The sting of poverty [would like Freeper opinions about this]

Boston Globe ^ | 03/30/2008

[freed0misntfree]

IMAGINE GETTING A bee sting; then imagine getting six more. You are now in a position to think about what it means to be poor, according to Charles Karelis, a philosopher and former president of Colgate University.

In the community of people dedicated to analyzing poverty, one of the sharpest debates is over why some poor people act in ways that ensure their continued indigence. Compared with the middle class or the wealthy, the poor are disproportionately likely to drop out of school, to have children while in their teens, to abuse drugs, to commit crimes, to not save when extra money comes their way, to not work.

To an economist, this is irrational behavior. It might make sense for a wealthy person to quit his job, or to eschew education or develop a costly drug habit. But a poor person, having little money, would seem to have the strongest incentive to subscribe to the Puritan work ethic, since each dollar earned would be worth more to him than to someone higher on the income scale. Social conservatives have tended to argue that poor people lack the smarts or willpower to make the right choices. Social liberals have countered by blaming racial prejudice and the crippling conditions of the ghetto for denying the poor any choice in their fate. Neoconservatives have argued that antipoverty programs themselves are to blame for essentially bribing people to stay poor.

[Myrddin]

The SES was a known quantity prior to the determination of IQ.

Did that prejudice the evaluation? Did that skew the selection of students to test? It would have been better to do the measurement without prior knowledge of the SES.

[Gay State Conservative]

Neoconservatives have argued that antipoverty programs themselves are to blame for essentially bribing people to stay poor.

This is largely correct.For most "poor" people in this country welfare is a career choice.In fact,it's a somewhat logical career choice.True,the checks are very big...the life isn't particularly "comfortable"...but the checks come *every* month...you don't have to worry about layoffs...or bosses...or economic downturns.

And that's *EXACTLY* the way the RATS want it because they know that on election day they'll get 98% of the welfare/government benefit vote.

[Gay State Conservative]

the checks are very big=the checks aren’t very big

[Rockingham]

There is a valid insight in that poor people are often overwhelmed by problems that could be remedied in the short term if they had money. Yet there are people who rise out of poverty through faith, hard work, thrift, self-improvement, and other good habits. Indeed, over a generation or two, that is how most of America's middle class became middle class.

I know of at least two examples of people who deliberately lived in poverty in order to write about the experience. In one instance, the writer and his wife and young child lived in inner city ghetto housing on a welfare standard of living for a year in the 1970's. The result was a book pointing out how welfare induced family breakdown and lack of personal discipline were at the core of much inner city poverty, crime, and lack of initiative.

In the other instance, the writer was a young college graduate who started off by the side of the road with nothing except the clothes he wore and a determination to see if he could make a go without the advantages of his education or help from family and friends. The first night he went to a homeless shelter.

In a week, he had a menial job in food service and a private room in a rooming house. In a month, he had a promotion to line management and an apartment. At the end of six months, he had bought a used truck and was accumulating savings.

Of course, in both cases the writers had the advantages of middle class habits, education, smarts, and personal skills. The absence of middle class thinking and virtues is a better explanation for persistent poverty than that somehow the poor are just unlucky people who have been overwhelmed by problems.

[Tahoe3002]

Many lottery winners experience just that; a short time after winning big in lotto, they are broke again.

Regardless of skin color, hardly ever see those in “poverty” (using the USA version) without booze, dope, cigarettes, tattoos, lotto tickets, etc.

Personal DECISIONS, DECISIONS, DECISIONS (OK, and no role models.)

[Right Wing Assault]

Is this a good explanation of the persistence of poverty?

He claims poverty causes these bad things. Actually, this bad behavior causes poverty.

[Tijeras_Slim]

I don’t believe so. The way the tests are set up as well as all the other bureaucratic controls pretty much preclude that result. Not to mention that Mrs. Slim was very professional.

[discostu]

Habitual poverty is almost always the results of habitual bad decisions. Random acts of life can screw you up in the short term, but if you make good decisions you’ll right your ship. Staying poor decade after decade requires never get promotions, never get better jobs, and keep flushing money down the toilet. It takes a lot of work to never let your life go on an upward slope.

[Nathan Zachary]

"I have an aunt in this situation - always has the “what’s the use in trying?” attitude."

I have those feelings when I have to write a check to the IRS to pay my quarterly business taxes, and it's for more than I earned that quarter, because it's based on LAST YEARS earnings.

But, I just look ahead to next year, and know that those checks are going to be pretty darned small then, and Obama is going to be crapping his draws when he gets his quarterly receipts reports, and I suddenly feel better.

[Balding_Eagle]

Lord knows they have plenty of sunshine to do the job, and time.

WHAT! You want them to sit in the sun instead of the shade as they wait for the corn truck?

PLUS they do not 'have pleanty of time', they're busy waiting for the truck.

My wife and I went to Ecuador some years ago to visit some missionaries we had supported for many years. The trip was an eye opener. To make a long story short, our financial support ended soon thereafter.

