Are you poor?

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Many autists are unable to get a job, or atleast not a decent job. So my question is, are you poor? Do you live in relative poverty? Or are you maybe even homeless? Do you have any job? If yes do you have a high income, an average, or a low income? Or do you live off welfare and disability benefits? Do you still live with your parents? How poor or rich are you? Do you constantly struggle to make ends meet? Are you middle class? Or are you actually rather wealthy? Do you think you will ever escape poverty?

I can't say I'm destitute, but I'm not quite middle class ether. I would say I am poor, even if I am technically above the poverty level.

From where I lived, the majority IS poor. More than half the people I know straddles between middle class to poor.
Most people here would rather escape poverty, some would do whatever it takes.

I live in a country with a lot of corruption. I don't have to be an autistic to have a losing chance of being employed and if landing on a job ending up underpaid.
And the possible way for me to end up truly homeless due to lack of financial means (in which most people here are) would be being disowned by the majority of my relatives, which is highly unlikely...

And the 'above-average' people here? They're either the well off business owners, gambling their way within the economy... This isn't what I would've want.
Or they'd go to abroad, and be very underemployed overseas. Because menial jobs overseas pays more than a professional job within the country.




And as for myself? Earning at least 1/3 of the average monthly salary of my current region for few years now in full time with no extra from overtime. I may or may not leave soon.
I may go for odd jobs, a better part time job (seriously) or freelance work afterwards. Might as well prepare myself if burnout may occur.

I was supposedly receive benefits, but the system here isn't reliable -- I would've receive some once per month, except no one's going to give it for me because I was working on a full time job and the office closes when I have my day offs.
I may fix this somehow, that is as soon as I'm no longer disorganized and have the free time.

My own household is considered poor, yet straddles above the poverty line -- my household consists of a support from abroad, and three fulltime job workers. One self employed, one has a professional job, and then there's me.
It's not even enough to have certain access to some services needed, yet still more comfortable than the actual poor.

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Left school at 16 with few qualifications and no job to go to, left home at 19 with a basic admin office job and no career aspirations or ideas of what to do with my life. Now doing reasonably well for myself in my chosen career, earning okay money, been a home owner for the past 14 or so years, support my family and never been out of work.

Certainly not rich, but I am not battling for money and food as my parents were when I was growing up

I'm on disability benefits. I'm poor compared to the average person's income.

But rich in comparison to an average indian,

I'm not poor but I'm not rich either.

You can be a poor Indian and be happier than a middle-class American.

I’m working-to-middle class. I work a clerical job.

Yes- Of course there are poorer people in India. With poverty within a nation it depends on whether you believe in absolute poverty(right wing POV) or relative POV(left wing POV).
If you take the right wing POV then compared to 100 years ago even the poor of India are better off than they were.

The USA is listed 10th on the World bank list and the UK, where I come from, 26th. Therefore Americans are rich in comparison to me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... y_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita


India is 119th out of 185 populations ie there are 35.7% poorer countries.

What matters, most, is the situation of the individual person.

One cannot judge one's individual circumstances based upon statistics which apply to whole populations.

I am not poor, nor rich, but in the middle class. I use my skills to maximize my buying power. So I am happy and content with life.

I'm not sure if I fall under the official poverty line in my country or not, but if I don't then I'm still pretty close. I live in a small rented apartment on my own and work a low paid part time job. I could work fulltime, but haven't been able to get a fulltime job in years. I don't own anything that'd be considered valuable, but it's not like I have any debt, either. Compared to most people my age (or older) that I know, I'm very poor... then again, most of my disabled friends are retired or on other types of benefits and that's usually not much, so I'm better off financially than them... except most of them have their parents supporting them on regular basis, too.

"Poor" is sometimes more a "state of mind" than anything else.

My wife never "knew" that she was poor; she always thought of herself as being "not poor"--even though she had to fetch water from a stream and had to use an outhouse even in the early 1960s in her native country.

Her father worked a low-wage job and had to support his wife and the ten kids with it. He had less than a full grammar-school education.

Still, there was always enough food to eat because this father and mother knew how to make due with what they had.

I'm on SSI and until I find myself proper employment, I'm stuck with my mom who has said many times that she does not want me to work.

No. I exist paycheck to paycheck due to my student loan obligations, but I do live comfortably with what I have left after that. Even then, I do set aside a small portion for investing in collectibles that should pay off over time. Maybe someday I can retire, but I will likely die way before that can happen. If so, my mother gets everything I own if she is still alive at that point in time.

I have been told that I am rich by some who have seen what I possess, but I do not believe them. To me, it is just stuff that I collect. At what point does one become rich? It seems to be something that does not have a concrete answer. What does one compare it with?