There was a no good, quite bad article by Michael Green that went viral. The condensed version was entitled ‘The Valley of Death: Why $100,000 Is the New Poverty,’ and a follow-up here.

His actual claim in that post, which was what caught fire, was that the poverty line should be $140,000, and even that this number is him ‘being conservative.’

Obviously that is not remotely true, given that:

Today's post covers this narrow question as background, including Green's response.

If you’ve already had your fill of that, including ‘well, yes, obviously, how are we bothering with all this, I know it went viral but someone was being Wrong On The Internet’ then you are not wrong. You can safely skip this post. It's fine.

I’m writing this as a lead-in to broader future discussions of the underlying questions:

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Outline:

(01:51) None Of This Makes Any Sense

(03:40) Let's Debunk The Whole Calculation Up Front

(07:52) The Debunking Chorus

(12:12) Okay It's Not $140k But The Vibes Mean Something

(13:34) Needing Two Incomes Has A High Cost

(17:31) I Lied...

(21:41) ...But That's Not Important Right Now

(21:55) Poverty Trap

(24:48) Poverty Trap Versus Poverty Line

(28:04) Double or Nothing

The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.

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First published:

Source:

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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