Poverty in America/Hawaii

[AlohaSteven]

Does anyone know the poverty rate for Hawaii?

The answer to this worthy question might also depend on how "poverty" is defined, not just in terms of dollars per person but at a deeper level. Dollars of income per person can be an indicator but, myself, I do not see this figure as really describing the most important aspects involved with the phenomenon of poverty. Also, just to be clear, this not to necessarily agree a low dollars per person figure equates to an undesirable situation in all regards -or conversely that a high dollars per person equates to a desirable situation.

While more the exception than the rule, during my years living overseas and on more recent travels through other nations I have lived with and observed people who by standard American government "dollar per person" measures should be mired in misery, ignorance, ill health, and deprivation yet who were actually very happy and healthy people. We do not need to look overseas to find examples of people who have money squirting out their ears yet who are miserable, ignorant, in ill health, and while not living in material deprivation definitely are not happy and healthy.

Another perspective stemming from my time overseas might be summarized as "That which Americans generally call poverty and lack of opportunity inside the United States is not even remotely what genuine poverty and lack of opportunity actually look like in reality." In a relative sense America's poor bask in cushy circumstances with opportunities abounding all around them. The situation in the USA, especially in abundantly-blessed Hawaii, is not even remotely comparable to the harsh reality for hundreds of millions of genuinely poverty-stricken individuals and families languishing elsewhere around the planet.

Does anyone know the poverty rate for Hawaii? My opinion is that the poverty rate in Hawaii is much higher than it needs to be, regardless of how poverty is defined and measured, yet the qualitative nature of poverty is significantly different than most who would see themselves as poverty-stricken would recognize.


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