Okay, as promised (threatened?) here 'tis.  Bring me your tired statistics, your poor hunches, your huddled anecdotes.  We'll figure something out.  I may even have some actual, y'know, facts waiting in the wings.

Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes

I think your description of American poverty is a microcosm of global poverty: the ever-increasing gap between rich and poor, an increasing many for whom the world system doesn't work. We refuse to admit how our affluent societies climbed to their lofty heights. The deregulation of the global system for the benefit of our corporations mimics the debasing of our social safety nets at home. The EU castle is lovely but there is an impoverished mob trying to cross the moat. The world economic system also doesn't work without the poor.

Here is the problem: we've all heard about the complementarity of inflation and unemployment. The problem is that policy analysis may look good on paper, but when you look up from the paper you realize you are making conscious decisions about allowing more actual people to become unemployed, or allowing actual people's savings to become devalued. And there is no way out from the moral quandary. There are indications that the economic system works most efficiently when a small fraction of the population is allowed to slip through the cracks. The problem is that noone likes to be the one slipping through the cracks. The analysis looks good on paper, but then you realize you're talking about actual people.

When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes

Poverty seems to be an economic phenomenon, and we notice it by its hallmark of material want.  But this is an illusion.  

Consider:  Henry VII of England could afford neither an air condition for hot days nor oil-furnace central heating for cold days;  He could not afford a CD player for his favorite music, nor a TV.  Most Americans can afford this much, and more.  So:  Was he poor?  Of course not.  

Less dramatically, when I was traveling in India a couple of decades ago, it occurred to me that if the poor of America could move to India with their incomes, they would be modestly well off.  But of course that could not happen, and it does not work that way.  Instead they have to live in America and be subject, because of material want, to daily contempt.  The expressing and receiving of contempt is the whole point.  

Poverty is the natural compliment to wealth.  When some members of a society manage to have assigned to themselves special value in that society, greater than other members, and then arrange to have that status marked by the accumulation of material goods and the material deprivation of others, then we have wealth and poverty.  

Wealth/poverty is a single thing, and America we have a very, very great wealth/poverty.  

The opposite of wealth/poverty is prosperity, where no member of society is greatly valued above another, and where there is no great material accumulation and deprivation.  Whereas wealth/poverty focuses on accumulation/deprivation, prosperity focuses on maintaining a material flow.  

Are many Americans in material distress?  Sure, as the recent events in New Orleans makes vivid.  I don't mean the hurricane damage, per se, though that was one thing.  Rather, Katrina pulled back the veil.  

While I thought Coleman's diary was both interesting and important, I quickly became more interested in the off-topic sidetrack that developed, so thanks for providing space to pursue those thoughts.

My very naive views - I'm an American who knows little about European political systems or daily life. I have traveled there a few times (mainly to France), and I've learned a great deal more in the past year from reading blogs like this one, but I still feel very ignorant.

So some random thoughts. On one trip to Europe, I kept hearing, "Americans are so rich!" which I found very puzzling, in a way. Of course, many Americans are by any measure, rich. And our middle class generally has material possessions beyond those of most countries, even developed countries. But there seemed to be very little awareness of the millions of Americans struggling with deep poverty and how difficult it is for those trapped in poverty here to escape it. People who literally die for lack of health care. The homeless living under bridges. Elderly who die of heat or cold because they cannot afford to pay utility bills. Children who are hungry, young ones who are left home alone for lack of affordable child care. Addicts and the mentally ill who cannot get treatment because they cannot pay for it.

Do Europeans see this, do they have an idea of how many Americans I am describing?

Another thought - education was discussed in Coleman's diary. I am a professor, so this is a topic close to home.

1) The inequalities of our primary and secondary schools: A few years ago, the value of my home dropped $10,000 overnight (I live in a modest home, it's value was about $80,000 at the time, so we are talking about a significant decline). Why? Because the geographical lines that determine which school children will attend, based on their address, were redrawn. Children on my street, who had previously been assigned to go to a "good" high school would now be required to attend a "not-so-good" high school. I should say that even the second school is better than many in our city.

A "good" school is clean and pleasant and well-equipped. A wide variety of advanced courses are offered. Class sizes are small, or at least reasonable. There are teacher's aides and counselors and advisors who are competent and dedicated. Extra-curricular activities are plentiful - sport teams yes, but also drama clubs and debate teams, etc and these are supported financially by the parents. Of course, these schools are located in the affluent parts of town and the children of the well-to-do attend them. Most significantly, most of the best-qualified and most talented teachers prefer to teach in such schools and since these types of teachers are in demand, they usually (eventually) end up in these schools.

