Listening to John Edwards these days, you’d think America’s poor, a number the Census Bureau puts at 37 million, are in dire straits. While I certainly have sympathy for anyone who faces a daily struggle to make ends meet, the truth is that many of the 37 million who fall into the government’s classification of poverty don’t really have it all that bad, according to a new paper by my colleague Robert Rector.

Here’s just a snippet of Rector’s findings (which he highlighted in a National Review op-ed yesterday):

• 43% 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.

• 80% of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, only 36% of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

• Only 6% 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% own two or more cars.

• 97% of poor households have a color television; more than half own two or more color televisions.

• 78% have a VCR or DVD player; 62% have cable or satellite TV reception.

• 89% own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and more than a third have an automatic dishwasher.

Don’t get me wrong, I know there are many poor Americans who don’t fall into any of these categories. But the fact is, as Rector notes in his paper, a little more work and a healthy marriage (and no out-of-wedlock births) would go a long way to reducing poverty — and have better results than the government’s throwing more money at the problem.