Robert Rector: Plugged-in poverty: Half of America’s poor have computers

  The Census Bureau reported last fall that 43 million Americans, one in seven of us, were poor. But what is poverty in America?

  The most recent government data show more than half of the families defined as poor by the Census Bureau now have a computer in the home. More than three of every four poor families have air conditioning, almost two-thirds have cable or satellite television, and 92 percent have microwaves.

  How poor are America’s poor? The typical poor family has at least two color TVs, a VCR and a DVD player. A third have a widescreen, plasma or LCD TV. And the typical poor family with children has a video game system such as Xbox or PlayStation.