Sure - the net result of this is that American poor people live in larger and much higher quality homes. Wouldn't that reduce stress?
Maybe; except some, small but significant, number of poor people can't even afford homes (at least at some point and for varying lengths of time). And that definitely does not reduce stress (for most of these people).
But (most) people care more that their house is small-er or worse – than their neighbor's house – than that their house is 'objectively' small or bad. [Which it probably isn't, given that people seem to be mostly happy elsewhere in the world, in space and time, living in much smaller and crappier housing.]
By 'relative' poverty I was referring to exactly what you mention, e.g. being in "the bottom 10%". It doesn't matter that the bottom 10% today in the U.S. are in the top < 5% (?) worldwide or the top 1% over a long enough time-span. Poverty sucks (mostly) because it is having less than others. Note that this is an empirical (and uncertain) claim based on my understanding (and memory) of what I've read about the relative research.
The only solution to this I could see is status based segregation - allow everyone to be high status within a narrow community.
This is a real phenomenon and it's already happening and it may in fact be an existing and positive force for good in terms of increasing human happiness. People, generally, care a LOT about their (relative) status in their community/communities.
But 10% of the population has always been in the bottom 10%. How can you use a constant timeseries to explain a time varying one?
Also, even assuming relative inequality is what matters, why does it matter only within national boundaries? If this were true, couldn't we re-draw boundaries to fix the problem? I.e., we could make NYC into a Luxembourg-like rich nation, West Virginia into an Italy-like poor nation, and solve everything?
> Also, even assuming relative inequality is what matters, why does it matter only within national boundaries? If this were true, couldn't we re-draw boundaries to fix the problem? I.e., we could make NYC into a Luxembourg-like rich nation, West Virginia into an Italy-like poor nation, and solve everything?
I think human emotion is more complicated than that. One's perception of his/her own economical situation can be influenced from what is seen on tv and other country-wide media.
Maybe; except some, small but significant, number of poor people can't even afford homes (at least at some point and for varying lengths of time). And that definitely does not reduce stress (for most of these people).
But (most) people care more that their house is small-er or worse – than their neighbor's house – than that their house is 'objectively' small or bad. [Which it probably isn't, given that people seem to be mostly happy elsewhere in the world, in space and time, living in much smaller and crappier housing.]
By 'relative' poverty I was referring to exactly what you mention, e.g. being in "the bottom 10%". It doesn't matter that the bottom 10% today in the U.S. are in the top < 5% (?) worldwide or the top 1% over a long enough time-span. Poverty sucks (mostly) because it is having less than others. Note that this is an empirical (and uncertain) claim based on my understanding (and memory) of what I've read about the relative research.
The only solution to this I could see is status based segregation - allow everyone to be high status within a narrow community.
This is a real phenomenon and it's already happening and it may in fact be an existing and positive force for good in terms of increasing human happiness. People, generally, care a LOT about their (relative) status in their community/communities.