Well, No, But I Did Fly Over It Once
This claim was qualified—Deaton is referring to those who live in extreme poverty. But The Scrapbook did once spend two months following around economists from the U.S. Agency for International Development in the slums of Asia, and we can say with near-scientific certitude that Deaton's claim is so idiotic it could only have been uttered by a Nobel Prize winner.
When it's pointed out that America has a generous welfare state where Bangladesh does not, Deaton waves the point away, saying, "A lot of these programs have been turned into block grants," he said, making it "very hard for people to get them." This, though as of last year, 45 million people—one in seven Americans—were receiving food stamps.
But statistics aside, if Deaton is going to denounce as dismal the existence of rural Americans, one may ask what he actually knows about life on the Mississippi. To her credit, the Atlantic's Annie Lowrey asked him just that: "Have you spent a lot of time in Kentucky or West Virginia or rural Nebraska?" Deaton's reply is priceless: "No, but I spent five weeks every summer in Montana. And that's been an eye-opener." Yes, nothing introduces you to the desperate lives of impoverished Americans like high-season fly-fishing in Big Sky Country.
"You get these people who are really quite poor, in many cases, who are very right-wing," Deaton says of the unfortunates he has met in Montana.
This claim was qualified—Deaton is referring to those who live in extreme poverty. But The Scrapbook did once spend two months following around economists from the U.S. Agency for International Development in the slums of Asia, and we can say with near-scientific certitude that Deaton's claim is so idiotic it could only have been uttered by a Nobel Prize winner.
When it's pointed out that America has a generous welfare state where Bangladesh does not, Deaton waves the point away, saying, "A lot of these programs have been turned into block grants," he said, making it "very hard for people to get them." This, though as of last year, 45 million people—one in seven Americans—were receiving food stamps.
But statistics aside, if Deaton is going to denounce as dismal the existence of rural Americans, one may ask what he actually knows about life on the Mississippi. To her credit, the Atlantic's Annie Lowrey asked him just that: "Have you spent a lot of time in Kentucky or West Virginia or rural Nebraska?" Deaton's reply is priceless: "No, but I spent five weeks every summer in Montana. And that's been an eye-opener." Yes, nothing introduces you to the desperate lives of impoverished Americans like high-season fly-fishing in Big Sky Country.
"You get these people who are really quite poor, in many cases, who are very right-wing," Deaton says of the unfortunates he has met in Montana.