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?

It looks messy.

TEETH

Although Americans believe their own stereotype that ''all British people have bad teeth'' I think that their poor people have worse teeth than your poor people.

You only have to watch an episode of dr phil or one of those shows to see that many Americans fall into this band.

I have to say though, as freaky as it is driving through Celebration in Florida, I actually love it. It’s like a movie set, and everyone is friendly. Always someone just walking by complimentlng my dd on her beautiful hair or that my ds has a lovely smile. Oh, and the dog friendly bakeries and restaurants!! Even the dogs act perfectly!

Had a similar experience in Fort Lauderdale. I was with my xh trying to walk to a restaurant that was literally on the other side of the road. About 400 metres as the crow flies. We walked in the wrong direction to get to a flyover bridge thing then back in the right direction, we had to walk through a green 'lawn' that had frogs in it and when we got to the restaurant the staff were looking at us, like, where you from? you not from round here
we walked back just to be eccentrically European. Only people who push shopping trolleys take that route was the general local consensus.

A relative lives in a part of US where it gets very hot in the summer and she says it's ok to hang out if you are around to take it in once it's dry, but leaving it out for hours while you are at work is not great. Stuff fades, or just gets baked dry. She would actually prefer to hang out rather than tumble dry.

Having said that, she has a fantastic laundry room in the basement, it's assumed you will dry indoors, so there is space to do so.

Soneone else said laundry outside is poor.

I've also encountered people in the US who were shocked I would walk places. One child I met said he had never walked anywhere!

But I have also had the experience of work colleagues in the UK (SE, not London) being shocked I commuted by train. The fact I commuted by train and my secretary commuter by bike were both seen as totally shocking. Everyone drove by car even though train was much quicker. Mind boggling.

I went to Beverley hills about a decade ago & even there you got a lot more house for your money vs some parts of London but space is less of an issue.

And yes, I was considered odd for wanting to walk places & told not to get the bus.

You obviously dont understand Starsky & Hutch. They are plain clothes policemen, that is their police car. That car had absolutely nothing to do with whether they were rich or poor. What do you think plain clothes officers drive in the city?

Really?

With attitudes like that, it’s little wonder the carbon footprint of the average American is world beating!

I once hung out my clothes in Australia. After half an hour my black shirts were dry but grey.

Laughing at the frogs 🤣
My walk was fine, just past some shops, offices and industrial units, all paved - seemed madness to get a cab.
The bus was also fine. It was interesting that the other passengers were either students or elderly people, or obviously poor. I was the only person of working age who was not obviously poor. But it was ok, felt perfectly safe.

Read some of Barbara Kingsolver's books. She writes about poor Americans, people who buy all their clothes from Thrift stores and do three jobs because none of them pay enough to live on.

if the characters have money, the outside will be perfectly landscaped, the furniture will all match, the appliances will be pristine and shiny.

poverty will be the opposite, unkempt lawns, chipped paint, cluttered homes with mismatched furniture. For some reason that furniture will often be shades of brown.

in real life, convenants really do require that we keep the outside of our homes perfect. It’s to keep up property values. Having lived in a region that didn’t have them as the norm, I absolutely love having a strong HOA. It makes the whole area so much more pleasant and you don’t have to worry about problematic neighbors.

drying outside is absolutely forbidden. I sometimes push it with one or two swim towels out on the deck.

Most American sitcoms are set in middle class ish America, contrasting with shows like My Name is Earl, Raising Hope and Shameless (US).

@masomenos

In reality, these places are seething, roiling hotbeds of gossip, drama, disputes, people trying to wield power.

Blimey! That does sound like Desperate Housewives. I’d struggle 🤣

There is so much misinformation on this thread, which is par for the course on MN threads about the US. 🤦‍♀️ Some useful and accurate posts too, naturally. But most MNers won't be able to tell the difference.

Thanks all - very insightful.

Are there any accents or markers that US audiences would get straight away that may be odd to UK audiences? That may imply something IYKWIM?

Interesting that many people have mentioned personal appearance and grooming too.

In America:

[Based on my experience working in healthcare...]

