I never have met a disabled person who wants to receive “help” from substandard government programs. The poverty “level” does not consider how much is paid on rent, medical insurance and the cost of medicine, the true cost of utilities and food,etc. I make less than $900 per month but only allowed $30 of food stamps! We need to have a honest talk about poverty in this country! We are your neighbors, your family, your church members, and members of your community!

1. I think there have been some good comments that HAVE focused on the issues faced by the poor in a much more sympathetic way, such as this column by Ezra Klein: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-18/what-mitt-romney-doesn-t-get-about-responsibility.html We could use more comments like his and like yours.

2. It actually is NOT the case that the poverty line is calculated by multiplying the subsistence food budget by 3. Rather, at some point in the 1960s, the federal government simply started updating the poverty line based on increases in the overall CPI. The poverty line was originally set on the 3 times food budget basis back in the 1960s, but it wasn’t directly calculated that way very long. However, your larger point, that the standards of what is poor change with social norms, is unaffected by this technical point.