New US Study Claims Cure for Poverty is Being Facebook 'Friends' With the Rich

Billionaires like Bill Gates are urging commoners to switch from meat to a bug-based diet — on the pretext of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from farm flatulence. Meanwhile a study last year found that economic inequality in the US was so great that half a million households do not even have running water.

Are you worried about surviving the looming recession — sorry, 'transition' — in the US? Fear not, for a new study says poverty can be avoided by making Facebook friends the rich.

A paper published in the weekly scientific journal Nature on Monday studied the connections of around 70 million US Facebook users, amounting to 84 percent of Americans aged between 25 and 44.

The authors claimed that those who grew up in poor families but had wealthy friends — what they dubbed "economic connectedness" — did better economically later in life.

They even said those friendships were more important than home life, quality of education, racial integration or the amount of paid work available — a more conventional measure of prosperity and opportunity.

“Growing up in a community connected across class lines improves kids’ outcomes and gives them a better shot at rising out of poverty,” said the study's co-lead author Raj Chetty, a Harvard University economist and the director of NGO Opportunity Insights.

But before you jump to conclusions, the authors did not advocate the common US practice of 'busing' children from one community to schools in another or 'affirmative action' policies of preferential access to university places or jobs for ethnic minorities.

“People interested in creating economic connectedness should equally focus on getting people with different incomes to interact,” said another lead author, Johannes Stroebel of New York University.

The survey's findings are not the most novel approach to poverty reduction in recent years.

Earlier this year, Canada was accused of culling the poor and chronically unwell through so-called 'medical assistance in dying' — better known as euthanasia.

Meanwhile, our billionaire 'friends' like Bill Gates are urging us plebs to switch from meat to a bug-based diet — on the pretext of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from farm flatulence.

Another study last year found that economic inequality in the US was so great that half a million households do not even have running water — regardless of how many rich Facebook connections they have.