Yes, those guys in the red jackets really are quite disturbing.

I have to agree with Stephanie, it was a bit insensitive Porshie, but I still like u

I don't think Porsch meant to be insensitive however hard the pictures to take. It is true to say that many here in CH, UK, US etc, have no idea what true poverty really is.

Actually, the question of poverty vs non is something significant to my mind as hubby and I probably would be treading the line or else below poverty level according to that graph... and yet...

A friend who lives in the US recently commented that with bills left to pay and groceries left to buy, they had about $10 left in their bank acct. They'd made some huge changes and then she got sick (and she wasn't getting any help as her illness was severe migraines, which apparently aren't seen as officially debilitating) so they were living on one income. Sure they'd thought they had it planned to be okay to begin with but still wound up with a week or more to go until payday and only $10 to figure out how to live off.

Meanwhile, hubby and I, while we carefully do not do much going out to eat or running off to another country on vacation multiple times a year, we are NOT stuck trying to figure out how to live off our last 10chf by the end of the month. Poverty line or no, I think we're doing okay. Sure not up to the standards of some - not up to the activity level I prefer myself - but certainly not "impoverished" either.

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The Joys of Opticianry

I assume if your kids are over 14, that the poverty line increases, rather than just ignoring the extra kids?

Perhaps you meant 'Starvation', rather than poverty? Poverty exists for real in Switzerland. You may not see it but it's certainly there.

I refuse to believe that a couple earning 4k per month lacks basic human needs.

I refuse to believe that anyone in Switzerland lacks basic human needs unless it is by choice.

Poverty is just the wrong word. If you added a 'relative' to the beginning of the word I might be convinced.

Also apologies to anyone that was upset by the picture. It wasn't my intention.

One of my brothers is on 'the social' BY CHOICE - he just goes traveling as soon as he has money then comes back and goes on 'social' - and I can assure you that he is well fed and always has a beer in his hand, with his health Insurance paid. Again and again - he is in his 60s. Very easy to find free/cheap clothes, furniture, etc, in CH. HIS choice entirely - and he is NOT poor (thanks to mugs like you and me).

Oh ok so there's no poverty in Switzerland if you refuse to believe it. It's pretty patronising to those with very little - but indeed! running water and no threat of war - who bend over backwards and worry themselves sick each month to make ends meet. Relative to what? Those with an extra lettuce to divide in Altstetten or the souls in Darfur? If it's the latter there's no discussion, but then what is the discussion?

Ever lived below the poverty line here?

Poverty exists in Switzerland. That charity is available is to some a god send; the social / welfare isn't always enough.

Sent using a HiSpeed internet connection from a fancy modern computer in Zurich city.

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Wave ¦ Synthpop ¦ 80's ¦ Alternative ¦ Party ¦ Sat 24.03 Provitreff Zurich

According to that chart yes I do live below the poverty line.

But people in Darfur have it real bad, so it doesn't exist here. This is a merry dance...

how on earth can just under seven kilochuffs be poverty line? a few days ago, people were campaigning for a 4k minimum salary. i think we should all campaign for a 30k minimum salary.

that's so insensitive of you porsch! sheesh. i bet you're the kind of person who puts those pictures of starving children through my letter box with donation envelopes? or maybe you help make those films on charity fund-raisers where you try to guilt-trip me to death with pictures of half-dead children swatting flies?

i mean really - this is not on! i came to switzerland to be surrounded by wealth and easy living! the most stressful and upsetting i want my day to be is perhaps fretting about laundry rotors or not being able to buy brown sugar.

i can't believe you can get away with this! how very dare you!!!

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A couple with three kids making just under 7k will have it hard, but can get by. The poverty line mark is the upper edge of poverty. People also have to get by on a lot lower levels. All it takes is one large medical bill and things get very tight...

And, as happened to a couple of friends of mine, when they get sick, they worry about the hospital bills, because the help you get for that is one year in arrears. Or as another man I know, who's on the social at age 55, you have to decide whether to heat your house during winter. ( The fact that some people live well enough on social is irrelevant ).

Notwithstanding personal definitions of poverty, the dictionary definition is simply "being poor", or "not having enough". If you haven't got enough money to meet basic bills - health, housing, utilities - then you are in poverty.

Obviously there's no extreme poverty in Switzerland, but if you've found no evidence of poverty here, then you haven't looked.

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Down with racism. Long live miscegenation!

How and why are you guys still debating this?

Have you never bothered to view and understand economic statistics before? It's economics, the dismal, sociopathic science - there are no feel-good results, just cold numbers (within the confines of the statistics polled).

Poverty is relative - why do you think that cost of living indexes are always so inaccurate? It's of no consequence to tell a family in Switzerland that lives off of 3000/month that people in Thailand make that in a year... It doesn't help them, doesn't make their bills any easier to pay and doesn't exactly inspire confidence in them to improve their situation. Nobody cares about your "definition" of poverty, it's about relative wealth, not absolute.

Bottom line is that, yes, we are all aware of the atrocities of the world, but that has absolutely nothing to do with what this graph states.

The only thing this graph really needs is a geo-qualifier. Cost of living, and the resulting projected income in Zürich city is not the same as somewhere in Thurgau and so the divisions would need to be adjusted for accuracy.

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The red blobs are all mine, you can't have 'em back!!! Bwahahaha!!!

I take it youre a statistician then

Not at all actually - but that doesn't mean I shouldn't at least try to understand it, no?

Back to the original graph, there are a real non sequitur in there to my mind.

As you "progress" through life, i.e. single househould, double household, SINK, DINK, S/DIWK n=1/2/3 etc., the band of what is poverty and is not, changes.

To me it is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophesy and doesn't make sense.

Notwithstanding certain cultures where having lots of kids is the norm, who, on a tight budget, would have lots of kids?

Similarly, if you were a family with 1 child, a salary of c16k per month would put you in the "upper class", yet add another child all of a sudden you are go down a bracket, and the upper class bracket is even more distant if you have 3 children - that doesn't make sense in absolute terms - to me >16k/month is IMO a very good salary with or without 3 children. (I'll say "relatively" good salary for those sensitive souls out there .)

People looking at this graph, might think that employers in CH "reward" you by giving you more pay to have more children, which is patently not the case.

As a final thought, and maybe that's just the translation, but the Swiss don't understand a class system - it's not just about money you know...

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Never let right or wrong get in the way of a good opinion