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?

American here. The Pursuit of Happyness, Spanglish, and Good Will Hunting are a few movies that depict the lifestyle of the American working class. TV shows like Rosanne, Shameless (US version), King of Queens, Superstore, The Simpsons, The Middle and Married with Children are also ones focus on the working class demographic.

Typical signs of American working class often distinguished by not having college degree, rather than by occupation or income. Whereas in the UK, class markers are a bit different. For example, you can be WC and wealthy.

It's becoming a thing in the UK too . My neighbour tumble drys all the time even in hot days ! Their choice , their electric bill. I've rarely seen washing out on lines on the street where I live and my house backs onto their gardens . I think it's just laziness.

Considering many Americans work long hours and may have multiple jobs, they are more concerned with keeping them and putting their clothes in a washer and dryer than wasting time going through the task of line-drying clothes.

My 600lb Life is a fascinating insight into lower class American homes/lifestyles.

You have to much time on your hands.

Travelled a lot in USA with work, so industrial cities and towns. Mainly mid west, but some in Georgia.

as others have said land is cheap so houses are on bigger plots than uk. You also have to consider that it has always been so even through their own “Industrial Revolution”. No back to back.

but once you go into a poor area in USA you see it immedately- the houses are clap board and run down, not recently painted, flimsy add ons, and just like in poorer areas of uk, there’s old cars, furniture piled up outside form previous tenants

lets be really clear about USA, when you get poor you rewlly get destitute very quickly. You need a job to get health care. Social support and welfare is poor , food banks started there long before they came into regular use in uk. So when you get poor, you get ill, loose housing, and the whole shit show comes crashing down.

in mid west I worked with employed people who in the VAST MAJORITY really really believe that everyone has same chances in life and if you fall on hard times it’s your fault and you, not them and society, are responsible for getting yourself out of it. They cannot understand the concept of nhs, NI, and worse than that they see it as an extreme socialist concept .

if you’re poor in these places god help you as know one else will.

and all of that doesn’t make for good TV viewing.

another thing you need to understand about USA is that the majority of its citizens believe the USA is the greatest country in the world, they do not criticise or knock it, even the ones that don’t like the current government will still not criticise USA overall. They aren’t great at having it pointed out that there are kinder socaieties in Europe, that gun control is possible etc etc. so agian, TV is not made to show the down sides of USA and that includes portrayal of abject poverty unless it has a happy ending or is a documentary by left leaning journalists.

when you see a poor person in USA you know it; destitute. When you see poor houses in USA you know it ;destitute

There isn’t the class system. People define themselves by what they achieve - wealthy, or not. The more wealthy the higher the sense of entitlement, superiority and self congratulations that only they are responsible for that.

And then we can throw in the impact of slavery - that was USA lower class- even white poor ranked above them, and from what I see in a lot of places the colour of your skin still means you’re treated like that irrespective of what your circumstances are.

nope, doesn’t make good TV showing americas poor.

It might be visible to a great many people in an average older suburb. Fences tend not to be terribly high, people don't grow hedges all that much, and residential lots are smaller than they would be in far flung burbs. In addition, closer in suburbs (in my neck of the woods anyway) have alleys running at the back of the houses, parallel to the streets, and the garages open onto them. Your back yard would be visible over the fence from the alley.

In theory, people could easily have a clothes line in a backyard in the majority of single family residential areas, which are not HOAs. I had one older neighbour who used to always hang out her bedding (in summer). She often regretted it, as the neighborhood was full of lovely, mature trees, birds, and squirrels. As she got older, she stopped hanging her bedding out because it was more difficult to carry wet washing up the basement stairs to the exit and out into the yard than to plonk it in the dryer. It was also likely to come back in smelling of BBQ and firepit smoke.

Otoh, people have no issue draping towels or swimwear over a front porch rail after a trip to the neighborhood public pool in summer. And Americans don't obsess over privacy the way Brits do - people leave their curtains or blinds open at night, and fences, walls, and hedges around front gardens are rare in many areas. Public loos have cubicle walls and doors that have horrified many a British poster here on MN when they visited the US for a holiday.