The "bad" schools? Well, just reverse all of the above. And of course, they end up with the marginally qualified, or even the truly unqualified teachers. (Many teachers in America are assigned to teach subjects in which they have no training at all - especially, of course, in the "bad" schools. Although laws exist requiring that teachers be "qualified," a temporary teaching certificate can be issued, declaring for example that one with a degree in literature is now authorized to teach algebra or biology and - presto! - this person is now "qualified.")

2) So of course, this has a huge impact on whether or not a high school graduate continues on to the college or university level. Begin with money. When I first attended the state university in my city, tuition and fees for one semester was about $50 for a state resident, and textbooks could be bought for about the same - so after coming up with about $100, all I had to figure out how to pay for was my living expenses while I went to college. I generally had a part-time job and managed to get by (with roommates) without much trouble.

Now? Well the same university charges $3719 for tuition and fees per semester. They estimate $400 for textbooks (a low figure in my experience). So where I could get a college education for about $800 (eight semesters), the charges today would be almost $33,000. Even allowing for inflation, this is a very different situation from the one that existed in the mid-60's.

Well, but there is financial aid for low income students, yes? Umm, yes and no. More and more aid is now "need blind" meaning that it is awarded based on academic qualifications alone, so it is available to the children of the wealthy on an equal footing with the children of the poor. But wait - the children of the wealthy went to the "good" schools, so who do you think will have the better SAT scores? Meanwhile the pool of money available to be awarded based on financial need shrinks.

The financial aid available to those who are not academic all-stars is generally loans. Now a middle or upper class family will likely be comfortable with large loans. They have mortgages and car loans, maybe loans to start a business, so they see college loans as an investment worth making. But the poor are renters who often find just coming up with a month's rent difficult. If they own a car, it is probably an old junker they paid a few hundred dollars cash for. The idea of starting out in life with $34,000 worth of debt is terrifying.

So they try to go to school while working full time. They go a semester and then drop out for a year or two and save their money, and then attempt another semester. It can take ten years or more to get a degree at this pace, and in the meantime, well, mom gets sick and can't work so they have to go back home and support their younger brothers and sisters, or they have a child of their own, or well, life happens. So they often give up before finishing.

And how are they doing academically when they are in school? There are successes, of course, but most struggle. It's hard to do college level work while working full-time. And remember, they came from the "bad" schools, so they had mostly unqualified, mediocre teachers (with, if they were lucky one or two of the dedicated and wonderful teachers that insist on teaching at "bad" schools because they know how needed they are there). There were few or no advanced classes. The school library has gotten no new books in years. The computers are old and there aren't enough of them. There are better libraries in town, but to get there you need bus fare, at least.

Oh good Lord. I just noticed how long this comment is, and how late it is on our side of the pond. Anyway, I'll post it in spite of its length - I'm describing my students here. I see how much easier it is for the children of the affluent and middle class to get a college degree and how difficult it is for my students who come from poverty to use education to escape from it. Even though, by simply being in one of my classes, they are the "fortunate poor." I never even see the vast majority of the children of the poor - those who dropped out of school when they were waylaid by drugs or gangs or teenage pregnancy or the need to leave school and go to work to help support their families before finishing.

So how is it in Europe? Are the poor as poor? Are there as many of them? Are there such great inequalities in pre-university education? Is it as difficult to succeed at the college level for the children of the poor who manage to get in the door of the university? (Yes, I know, every European country is different, and there are great differences here state-to-state, but we have to start somewhere.)

Although I have a slight suspicion that you were partly thinking of my diary on wealth and poverty in Poland I actually mostly agree with you. There is a poverty trap in the US and it is extremely difficult to get out of and that it is as you say, a lack of 'jobs, education, skills, and opportunity.' Stats showing that plenty of poor people do move up are flawed because they are actually describing students who are poor at least in terms of formal income (i.e. not counting parental help and loans) but who quickly do well once they get out. At any given point they are a small portion of the low income group, but as they are a constantly replenished set, cumulatively they make up a large portion of those who at one point or another were in the bottom quintile. A more telling picture of class mobility compares where people end up relative to their parents, and there the picture is quite static. But in my opinion the most telling statistic about the bankruptcy of the American economic model is that median wages have stayed flat since the early seventies in spite of very substantial real per-capita growth. All that extra wealth has gone to the top fifth of society with a strong tilt to the top one percent.

The only parts where I disagree with you is about the poor not appearing in the stats - they do, and that relative to much poorer countries all classes of Americans are generally better off.

The obvious one that everybody knows is universal health care. Another would be to lessen the inequality of education by removing the link between place of residence and school, making schools open to everybody in a broader region with competitive entrance exams. That would still leave the better off with an advantage but it would at least allow the poor some access to good quality education and help make the housing market a bit less insane.

