When I was a kid I had to wear this guy's second hand clothes. When I grew out of them, they were shipped back up so that his little brother could wear them. Mom bought bargain basement cuts of meat and shopped at the day-old bread store. We couldn't even afford real butter, and we were considered middle-class.

Now-a-days, apparently the definition of poor now includes people who can't afford expanded digital cable with HBO, a DVR, and Hi Def.

Democrats also complained that the [telecommunications] bill did not commit providers to spread their services to lower income and minority areas.

[...]

Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Illinois, a black lawmaker who represents the South Side of Chicago, said he was co-sponsoring the bill because it would make it easier for minority entrepreneurs to get access to the telecommunications industry.

Rush said his constituents want relief from the high cost of cable. "We pay more for video services, for high premium packages, than any other group in America. And why is that? Because only on cable do we see people who look like us, speak like us, and who understand us. That is why we pay more for cable."

I don't know how it works on the South Side of Chicago, but down here in the South whites and blacks pay the same price for cable.