GTA, but the one featured sometimes in A&E's The First 48 (Hours) [reality homicide investigations].

Posted by Procopius2k 2009-09-30 09:27|| 2009-09-30 09:27|| Front Page Top

#7 Seems to be a rough trend... The longer the area has been under Democrat leadership, the higher the percentage of poverty.

Is it the Democrats' "punish achievement" that drive the "rich" away, or their 'subsidize failure' that keeps the "poor" poor?

Posted by abu do you love ">abu do you love 2009-09-30 09:29|| 2009-09-30 09:29|| Front Page Top

#8 Throw in the Donks and the left's unwilling to acknowledge human free will [to make bad choices] that undermines planning and resource allocation. The proverb stands - you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Just don't drag everyone else down for those who choose destructive or dead end life styles. Wealth or poverty doesn't make one inherently good or bad. It's one's choices that do.

Posted by Procopius2k 2009-09-30 09:46|| 2009-09-30 09:46|| Front Page Top

#9 This is why they call it the rust belt. Since WWII there has been a smart-money diaspora from these once-proud cities to lands w/better climates, economies, business prospects, governments and football teams.

Posted by regular joe 2009-09-30 11:27|| 2009-09-30 11:27|| Front Page Top

#10 New Orleans has moved from last place a few years ago to well above the national average now. Presumably all that Katrina insurance and government aid money cycling through the local economy. Thanks, America.

Posted by Glenmore 2009-09-30 11:27|| 2009-09-30 11:27|| Front Page Top

#11 Well, Glenmore, if you check the spike in crime in Houston following the post-Katrina diaspora you'd figured a good chunk of the destructive and non-productive elements found new and far more fertile hunting grounds and less reason to return to the ravaged pickings back in New Orleans.

Posted by Procopius2k 2009-09-30 11:45|| 2009-09-30 11:45|| Front Page Top

#12 Parabellum, you get high rates of obesity among the poor for the following reasons:
1. A lot of starch in the diet for families who have a low food budget;
2. Ignorance about reading food labels for nutritional value;
3. Ignorance about how to plan a balanced meal.
4. Crummy schools that, in their efforts to teach health and nutrition, don't do any better than they do with core subjects.
5. Supermarket chains that sell their crummier fruit in urban markets because the suburbanites won't buy anything with a little ding in it.

I once tried to explain to a lady in the supermarket that the bottled fruit drink she was buying had no food value, and that she could stretch her food stamps further if she bought a certain brand of inexpensive frozen juice concentrate. She didn't get it. It was all "juice" to her.

We had a neighbor family who never had any food in the house; the refrigerator was unplugged and the mom bought a lot of peanut butter and pizza and chips. The two daughters came over to my house a lot. I taught one of them how to sew, and I taught both of them a few cooking skills. I gave them permission to get snacks out of my fridge, and they chose apples and carrots every time. We went through a lot of apples and carrots.

Posted by mom">mom 2009-09-30 12:08|| 2009-09-30 12:08|| Front Page Top

#13 How many of the cities have DEMocrat mayors?

Posted by airandee 2009-09-30 13:56|| 2009-09-30 13:56|| Front Page Top

#14 Using income level without reference to cost of living really scews the results.

When you do that, El Paso and Miami will probably fall out of the bottom 10, Newark will probably be the worst (with a NYC cost of living), and Anchorage would fall out of the top 10 (extremely high cost of living in Alaska).

I bet LA would fall into bottom 10 adjusted for cost of living.

Posted by Frozen Al 2009-09-30 15:13|| 2009-09-30 15:13|| Front Page Top

#15 Seeing a pattern here, people? Cities on Lake Erie. Wonder what the common issue is

Oh Yo me an since all the polluting industries wer run out of the country?
All around the great lakes areas?

Why, Why, You POLLUTER, how dare you use FACTS against us RIGHTIOUS GREENIES, the HOLY Obama will Provide.

Posted by Redneck Jim 2009-09-30 17:48|| 2009-09-30 17:48|| Front Page Top

#16 re #12: mom, have you ever been to India? There are LOTS of very poor people there. There are also very few fat people.
"Poor" people in America are usually much richer than poor people in other countries.

Posted by Rambler in Virginia">Rambler in Virginia 2009-09-30 18:07|| 2009-09-30 18:07|| Front Page Top

#17 How does our 'poverty' level rank against that of, say, Mali or Bangladesh?

The Heritage Foundation examined this subject...just how poor are America's poor?...a couple of years ago.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg2064.cfm

Posted by Woozle Uneter9007 2009-09-30 19:09|| 2009-09-30 19:09|| Front Page Top

#18 All centers for the future OWG-NWO, NAU = NORAM FREE TRADE ZONES.

Multi-State, Multi-Natinal, Multi/Trans-Sovereign.

But I digress .......

Posted by JosephMendiola">JosephMendiola 2009-09-30 19:46|| na]">[na] 2009-09-30 19:46|| Front Page Top

#19 Yes, our poor have more resources than other countries' poor. They're still poor, they're still trapped in an ugly mess, and as noted elsewhere on the Burg, certain politicians are doing their damnedest to keep people there.

People look at obese poor people and say, "They're fat, so they can't be hungry." This is false.

People here on the Burg talk about consequences of poor choices. I have had some opportunity to mentor people who have no clue how to make good choices in the first place. I won't take up Fred's bandwidth with the details; but I have seen people, when given even a little direction and support, take control of their choices and make real progress.

Posted by mom">mom 2009-09-30 23:21|| 2009-09-30 23:21|| Front Page Top

#20 http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg2064.cfm

Thanks, Woozle Uneter9007, I bookmarked it.

mom, ditto. Formerly temporary daughter and part-time daughter, in my case. Not that either was technically poor, it's just their parents were, for various reasons, dangerously incapable.

Posted by trailing wife 2009-09-30 23:27|| 2009-09-30 23:27|| Front Page Top

23:58 Skunky Glins****
23:52 trailing wife
23:51 trailing wife
23:49 newc
23:48 trailing wife
23:47 newc
23:44 newc
23:42 newc
23:37 crazyhorse
23:36 Cornsilk Blondie
23:31 Woozle Uneter9007
23:31 gorb
23:27 trailing wife
23:26 Woozle Uneter9007
23:24 3dc
23:23 Barbara Skolaut
23:21 trailing wife
23:21 mom
23:19 trailing wife
23:18 gorb
23:18 Besoeker in Duitsland
23:07 Barbara Skolaut
22:54 borgboy
22:45 KBK