[Right Wing Assault]

We need to teach classes in school called, “How to be poor.”

[Straight Vermonter]

I grew up in a mixed working class / welfare neighborhood. Even as a kid I saw that there was something different about the welfare kids. They simply could not delay what they wanted even for a few minutes. They might want to run around at recess but they couldn’t wait for recess so they ran around in the classroom and then were told to stay inside during recess. The older kids couldn’t get a part time job to buy a bike they simply had to steal one. The examples go on and on but it comes down to incredibly poor impulse control.

[Lancey Howard]

"The bee sting argument, or the car dent one," he says, "I've never had anybody say that that isn't true."

Those are stupid "arguments".

After the first bee sting, you get your stupid ass away from the hive. And why didn't the "poor" idiot get that first dent fixed? The fact that he ended up with a car full of dents speaks volumes. Of COURSE he's not going to get the sixth dent fixed. He never even bothered with the first five.

No sale on any of this silly pap from Karelis.

[Lancey Howard]

"There's not much evidence in the book, and there are a lot of bold claims, but it's great that he's making them," says Tyler Cowen, an economics professor at George Mason University. It "was a really great book, and it was, like, totally neglected."

Gee, I wonder why?

"The core of the problem has not been self-discipline or a lack of opportunity," Karelis says. "My argument is that the cause of poverty has been poverty."

Here's Karelis's great idea:

Simply giving the poor money with no strings attached, rather than using it, as federal and state governments do now, to try to encourage specific behaviors - food stamps to make sure money doesn't get spent on drugs or non-necessities, education grants to encourage schooling, time limits on benefits to encourage recipients to look for work - would be just as effective, and with far less bureaucracy.

Yeah, that's the ticket - - even MORE free money for "the poor". Wheeee....!

[I Buried My Guns]

"...Why work for “the man”..."Another social dynamic that I rarely hear about: By getting welfare and refusing to work, a person never has to answer to an authority or higher power. ("The Man")

No one likes to serve a master, yet we do it every day when we go to work and obey our boss. In return we get paid.

People who get welfare skip the 1st step and go directly to "Get Paid", never having to lower themselves ever again to the petty, crude level of us workers.

When you add in the racial aspect, it becomes a more obvious dynamic: Never again will a person of color suffer under the stifling yoke of the white man's oppression.

[Lucky Dog]

The cure for poverty is simple.

The first step is to change the definition of poverty. Our country has very, very few of its citizens who are unavoidably starving to death or inevitably dying of exposure. Therefore, in our country, we have very little of what the rest of the world would call poverty.

Consequently, defining poverty as a paucity of material goods is the real problem. Neither Gandhi nor Christ had an abundance of material goods. Yet neither could be classed as members of the poverty stricken class in the same sense, or with the same lack of societal “status,” as today. Ghandi was called the “Great Soul” and Christ was called “Master.” These are hardly terms we associate with poverty today.

Perhaps our definition of poverty should be changed to reflect a condition where it denotes a scarcity of character traits such as a honesty, persistence in the face of adversity, compassion, self responsibility, self discipline, etc. If such were the case, the identity of those deemed to be suffering from poverty would change instantaneously.

In deed, it was not too awfully long ago in this country where such a definition was a pretty wide spread phenomenon. My parents grew up in the Great Depression and often attested to such a case. People who wore clothes mended many times in lieu of new ones or who ate “plain fare” at home rather than fancy meals in restaurants were not looked down upon. Rather, if they were honest, hard-working individuals who took care of their families as best they could, they were even held in esteem by their communities.

The solution is the same today. Even if we keep the “economic definition of poverty” as it is currently, the solution is remains simple: Don’t have children out of wedlock, get the best education available, work hard, be honest, law abiding and demand the same of those with whom you associate.

Poverty would not completely vanish. For as it was observed over two thousand years ago, “the poor, you have with you always.” However, the size of the problem would diminish to the point of inconsequence.

[rigelkentaurus]

I call Bravo Sierra on the author.

If one tries to follow his convoluted reasoning, then LBJs war on poverty should have been a massive success - free money, free food, etc - according to the author would make the recipients more likely to work, not less. So, they all got jobs and those programs were no longer needed, right? Or is he saying, like most RATs, welfare handouts would work, we just didn’t spend enough money?

Bravo Sierra.

A little thought experiment: you are poor and hungry, no one is giving you food or money. What do you do? I see three choices.

1. starve to death (humans rarely pick this option, something about the will to live)

2. crime pays (only immoral people pick this option and they will do so whether they have money or not)

3. get a job

I think the author of the article has an elevator problem - it’s not going to the top floors.

[GeronL]

Oh they got role models, all bad ones

[GeronL]

While waiting for the food trucks they can’t raise a garden without eating the seed? They can’t raise a chicken without eating it before it lays an egg? They can’t wait for a tree to bear fruit before chopping it down?

These people seem incredibly stupid.

[NEMDF]

You left off cell phones, $120 sneakers, expensive manicures for decorator nails (I don’t even know what they are called).