Since Ebay and other online money earning opportunities became prevalent, has the U.S. poverty rate gone down?
Now why would this lower the poverty rate? The poorest in society are among those with the least access to technology and the internet. They are among those with the least access to educational resources that could teach them about computers and the internet. People living at and below the poverty line, apart from the pseudo-poor student population, focus primarily on working and earning enough to help them pay their bills on a month-to-month basis. Computers represnt a substantial investment, less so today because the physical hardware is relatively inexpensive second-hand, but from other costs of ownership (e.g., software, high-speed internet access). These are the folks who pay $5 for cab fare home with the groceries – something many yack about as an example of the poor squandering money – because three or four $5 cab trips a month are much cheaper than paying car insurance, let alone all the other expenditures a car requires (e.g., license, maintenance, gas, oil, loan payments). Th
