How can you tell if Americans are "poor"?

A football coach is a secondary school teacher surely so middle class even if not so much money. The mother was a housewife and then church secretary.

Indeed! The good hair is more likely down to things like:

• regular salon visits for professional cut and color (vs botched box dye and an annual haircut at a beauty school)
• better diet which means hair looks healthier, shinier, etc
• better quality washing and styling products at home to keep hair looking its best
• more free time to spend on grooming
• lower average life stress levels, so less likely to experience stress-related hair loss

Or, like me, live with it the best way possible!

My God, the misconceptions are getting weird. 😆🙄

The median salary of a police detective or policeman in the US is $74,910/yr.
The pension they get is top-notch, and they only need 20 years (usually) to retire. If the detective in that series is living in a run-down area, then she is spending money other places because she would be well over the average.

I have never met a policeman or detective who was living in a run-down area or close to a bread-line existence, unless it was by choice or city charter (where city employees have to live in the city/town they serve). Even then, they live in the better areas.

There really isn't much alternative to some kind of wig if you're losing your hair. None of the purported remedies work very well. The cost varies hugely depending on what you get. (Orthodox Jewish women often wear wigs so I have some familiarity with the topic.) A really good, hand tied, virgin hair wig can be $10,000. Black women also often wear wigs, though they don't always favour such expensive ones. (I did read a New York Times piece about the wigmaker who does Naomi Campbell's, though!) If your hair isn't that bad, a good stylist can do wonders, though.

Because there's so many types of holidays you can have without going abroad, even many middle class people won't bother getting a passport unless they have a trip planned. I daresay if Europe weren't so close, and people didn't want mountains or the beach, a lot of British people wouldn't have passports either. For Americans, travel overseas is a big deal, and it does get expensive nowadays. It's not even the vacation time, because if you can afford to go to Europe in the first place you're going to be in a position to have it. If you're close enough to either border to drive, then it's another matter. There's loads of car traffic across both borders.

Americans and Canadians are, in general, willing to drive surprisingly long distances rather than fly. It's cultural as well as financial and logistical.

If nature hasn't provided, they likely have extensions, hair pieces, or even full wigs. All human hair, often bespoke, and very expensive.

Oh, and speaking of "To Kill a Mockingbird" and the subject of this thread, when Scout asks Atticus if they are poor, he says, "We are indeed." It was the Depression, of course, when many people were struggling financially. But nothing about their life indicates genuine poverty. Atticus is a lawyer, he employs a full-time housekeeper/nanny, they want for nothing. He does say they are "not exactly" as poor as the Cunninghams (and they are nowhere near as poor as the Ewells, not to mention the Black residents of the town), but it's an interesting take on how poverty was perceived in an earlier era.

Teeth, I get. Anyone can pay gazillions (provided they have it) and get amazing teeth.

But what do wealthier/ middle class American ladies do if they've got thinning, rubbish hair?

Every wealthy looking person seems to have thick, glossy rich-person hair. HOW?

Incorrect regional dialects in TV and movies drive me insane! They need to hire better dialect coaches in Hollywood. I recently rewatched the film version of To Kill a Mockingbird for the millionth time. It was such a pleasure to hear the authentic accents of the main child actors. Gregory Peck, on the other hand, sounds exactly like what he was: a Californian trying to impersonate an Alabaman. 😅 He's such a good actor that I can forgive him. But with lesser actors, it can be incredibly annoying.

Definitely are.

I remember when my parents drove my sister and I into Canada through Detroit. It was like going through a toll road. It was a little over an eight hour drive from our home so not far really.

I think it's only since 9/11 that you need a passport for Mexico and Canada from the US.

Yeah, the poor ones don’t go far. They might take a road trip. They won’t be able to afford to fly to any tropical islands.

An American could take a holiday every single year and go someplace completely different, all without a passport. That includes multiple tropical island destinations.

People don’t bother getting a passport until they are taking a trip abroad because they expire.

the standard for ID is a state issued card, either driver or non-driver, and pretty much everyone 16+ has one. My dc started carrying one at 14.

Before passport cards, one could drive into Canada or Mexico with just a U.S. drivers license if I remember correctly.

It used to be that you didn't even need a driver's license to enter Canada or Mexico. Any form of ID was fine, a school ID or voter registration card or whatever. Alas, those days are long gone.

I remember a news segment when there was a major hurricane heading towards land and people were told to evacuate. Some people couldn’t because they didn’t have enough money for petrol so they had to stay

It’s not the $30 for the card so much as knowing they will never afford to go even to Canada, Mexico or on a Caribbean/Bermuda cruise ever in their life….holidays that are cheaper than it costs for a U.K. family to go to Benidorm.
So they don’t bother paying for one.

The US doesn’t use passports as a common form of ID like we do here. It’s usually drivers licence.

Yes, if they can’t afford a $30 passport card.

There are passport cards and passports.

The U.S. passport card may only be used for international travel by land or sea between the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda.

Regular passport allows international flight.

Before passport cards, one could drive into Canada or Mexico with just a U.S. drivers license if I remember correctly.

"Unless TV shows are really pushing for authenticity they don't make actors pick up local accents. "

Whereas in the UK they're supposed to try at least.
What gets me is when they completely mix it up. In Young Sheldon, some of them have a Texas, or at least southern, accent and some don't. Young Sheldon himself doesn't, which you could sort of explain away by his being 'aspirational' and copying posher accents from TV and radio, but in The Big Bang Theory he does have the accent.

One way to tell if an American is poor is they have no passport because they know they will never be able to afford a trip outside the US.

I agree. US shows always show “regular” white people characters living far beyond their means. Ethnic minorities they tend to stereotype.

@LadeOde , apologies I may not have been very clear. But in Europe and many parts of the world, anyone can play football, as it requires so few pieces of equipment; only one ball. In British Colombia all one needed was a pair of trainers, and so anyone could speed / power walk. Those considered poor were those who didn't even manage that. Playing beach volleyball in the park was another all inclusive sport, akin to football in Europe.

One of the reasons Kate Winslet got so much praise for Mare of Easttown is that she did the accent and did it accurately, Philly/Delco is another hard one.

She was amazing with that accent. I lived in the Philadelphia area for several years, and I think that accent is difficult for non-natives to replicate. It is very distinctive and her mastery of it was one of the many things that made that series so outstanding.

For most TV audiences @knitnerd90 it's irrelevant. US accents have evened out across the country since I lived there. When I was buying a mailing list from NYC from a business in South Carolina in 1981, I had to ask the sales person to repeat everything. I have rarely felt so incompetent, but it also took me a while to follow Rab C Nesbitt. My posh Scottish friend never managed to find it funny.

Well also it's a TV show and the actors aren't natives. Unless TV shows are really pushing for authenticity they don't make actors pick up local accents. This is why Dominic West and Aiden Gillen got away with their accents on The Wire. A man of McNulty's age and social class would absolutely have a local accent and a white Baltimore working class accent is quite distinctive. Gillen does better, but not perfectly. (The word "Baltimore" is pronounced "Bawldimer" or "Bawlmer," for example. There's YouTube clips of real ones. Black Baltimoreans have a different accent.) One of the reasons Kate Winslet got so much praise for Mare of Easttown is that she did the accent and did it accurately, Philly/Delco is another hard one.

When I think NY accent, I think of Lillian from Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt because it reminds me of my visit to NYC and listening to true crime documentaries about the Son of Sam, David Berkowitz.