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The Guardian’s latest report

They want to tell us how horrible water prices are in the US. They’ve not proofread very well:

12 Federal Poverty Level varies based on household size. As household size increases, so, too, does the PovertyLevel. The Poverty Level for a household with two persons, for example, is higher than for a household with three persons. The Poverty Level for a household with three persons is higher than for a household with two persons. Andso forth”

Not only is that wrong even when corrected it’s still an appallingly clumsy manner of explaining it.

7 thoughts on “The Guardian’s latest report”

  1. But it’s basic arithmetic that more people in a household means more money needed not to be poor, and we know Guardian writers are severely challenged by arithmetic. We should applaud their commitment to inclusion of the innumerate.

  2. They could always stop having children they can’t afford and, instead, expect others to pony up the cash to raise their crotchfruit.

    In fact that’s something that wouldn’t be wrong in this country either.

  3. @ PJH,what does “afford” mean?
    For most of history and in most places now it meant and means “able to supply subsistence level food, clothing and shelter with the children contributing according to their capacity”.
    Nowadays in the West parents are expected to do without children’s income, provide clothes well above those needed for subsistence, shelter ditto, and usually to find such things as school trips at a minimum, all up to the age of eighteen.
    So what is a family who are willing to have children on a subsistence basis to do in a society that outlaws this? And who should pay, the society that insists on the higher standard or the family that can’t afford it from its own resources?

  4. @Pat “what does “afford” mean?”

    It means being able to, for example, feed and house one’s own kids, without the expectation – nay; demand – that everyone else will be chipping in for most, if not all, of the cost.

    Things like education, health, I can see a need for everyone to chip in, but to extend that to basically paying other people to have kids when the parents themselves contribute very little?

  5. To address this we could maybe, ooo, I dunno, send the primary carer fifteen quid each week for each child and let each child have access to free education and free medical care.

  6. The Guardian doesn’t do numbers and believe that in a just, fair and equal world numbers would be irrelevant.

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