My friend and fellow Rush fan Steve Horwitz has a new blog post up about the economic conditions of the poor in America. Steve is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Economics at St. Lawrence University, and has been following this data closely over the years.

His compilation of the historical data (from www.census.gov):

% Households with: Poor 1984 Poor 1994 Poor 2003 Poor 2005 All 1971 All 2005
Washing machine 58.2 71.7 67.0 68.7 71.3 84.0
Clothes dryer 35.6 50.2 58.5 61.2 44.5 81.2
Dishwasher 13.6 19.6 33.9 36.7 18.8 64.0
Refrigerator 95.8 97.9 98.2 98.5 83.3 99.3
Freezer 29.2 28.6 25.4 25.1 32.2 36.6
Stove 95.2 97.7 97.1 97.0 87.0 98.8
Microwave 12.5 60.0 88.7 91.2 1.0 96.4
Color TV 70.3 92.5 96.8 97.4 43.3 98.9
VCR 3.4 59.7 75.4 83.6 0.0 92.2
Personal computer 2.9 7.4 36.0 42.4 0.0 67.1
Telephone 71.0 76.7 87.3 79.8 93.0 90.6
Air conditioner 42.5 49.6 77.7 78.8 31.8 85.7
Cellular Telephone 34.7 48.3 0.0 71.3
One or more cars 64.1 71.8 72.8 (2001) 79.5

Note that the standard of living for America’s poor has been steadily rising. As Steve points out, poor Americans today largely live better than the average American did 35 years ago.