How can you tell if Americans are "poor"?

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Like most of us I watch quite a bit of US drama and box sets but remain baffled about the characters based on things like the house they live in etc...

Can American audiences tell that someone is poor or rich (or in between) based on things such as house size, style of house and other things that are part of TV series?

I know (well think I do so not assuming - please correct if wrong!) that middle and working class may mean different things to UK - but can US viewers pick up more based on cultural norms and things that may need explaining to non-American audiences?

An example is I watched some episodes of True Detective and thought the house was lovely and spacious but everything else in the plot pointed to the fact that this was a "poor rundown neighbourhood with substance issues etc..."

Are there any rules of thumb? Do American audiences get confused my things like this when watching UK or European dramas?

That's much the same in many countries. The British class system is very different to most others, and much more damaging and restrictive in my opinion.

No-one where I live would describe themselves as belonging to any class (well some would maybe, but no-one takes any notice of them!)

The closest that comes to a class system is when people talk about blue and white collar workers, the latter being supposedly lower on the ladder. Even that is debatable since a trained accredited manual laborer can expect exceptional compensation.

Wikipedia has an article that tries to disambiguate the terminology, but I still don’t hear people use the term “working class”, and I’ve rarely heard “upper class”, either. I’m sure this is for reasons of political correctness and also the lack of any defined social hierarchy, i.e. there are no lords and ladies, etc.

Don't kid yourself. America has a class system as rigid as the UK's. It's not about class as understood in the UK and not just about money either. Success is more likely if you are clever with beautiful manners and charm and intelligence. Look at the Obamas for an example.

Actually, the former would be the "lower class", not the latter. The latter ones are who the peons (former) are supposed to admire and want to emulate.

But, you are correct that blue collar workers can earn as much as a mid-white collar worker, especially in the trades and some factories.

Yes, I switched them around on accident.

Blue is supposedly lower than white, but we all know about labor costs for plumbers, mechanics, and I used to work in aerospace and electrical and mechanical engineers usually end up writing their own ticket, become contractors, travel the world, and retire early. I know many people in that boat. So much for being of a "lower class". 😅

Americans talk about class differently and often confusingly. In practice there's an educational divide as well as a financial one. A plumber who works his way up to owning his own business, for example, might have the same income as a well-earning professional, but there will be differences in lifestyle and class. A grad student and someone working at just over minimum wage will have a similar income, but they're also decidedly very different. The problem is that colloquially, middle class gets squashed to mean everyone from "stable working class" to "upper middle class". The very poor and the very wealthy are excluded but everyone else thinks they're middle class. But tellingly people will talk about the "upper middle class" so they're quite aware that "middle" isn't a single thing.

what social mobility in the United States is supposed to mean, I think, is that except for the very very wealthy, your class status isn't fixed in some kind of ineffable way, but by wherever you happen to be at the time. In practice, the actual mobility is less than it used to be because it's harder to climb the class ladder.

This was not my experience in NYC, there are loads of stalls (? carts) selling cheap fruit and veg ( presumably either from the surrounding farm land or mexico- it was March).

That was, as I recall, a project of a previous mayor (perhaps Bloomberg?) to increase the availability of fruit & veg in poorer neighbourhoods. NYC is not too bad. The issue in NYC (and for other people as well) is more a money one. Fruit & veg are expensive on a per calorie basis and they are perishable. If your children are picky, they're a risk to buy. On top of that, if you rely on SNAP/EBT you get your payment once a month and many people stock up. There is a programme where you get 2x the value up to a certain point when you use your EBT at a farmers' market and this has been shown to help. Many poor families are also time poor and rely on easier to make foods as a result. If you are a canny shopper there are ways to get fruit & veg cheaper, but that may involve time and travel.

There is some evidence that, even when you control for these things, poverty itself is correlated with obesity. We also know more is involved because of things like the incredibly high rates of diabetes amongst Native Americans. Fresh food is definitely an issue on some reservations.

I don't think there's magical qualities to corn syrup though you'll see a lot of stories about it. I think the real issue is that corn syrup makes it very easy and cheap to add sugar. So far, we don't seem to have conclusive evidence that high fructose corn syrup is worse than beet or cane sugar. (Regular corn syrup is 100% glucose. The most common form of HFCS is 55/45, which is almost the same as regular sugar.)

The CDC data is pretty clear on the correlation itself, though it uses educational level rather than income. It's also correlated with race, with white and Asian people having lower rates, then Latino/Hispanic, and Black and Native Americans faring the worst.

Some cities are much worse on access; I recall an article on Atlanta being particularly bad in poorer neighbourhoods as it's sprawling and has poor transit.

I think this post is a very accurate description of how we generally view class in the US. It's why politicians can talk with impunity about supporting policies to help the middle class.