"Poor" - Depends On Who You Ask

We discussed what real wealth is in my previous post and how if you have no debt and some cash in your pocket, you are in the top 75% of Americans.  We had an ER bill that my insurance denied coverage saying it didn't meet "medical criteria" for a medical emergency.  On the third try, someone finally got it covered and upon notifying the hospital billing, I found out that they had already zeroed out the bill because they consider us poor.  We are so poor that they don't require any payment from us at all for our future hospital or ER visits - it is all covered at 100% and that is without insurance even.  We are poor according to who you ask...

Poor - hmm, I don't feel poor.  We have a nice 1500 sq. ft mobile home we rent that has 2 bathrooms, 3 bedrooms with big walk-in closets and our master bathroom has a garden tub.  We have a large pantry room between our living and dining rooms and we have a locked, electric-provided shed to use as storage and a nice-sized yard with a large deck.  Not just that but we drive a car that we own.  We have high-speed internet at 100 Mbps, a home phone and even a cell phone.  We buy healthy food and most of it is organic and we sometimes eat out.  We don't have any government assistance and buy insurance for most of the crucial things.  This is what "poor" looks like to our state.

It was great to know our bill was taken care of but then it was weird thinking that they consider my husband's pay covering the 4 of us as poverty.  I thought poverty was where you live in shack, only have rice and beans all day and have no transportation.  Our family is poor but we are richer than 25% of Americans put together as we have no debt.  Compared to the world - we are in the 1%, as are most Americans.

I laugh at the thought of us being "poor."  It just isn't so.  I'm guessing they get those numbers based on family size by going by the "average" American that has debt up to their eyeballs and mortgages that are too big for their income.  We are part of the "weird" Americans that have no debt and plan only buying a house that they can afford at 25% of our pay and save for the future - and that makes us "poor" to the government (who is in debt up to their eyeballs btw).