Homeless

The Heritage Foundation put out a report/article called “How Poor Are America's Poor? Examining the "Plague" of Poverty in America”

The following are facts about persons defined as "poor" by the Census Bureau,
taken from various gov­ernment reports:

• Forty-three percent of all poor households actu­ally own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.
• Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
• Only 6 percent of poor households are over­crowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
• The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)
• Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 31 percent own two or more cars.
• Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.
• Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.
• Eighty-nine percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and more than a third have an automatic dishwasher.
  

It wasn’t anything that I was tempted to comment on until I came across this story from the UK Telegraph.

A new underclass of Japanese is living in 24-hour Intenet cafes across the country, using private booths to eat and sleep in after a long day in a low-paying job.

A survey by the health and welfare ministry indentified 5,400 “Net cafe refugees,” although critics say that figure underestimates the scale of the problem.
Around 27 percent are in their 20s and work in convenience stores or on construction sites, while 23 percent are in their 50s

I know you can’t directly compare this but I haven’t heard of anything that compares to it in the US. If a person actually has a job, then they generally do have a place to live. The story goes on to state the average income of these working poor at approximately $950 (110,000 yen) a month or $5.48/hour. The US minimum wage just went to $5.85/hour. So an individual making the min in the US makes more than the average common laborer.