The Channel 4 programme "Around the world in 80 weighs" went to America, not sure which state. There was a lovely mum and daughter who were overweight but lived in a good desert so there was literally nowhere to get fresh food and very limited options for home cooking. All the food providers were takeaways so it was a choice of driving and hour to a supermarket or getting McDonald's for everyone for $10 or similar. It was really sad.
At least in this country most people can generally access a decent supermarket.

HOAs aren't common everywhere. They're most common as either condo associations (which are basically unavoidable because of common areas) or in newer suburbs especially in the South and West. Older suburbs predate them. My American grandmother, by the way, was proud of having a dryer and used it always because hanging out her laundry reminded her of growing up in a tenement. When I moved to the USA I learnt that there were times of the year I couldn't really hang laundry outside, notably pollen season. Summer sunshine is rough on clothes, too.

A lot of TV is useless for class and poverty markers for a couple of reasons. One, things are laid out (especially for sitcoms) for ease of filming on a sound stage. This is why apartments and houses always have a two-room or open plan living room/kitchen layout, and no entry or separate dining room, and you can't judge by the size of anything. On Roseanne, you could tell they were meant to be working class by the furniture and decor.

Accents and class are tricky. Regional accents are fading in younger generations. They're more likely to survive in the working class. This is not true for older people who have stronger regional accents. You will find some people who have worked to scrub a stigmatised regional accent (interestingly, Trump aside, a strong New York City accent is often considered a working class marker. Notice that his kids don't speak like that.)

Reality TV can sometimes give you a better peek into actual homes than anything fictional.

Urban, suburban, and rural poverty all look very different, too. Here in the Northeast, urban poor to me means living in an apartment or row house, for example, and you can tell poor row houses from wealthy ones just as you can in the UK. Poor neighbourhoods in Philadelphia or Baltimore often have trash strewn around, vacant lots, random decrepit houses. In rural areas you can have quite a lot of land as it's so cheap, but your house might be close to falling down. The suburbs often conceal poverty.

Trump and Bezos hate each other

The middle is my favourite TV show. Can you remember when hanging washing outside was mentioned in the show? I usually remember scenes like that but I can't remember anything about outside laundry. Lots of memories of scenes with Frankie emptying the tumble dryer but I can't remember anything about hanging out washing. Was it a Glossner story?

According to NY Times in 2018 (admittedly not current political run), Bezos donated to the Republican Party but yes I’m aware that Trump has been derogatory about Bezos (Bozos?)

But yes, I perhaps need to to a proper news catch up

Also, the very poorest in the US get Medicaid (free healthcare). It is the band of income just above that that struggles the most.

What my colleagues in public health see (working in public health) is that in our area people have physical access to food but there are other issues impacting their ability to have a healthy diet such as money and time. Chronic stress from poverty and racism is also significant.

Affluent working class does exist in the USA, it's just not talked about so much. In fact the class divide for politics is education level not income. Think people who have worked their way up in a trade and now own the business: plumbing, construction.

another thing you need to understand about USA is that the majority of its citizens believe the USA is the greatest country in the world, they do not criticise or knock it, even the ones that don’t like the current government will still not criticise USA overall. They aren’t great at having it pointed out that there are kinder socaieties in Europe, that gun control is possible etc etc. so agian, TV is not made to show the down sides of USA and that includes portrayal of abject poverty unless it has a happy ending or is a documentary by left leaning journalists

I completely disagree with this. I would separate its people from its media. The media may have you believe that, but many Americans constantly complain about the state of their country and don’t see it as the greatest country in the world. They know that other countries have it better than them. It is something that is constantly brought up and has been spoken about for years regardless who is in office.

Yes, Roseanne immediately came to my mind.

They are working class Americans.

However I can remember watching it in the early (I think?) 90s and being in awe of how huge their house was.

Obviously, due to North America being so much later than Britain, land was not at a premium, meaning that relatively "poor" people could actually own quite a big house.

