You've assumed, first, that it's poverty that causes the lowered IQ, rather than that both poverty and lower-IQ are both effects of a common cause.
Second, even if there really is a causal chain, why in the world would you assume that the difference is related to nutrition? Why not, for example, cultural differences in the way that poor parents interact with children compared with the way that non-poor parents do?
What's your point? Ownership of an arbitrary appliance doesn't mean you're able to put food on the table or afford tuition for your children. You don't need to eat a TV every night to survive nor can you fill up your gas tank on microwaves. Besides, in the developed world, TVs and microwaves are a dime a dozen and are regularly discarded because their abundance makes them worth so little.
My gut feeling that wealth disparity is a bigger issue than absolute wealth. If the poor lived in mansions and drove Ferraris, but the rich owned entire islands and private rocket ships that travel to Mars, the poor people still wouldn't have access to what the wealthier people have, still setting them back from achieving their true potential.
My microwave came with my apartment and the TV was free because a neighbor had just got a new one. I still had to live off ramen.
Most impoverished Americans overeat. The average poor American is borderline obese.
http://webarchives.cdlib.org/sw1vh5dg3r/http://ers.usda.gov/...
For evaluating the impact on life outcomes, why not define poverty as the state where (lack of) financial resources frequently limit the choices available to an individual?
I don't think poverty is fully explained by external factors, but I think that unexpected events do tend to have a larger impact on people with limited resources, often exacerbating their problems.
For evaluating the impact on life outcomes, why not define poverty as the state where (lack of) financial resources frequently limit the choices available to an individual?
I like your definition for poverty. I'm well acquainted with our (US) social services that provide food, shelter, clothing, transportation, basic phone and internet service, and education funding to any parent, woman, or child, and some single men. By this definition, I'm led to believe that poverty doesn't exist within the US, even though myself and most of my friends and family fall below the "poverty line".
