The Poor Getting Richer

While many people like to show how the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer this clearly is not the case. Often times people complain of how the poor can't make ends meet. My response might be what ends are they trying to meet? Data from the Census bureau confirms that the poor have improved their quality of living over time. For instance only 3.4% of people below the poverty line in 1984 were able to afford VCR's by 2005 more than 92.2% of the people below the poverty line had a VCR. Technology, innovation, and competition brought down the price of VCR's and other goods so everyone including the poor could afford them. In addition to this the "poor" now almost all have telephones, refrigerators, stoves, and air conditioners. Another point to consider is if you asked a poor person what country they would live in I would be willing to bet money that a majority of them would say the United States. This of course doesn't say that the United States or capitalism is perfect. However, people must understand that in a world of scarce resources there are alternatives. Believing that there is some perfect system or utopian world is nonsense. Many times people complain of companies such as Nike or Wal-Mart participating in child labor. While this is an unpleasant situation people don't realize that people in these countries have very few alternatives. Employers have very little incentive to pay these people nothing given the employee some options in their employment. Some factories are flooded with so many applications that it takes months to hire people because so many people are trying to apply to these sweatshop jobs. My point however is that capitalism does help even the poor people even though you will hear how the poor or worse off and the rich are getting richer.