Having grown up in a tiny miners cottage I found that really jarring, as otherwise, I think our economic position was fairly similar to the Connors. But that huge house made a massive difference.

We are all used to seeing that on American tv now, but back then it did stand out.

Likewise, Al Bundy.

amp.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/17/donald-trump-jeff-bezos-amazon-washington-post-power-money

I shop at Walmart, and I have umpteen other options. I know quite a few people who have never darkened the doors of my local Walmart all the same.

I've shopped in rural and semi rural Walmarts too and found them perfectly fine and full of farming families or the rural poor piling their trollies high.

DS lives temporarily in an area where a Walmart 45 minutes away by car is his only option for a huge selection of fruits and veg, various brands of coffee and teas, various healthy bread, rice, pasta, and lean meat and fish, and a great many other items that he stocks up on for his healthy diet that are not available closer to his abode.

The lack of available healthy food locally isn't the only factor causing the local population to have high rates of heart disease and diabetes - there are many people who believe steering clear of coke and other brown or dark colored sodas is the key to avoiding diabetes, and poison like Sprite or Mountain Dew is healthy. They pooh pooh advice on smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke. Addiction to painkillers and meth is rampant. Everyone drives, and most men are dab hands at fixing or maintaining their own cars.

And there is a strong sense of fatalism, a lack of any sense of empowerment to effect change (in personal health or family fortunes) along with a suspicion that that would be going against a force nobody has any business going against.

Roseanne could be realistic. A working class family in rurualish Illinois could probably get a house like that (I think Ohio would have been MORE realistic though). As for Al Bundy, no shoe salesman (and Peg did not work) could afford a house like that in the Chicago suburbs (which is also Illinois).

I’m thinking the Glossner’s, but could be wrong! She probably didn’t hang any washing out, that’s why Diaper kept wearing diapers..

Some of the stereotypes on this thread make me want to bang my head against the wall. They are so insulting and inaccurate. As I wrote above, of course there are some posts that paint an accurate picture of (some members of) the working class and the underclass. But honestly, I really wish that more people would look beyond cheap, erroneous stereotypes. I could write the same sort of lazy, ridiculous post about the UK, and I guarantee that MNers would react with horror. But they are perfectly happy to perpetuate all sorts of nonsense about the US.

'Twas ever thus on MN, alas.

A lot of these posts do make me want to laugh. I was poor in America for many, many years but some how do not fall into most of the descriptions I've seen on here of a poor American. But then again my father was a high school dropout who worked his whole life in a Paper Mill and when he died we discovered he was worth A LOT of money. So he doesnt fit the description of a rich American either. You cant always tell who has money and who doesnt.

😂😂😂 so not true!

But you could do this about every country on this planet. But not many other countries, with so many fundamental problems, claim to be the greatest country on earth tbf. We can all see that there is no number one country, we’re in this together. But not America. They are the greatest. It’s so utterly bizarre to the rest of us, that we’d be excused to joke a bit about it.

If anyone is looking for a fictional depiction of rural poverty in the US, I would recommend Winter's Bone. The details are quite accurate. It's based on an excellent novel too.

@anon4net is so far from accurate it's laughable. The poor tend to vote Republican? I think not.

However I can remember watching it in the early (I think?) 90s and being in awe of how huge their house was.

Really? I thought it was very realistic. The front door opened into the living room and the kitchen was behind it. a bedroom for the parents downstairs and 2 bedrooms upstairs. No big fitted kitchen. A shared bathroom. The stairs went straight from the living room. Decor was spot on. Roseanne in general was very authentic - the kinds of jobs they had, the worries they had, the scene where she is taking Darlene to buy for a home economics class and she teaches her that to make meatloaf you use half meat, half cereal.

Hanging out washing where I live signifies that you are environmentally aware - not poor.

I don't shop at Walmart but Walmart sells more organic food than Whole Foods as far as I know.

If americans didn't criticize the USA, I wouldn't have had many conversations over the past few years. Try posting a criticism of the UK on this site and see how receptive people are to that - I've seen it play out.