Traditionally both America and Europe segregated their schooling by class but in very different ways. In America technically all people had access to the same sort of schools that could lead to a higher education. Of course in practice certain school districts were very good, others very bad. In Europe on the other hand what you got was a three track system - university track, middle track, and apprenticeship track.  Admission to the top track was open to all, but some were more equal than others. Like everywhere in the world, the children of the well educated (and thus generally better off) were more likely to get into the university track high schools. Plus it was typical for borderline bourgeois students to get in while borderline working class kids were steered to lower tracks. And the wealthy and upper middle class used private schools as a fallback option if their kids were too dumb to get into public ones. The result - excellent quality public high schools open to all in theory, but mainly populated by the children of the bourgeoisie and a perpetuation of the class system.  Over the past couple decades there has been a shift, formal or de facto, to universal high school education. At the same time I've seen increasing complaints that schools in poor areas are worse quality than those in better off ones.

Here are some data to chew on.

There's been a fair amount of discussion of education issues in this thread (quite understandably), and so it may be useful to take a look at measures of child poverty. Unicef publishes Child poverty in rich countries 2005 which is really worth looking at. Unicef examines the situation in the richer countries of the world, which seems to fit the discussion here. The report also has a clear and useful discussion of measurement questions.

Here is a graph you won't find in the report, but which is based on data given p21:

Child poverty rate in percent, 2000 (threshold 50% of median income)
and change from 1991 to 2000

The graph is from the French economics monthly Alternatives Economiques, special number Les chiffres de l'économie 2006. Not online. Label translation/pasting mine.

What's immediately striking is that initial child poverty levels are similarly high in France, the UK, and the US, but that after social transfers (earned income tax credit, welfare benefits, etc) the situations are radically different. The French number jumps way down (though 7.5% is still 7.5% too much), the UK number by a more moderate amount, and the US number hardly at all. Now here we can fairly identify a difference, not so much in the existence of poverty, as in the treatment of poverty.

Here's a second graph, which is not based on the Unicef report, but on Eurostat figures (so no US, I'm afraid). This one also shows the before and after social transfers numbers, plus a measure of "persistent poverty", defined by Eurostat as living in poverty for at least four years together.

Alternatives Economiques, special number Les chiffres de l'économie 2006. Not online. Label translation/pasting mine.

Here again, initial poverty levels are fairly similar, but social transfers bring them down -- more in Germany than in France, for example (though these numbers are for 2001 and there may have been some change since). Useful: EU15 included.

These two graphs don't use the same measure of poverty (Unicef chooses 50% of median income, Eurostat 60% of median income), but we only need look at them relatively rather than absolutely.

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

In this afternoon's Le Monde, this big number, from a World Bank study:

En cinq ans, le nombre de pauvres a baissé de 40 millions en Europe de l'Est et dans l'ex-Union soviétique

In 5 years, the number of poor people in Eastern Europe and the FSU went down by 40 million

Cent deux millions de pauvres en 1998 en Europe de l'Est, 61 millions en 2003. C'est l'impressionnant décompte effectué par la Banque mondiale dans une étude, publiée mercredi 12 octobre, et qui s'intitule "Growth, Poverty and Inequality in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union" (Croissance, pauvreté et inégalités en Europe de l'Est et en ex-Union soviétique).

102 M in 1998, 61 M in 2003 are the impressive numbers published by the World Bank in "Growth, Poverty and Inequality in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union"

Pour effectuer son calcul, l'institution a choisi de retenir comme critère de pauvreté extrême celui de personnes vivant avec moins de 2 dollars par jour  et non celui, traditionnel, de 1 dollar  afin de tenir compte des dépenses additionnelles, notamment de vêtements et de chauffage, nécessaires pour vivre dans cette région froide.

The criteria for poverty was 2$/day, equivalent to 1$/day in less cold climates.

Alors que 20 % de la population vivaient dans la pauvreté en 1998, soit une personne sur cinq, ils n'étaient plus que 12 % en 2003 (une personne sur huit).

The poverty rate is down from 20% to 12%

(...)

Durant la période 1998-2003, la pauvreté a baissé dans tous les pays de la zone étudiée, sauf trois : Pologne, Lituanie et Géorgie.

During that period, poverty went down in all countries except three: Poland, Lithuania and Georgia.

(...)

Les économistes ont aussi passé en revue les mesures  non monétaires  de la pauvreté. "Les tendances de l'accès à l'éducation, aux soins de santé, à l'eau et au chauffage sont très variables.

The World Bank economists also looked at non-monetary criteria for poverty: access to education, healthcare, water and heating. Evolutions vary wildly.

(...)

Et ce sont plus de 150 millions d'individus qui étaient économiquement "vulné ra bles" , selon la Banque mondiale, c'est-à-dire qu'ils disposaient quotidiennement de moins de 4 dollars.

Poverty remains prevalent in the region.  There are an additional 150 million who live with less than 4$/day.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes