 Quote by ParticleGrl
The OECD measures poverty using INCOME, not income inequality. Its logically possible to have a high-income gini coefficient society with everyone is above a poverty line.
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Could you source that please? When I noticed the poverty rate provided for the US in Laurie's link was much higher than the US gov't reports, I googled and found this:
Quote by wiki
The main poverty line used in the OECD and the European Union is based on "economic distance", a level of income set at 60% of the median household income.[21]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty
That may also be some sloppy wording on my part, as that isn't gini per se, but something related --- still, that doesn't seem to match what you said.
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I'm not sure the OECD definition is very different from your definition. Certainly I consider food, shelter, clothing and medical 'basic needs'?
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You misread: I'm saying their
definition doesn't match their
measurement. But until we get the measurement clarified, that might be moot...
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Obviously, using an income level is a proxy for counting those families who cannot afford food,housing,clothing,etc, but I don't see a cheap way to collect that sort of data without using income as a proxy.
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Clearly, but I also don't think it would be all that difficult to use surveys of those actual quality of life items. But then, if we did a survey for lack of food, lack of housing and lack of clothing, we'd get virtually
zero poverty in every developed nation and I don't think that that's a desirable result.
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This statement is the real reason I've responded to this post. I think the phrase "equality of outcome" (and its bastard brother "equality of opportunity") is a straw-man that no one thinks is desirable.
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I strongly disagree. I think that while there is often some obfuscation, there is no other reasonable way to characterize forced redistribution of resources than "equality of outcome".
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I have no real intuition for this either way- but do the more conservative members of this forum TRULY believe that liberals/progressives/more leftish people truly want everyone to have the same outcome? Because if this is the case, we have serious and fundamental miscommunications.
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Not
exactly equal, no, just
more equal (with rarely a definition of how equal). If you thought I meant that "equality of outcome" was intended to be complete, that's not what I intended to convey.