The fear of insufficient calories to survive is all but eradicated. Obesity is the new marker of poverty.
Agreed on lack of housing, which is largely due to progressive local governments preventing the construction of new housing. Housing is far more plentiful and cheaper in red states.
Agreed on health. Replace the US system wholesale with one of the many more successful models in other countries. Ironically, our existing government run programs are already better in terms of cost and quality than private insurance.
Recent unemployment rates reflect essentially full employment.
> The fear of insufficient calories to survive is all but eradicated. Obesity is the new marker of poverty.
Tell that to the millions of families in the US who are food insecure TODAY. And calories alone are not enough.
"the USDA found that nearly 7 million households were so financially squeezed last year that they had to skip meals at times because there wasn't enough food to go around. Almost all of these households said they couldn't afford to eat balanced meals." ~NPR
As for employment, that 4.3% unemployment (per MSNBC on 8/3/24) still represents some 13 million people. I'd hesitate to call that "full employment" by any metric. And it doesn't count the other roughly 20% who are not counted in that statistic who are not working (intentionally or not).
It's a departure from what we previously worried about - people not having food to eat.
Look at the definition of "low food security" - the most extreme food insecurity the USDA measures.
Low food security — These food-insecure households obtained enough food to avoid substantially disrupting their eating patterns or reducing food intake by using a variety of coping strategies, such as eating less varied diets, participating in Federal food assistance programs, or getting food from community food pantries.
"obtained enough food to avoid substantially disrupting their eating patterns or reducing food intake". So none of these people actually didn't have enough food to eat, they just had to change how they got their food.
Agreed on lack of housing, which is largely due to progressive local governments preventing the construction of new housing. Housing is far more plentiful and cheaper in red states.
Agreed on health. Replace the US system wholesale with one of the many more successful models in other countries. Ironically, our existing government run programs are already better in terms of cost and quality than private insurance.
Recent unemployment rates reflect essentially full employment.
So a mixed bag.