Thank you for your feedback. I can see your point. I admit I live a very comfortable life now. But when I was a child in Asia, we did not have running water in our house. We had a public platform with 6 faucets and 60 families share them. We had to stand in line to wash our vegetables. Often we went to the creek to wash vegetables, and people were dumping trash upstream.
Having multiple low paying jobs is not a solution. To get ahead, it requires smart planning, e.g., delay child birth, have fewer kids, get education, learn marketable skills, take care of one's health. My mother only went to school for a week. She could barely write her name. With 6 children, she also made hairnets at home to supplement income. She had no stove and had to make fire everyday. yet she cooked fresh vegetables for us everyday,
I do not know how many Americans living in the conditions you described. I have seen public housing. They have running water, refrigerator, flush toilet, hot shower. Much better than the rich people's houses in the place I came from. If you are referring to the living condition of poor foreigners who came her to seek a better life, I am sorry. They will have to endure the hardship for a while. When I came to the US I lived in a poor house where only the poor foreign students lived. Yet I did not ask the US government to help me, because I had chosen to come here myself.
Small kitchen space is no excuse for a poor diet. To save money, once I lived in a 250 sq ft apartment next to a university. The counter top next to the kitchen sink was only the size of a notebook. yet I cooked my healthy meal everyday.
I agree that people without a car can't go to stores. (I did not have a car for many years.) I also agree that inner cities have crummy supermarket. But most Americans do not buy fresh produce anyway. I have been watching people's shopping cart at the check out line for 30 years. I often see people paying over $100, yet their carts are only cans, bottles, and packages. The only vegetables they would buy is a bag of garden salad and two tomatoes. Even when broccoli is on sale for $1 a bunch , few would buy it. The produce prices are so high because low sale volume causes spoilage. In a poor military town nearby, fresh produce is much cheaper due to a large Asian population who like vegetables.
Americans do not like healthy food. School cafeterias have to serve pizzas instead of broccoli because students do not eat the latter and it just gets wasted. It is true that most poor people are unhealthy. But obesity, diabetis, heart problems, cancers, etc. are NOT limited to poor people.
To sum up, I came from EXTREME poverty, but I rose above my station, because I am from a culture which emphasizes self-empowerment. Had I been born to a poor family in the US, I am very sure that I'd be poor, obese and sick today.
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