Serious question do you think that there are people that want to be poor?

[DanCa]

For the life of me i can't imagine anyone not wanting to work. Maybe I am too personally involved in this issue as having a disability but I can't fathom wanting to be on disability.. I dont know about you but i havent seen any hobos and vagabonds lately. Please tell me that my fundie family is playing mind games with me, but I really can't see anyone choosing poverty.I was just wondering this and thanks.

[StellaBlue]

1. I don't want to work

But I want to not live in poverty more.

Edited to add: I define 'work' here as 'slave for the man'. I would like to work if I had a 'vocation'.

[Yupster]

22. My wife doesn't want to work

and doesn't.

But she doesn't want to be poor, so I work.

[Cleita]

36. Excuse me but does she sit on her ass all day?

I'm sure she doesn't unless you are very wealthy. Think of what it would cost you to hire people to do what she does.

[Leeny]

47. No Reply

I will not speak for him because I don't know the circumstances. But I know quite a few women who choose to stay home or to work part-time in order to raise the kids. Myself, I'm just crazy enough to work nearly full time (9-4, M-F), take care of a house, have two kids in school both with tons of homework, etc. My husband still wonders why I don't work "full-time". Hell, I'm working my ass off 24-7 and am able to function sleep-deprived.

Back to the original question, no I don't want to be poor. But I don't care about being rich either. Just want to be able to have fun with my kids, take a few vacations, buy a pizza when I'm too tired to cook. We could probably get by on my husband's salary alone, but we would not be able to live in our neighborhood. It's not posh, but it's safer than most and has a strong sense of community.

If poor means that you have to live in an area with high-crime and bars on the windows, and be afraid for your kids all the time, then I can't imagine anyone CHOOSING that. That may however be their only choice.

Hope I'm not rambling.

[Leeny]

40. She doesn't work?

Do you have children at home?

[expatriate]

88. What difference does it make if she has kids at home?

For that matter, what business is it of yours? So long as the poster is happy and his wife is happy, and they've agreed on this, it's not anyone else's affair, is it?

If I remember right, all the rumpus was originally about women having the CHOICE to work outside the home. Some choose not to - and if their husband/boyfriend is okay with that, it's for no-one else to question or remark on - just as it's no-one's business to question or remark on YOUR choice of working and doing all that stuff 24/7.

[sadiesworld]

59. lol

[Tace]

2. There Are Any Number Of Intelligent People Who Have Taken A Vow Of Poverty

Jesus comes to mind.

[DanCa]

6. I thought Jesus was a carpenter and a doctor

No wonder why he rested on the seventh day. :D Just kidding.

[Applepie]

29. The religious sects

That take a vow of poverty don't own anything, but they are fed, clothed and sheltered. They also get a certain amount of money to take care of their personal needs. I have lived in poverty, where I wasn't sure when I would get my next meal. I didn't much like it. I am still in the low income range. I just came from the grocery store and it was very depressing. I hope we can continue to put food on the table.

[wildflower]

31. Yes, the woman in my sig comes to mind

She deliberately didn't own any possessions, home, or money. She ate only when someone offered her food and slept either outside or at the home of someone offering her shelter. During her pilgrimage of 28 years, she moved so many people that she was often given shelter.

Then there is Claude Anshin Thomas, a Vietnam vet, author, and Buddhist monk who also walks the country. A good interview with him:

http://www.newconnexion.net/article/11-04/hellsgate.html

wildflower

[RedCloud]

57. Robertson and his money laundering more than make up for them

[brokensymmetry]

3. Poverty is relative.

I doubt anyone would say they wanted poverty. But a lot of people choose other things than the most profitable lifestyle.

Could we work two jobs instead of one? Probably. We'd make more money. Could we put in longer hours, perhaps for overtime? Possibly - but at the cost of not having time for other things we value.

Some people choose professions that are deeply satisfying to them, but don't pay well...how far is that from wanting more time off at the cost of less cash?

[moc]

4. You must remember that the VAST majority of the poor work

According to statistics from the center for childhood poverty at Columbia University:

Two-thirds of families living below the federal poverty level are WORKING and receive NO government benefits.

Another 15% or thereabouts are both WORKING and receiving benefits.

Only 11% of those living below the poverty level are NOT working and receiving government benefits.

It is a HUGE misconception that the poor are sitting around not working and collecting government checks.

If you want links, let me know.

[DanCa]

7. welcome to DU and please

Ill email them to my mom sis and her boyfriend. They insist that poor people are welfare moms poppin out kids. And collecting checks. Thier words not mine.

[moc]

21. Here you go

The first is a link to the report entitled "Early Childhood Poverty: A Statistical Profile (2002)". You'll see the full pdf link on the right. This is the one with the stats I quoted.

http://www.nccp.org/pub_ecp02.html

This one is entitled "Basic Facts About Low-Income Children", wherein "low income" is less than 200% of poverty.

http://www.nccp.org/pub_lic05.html

Thanks for the welcome! :hi:

p.s. On the "popping out babies" issue, here's something I'd typed up some time ago for a debate on this same issue:

There is one additional stereotype that I would like to take head on, and that is the perception of welfare mothers “popping out babies” for the sole purpose of increasing the size of their welfare check. One of the posters involved in the discussion last week very crudely put it that these women should “just keep their legs together”. Now, I’m sure someone has an anecdote of hearing some woman on welfare saying just this very thing, and I will not deny that there are some women in this country who have such a motivation. However, to use anecdotal stories to paint the entire population of poor women in the same vein would be to use a simplistic answer to explain a very complex dynamic. The association between welfare benefits and reproductive decision making has been the subject of considerable empirical investigation. To quote Wilson (1987), “to sum up, this research indicates that welfare receipt or benefit levels have no effect on the incidence of out-of-wedlock births….The findings from Ellwood and Bane’s impressive research and the inconsistent results of other studies on the relationship between welfare and family structure, and welfare and out-of-wedlock births, raise serious questions about the current tendency to blame changes in welfare policies for the decline in the proportion of intact families and legitimate births among the poor. As Ellwood and Bane emphatically proclaim, ‘Welfare simply does not appear to be the underlying cause of the dramatic changes in family structure of the past few decades.’” (Wilson, 1987, p.81).