• Teeth (sometimes, definitely more so in the southern states)
• Hair (sometimes)
• Furniture
• Speech - grammar with speech in particular
• Access to therapies for children like speech therapy
• Many poor Americans have what we'd consider a need for speech therapy
• Whether they have access to their own laundry or use a laundry-mat (NYC and urban centres that are $ are probably an exception to this!)
• Type of childcare they can access (neighbourhood lady with no education, taking 6+++ kids in from locals for pittance, vs more standardized daycare, nanny, childminder etc.)
• On medicaid/have no insurance (thus impacting which hospitals/clinics etc they go to)
• Whether there's higher education among parents/grandparents
• Access to education outside of high school - is military the only option
• Military recruitment in their local malls/shops/schools - they actively target low income communities - kids start talking to the recruiters at a very young age...
• Are more likely to vote Republican
• Have children young
• Typically are very ill before they access health care (later stages of a disease etc.) due to worry about costs or being unable to get into free clinics!
• Often believe charity/churches should play more of a role in helping people than the government should

Personally

I know two poorer American family through a volunteer project. You'd never ever know it from their blog/facebook/instagram. However, they...

• Live in basement apartments with 3+ kids and if they can will have many more children - there is no state benefit per child there, so no real incentive in that regard. Neither family is on welfare/food stamps.
• Have no insurance/rely on state for any health care (yet vote Republican and don't want universal health care believing they will be like Russia in it's hardest years - lining up for bread, freezing to death...!)
• Husbands work insane hours (6 days week x 12+ hr days, and have side gigs - extra work after Church etc on their day off, helping build things, work Friday nights and Saturday nights etc.)
• Savings are wiped out even with a 'minor' bill like a $500 car repair
• Plans for sons is military after high school. One's son just accepted an entry into the navy (age 18).
• They have big dreams and post a lot of what I'd call aesthetic content - you'd never ever know they live in basement apartments. They have photos of feet at the beach, in linens twirling in the grass etc., books etc. Poverty is very very very hidden. Their accounts are like dreams. They look like the wealthy accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers who do the same. yet clearly very very different.
• Very traditional roles for mothers/fathers. Neither believe women should work ever outside the home. One is 'allowed' do to some pyramid selling of stuff. So even though for one, husbands shift is 5 am to 5 pm and there's several late night shops (food) she could work at say 7-10 a couple nights/week and some women in their community do, they won't because they must be content in all things and her role is at home.
• Their hopes and dreams for their children don't include education. It's faith, same faith partners (even from a young age they are praying for future wives/husbands) and being blessed by God with bounty/wealth/richness
• Children have no hobbies, extra curriculars etc. Not even the kids in high school
• Very limited contact with others. Everything costs money and they are 'content to be at home'
• Children/parents only receive emergency dental care, no braces etc.
• They try as many natural 'healers' before state medicine (herbs, oils etc)
• Don't vaccinate
• Minimal, if any real news - it's very much a lack of awareness life could be better
• They believe one day they will be rich and yet another reason there for not supporting socialist ideals.
• They think Bernie Sanders is the root of all evil [roll eyes - I love the guy]

It's was eye opening to say the least...

Edited to add - housesize is very dependent on state. I know people who were poor in very very small housing en par with the UK and others in different states in bigger housing but still many other indicators of poverty.

That’s a loaded question.

Watch It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia for a deliberately non-glossy view of America. Two of the characters (Mac and Charlie) are from working class backgrounds and you see their family homes and their parents - living in non-gentrified 19th century terraces that look comparable to UK homes. I don’t know if you can tell anything from their accents and dress but certainly the living conditions are unlike anything else I’ve seen on US tv (that’s not meant to be specifically about the underclass/poor).

One would think there would be a limit to how many stereotypes could be fit into one post … clearly not.

This is a classic example of both confirmation bias and ridiculous all rolled up 🤣

@saltinesandcoffeecups - I hesitated to post these things. The top are very much my experience working in health care. The bottom are what I think was actually the opposite of what people often assume.

The fact is military recruitment, lack of access to health care etc etc etc is a staple of poverty in the US.

I think we could do with some HOA style action over here sometimes!