If you are skeptical about this summary, I will list the individual studies reported by Wilson. When I say “positive association”, I am referring to a positive correlation between welfare benefits and child bearing. Specific references can be found in Wilson 1987.

Studies based on aggregate data:
Cutright – no association
Winegarden – no association
Fechter & Greenfield – no association
Moore & Caldwell – no association
Vining – slight positive association for Blacks, stronger positive association for whites
Ellwood & Bane – no association

Individual level data:
Placek & Hendershot – negative association (i.e., welfare mothers less likely to become pg again)
Presser & Salsberg – negative association
Polgar & Hiday – no association
Moore & Caldwell – no association
Ellwood & Bane – no association
Ross & Sawhill – positive association for Mexican Americans; no association for blacks

Now, granted, Wilson’s review is 16 years old, but I am not aware of any research in the interim period that dramatically changes the conclusions he has made. As with any research area, “truth” is known based on a body of research, not on the results of any individual study. The weight of the empirical evidence from this research area indicates that concluding ‘more welfare = mom pops out more babies’ is a stereotype not grounded in fact.

Wilson, W.J. (1987). The truly disadvantaged: The inner city, the underclass, and public policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

[CrispyQ]

28. They need to be educated about CORPORATE welfare.

It makes personal welfare pale in comparison. It's the argument I always use when I hear small-minded & mean-spirited people complain about welfare.

A few sites to get them started:

http://www.corpwatch.org/

Ask them what their tax rate is. Is it 17.2%? I doubt it!
http://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_welfare/real_tax_rates_plummet.php

And one of the biggest benefactors of corporate welfare & prefertial treatment in our nation, Halliburton:
http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/

[moc]

32. Amen, sister!

:mad:

[DanCa]

39. Thank you all I ll pass on the links to them.

The way I feel about it that Dubyas tax cuts are a form of rich mans welfare. :)

[StellaBlue]

51. yep, yep, yep

[SammyWinstonJack]

66. Yes, but FReepers will say that corporate welfare is good because

it allows those benevolent corps to hire more people. :crazy:

[shraby]

13. I also read a statistic that the average time

a family is on pubic aid is a year or so. Very few stay on it for a long period of time.

[moc]

It's actually shorter

Longitudinal data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) provides us with the opportunity to examine how individuals move into and out of poverty and illustrates that poverty is a “transitory condition for many and a chronic condition for some.” The SIPP examined poverty transitions in 1993 and 1994. Whereas the overall poverty rates for 1993-94 were around 13%, a whopping 30.3% of the population were poor for at least 2 consecutive months during those same years. One 5% were poor continuously for the entire 24 month period. The median length of a “poverty spell” was 4.5 months.

Naifeh, M. (1998). Dynamics of economic well-being, Poverty 1993-94: Trap door? Revolving door? Or both? Current Population Reports, P70-63. U.S. Census Bureau.

[MountainLaurel]

20. Absolutely

In my former county of residence, about 80 percent of the homeless were working; they just couldn't afford housing for their families in an area where a 1BR in a shitty neighborhoods goes for $1K/month.

[Lifelong Protester]

35. I made this same point on another thread

and hope most folks get it. Most of the folks left behind in NO, I'll wager, were working poor. Someone on CNN made the comment that most of the servers, hotel maids, and maintenance folk for the convention trade lived in the flooded out area of the 9th ward.

I suggest this book : The Working Poor-Invisible in America by David K. Shippler

I hope Mr. Shippler does not mind if I quote here from his introduction:

"Most of the people I write about do not have the luxury of rage. They are caught in exhausting struggles. Their wages do not lift them far enough from poverty to improve their lives, and their lives, in turn, hold them back. The term by which they are usually described, 'working poor' should be an oxymoron. Nobody who works hard should be poor in America."

[Terran]

69. Thank you; even homeless people work

All told, I'm guessing the number of people in the US who don't work at all out of choice, and are poor because of it, is vanishingly small. Being poor isn't about having a job or not, it's about having opportunities. Our social system is geared to hand those opportunities to some people and restrict them from others.

[Lindsay]

5. Aside from religious types who have taken vows of poverty,

I doubt anyone wants to be poor. There are a lot of us who don't care about being rich, but that's another issue entirely.

What did your family say? There are people who don't want to work, many more people who for one reason or another can't work (I could write you a book on that one) - but I don't think people would rather be poor than work, if that's the issue.

Hugs to ya - and phbbbbbt to fundies, family included. ;)

[stillcool]

8. my dad was an alcoholic....

who didn't take too kindly to work...he was a WWII vet, and after my mom died when i was a year old...work and he parted ways...but then everything he had, did, was..ceased

[DanCa]

10. That was sad :hug:

My old man had a problem with drinking when he came back from the service. Ill be sending out white light and postitve energy your way my friend.

[Arkana]

9. There are people who wish they didn't have to work (like me),

but I sure as hell don't think anyone WANTS to be poor.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

11. I honestly can't think of anyone

I have ever encountered who was able-bodied or brained and still did not work.

In my experience, the folks without jobs have a reason: just been fired, laid off, disability, young children, mental illness, substance abuse problems.

I have seen on occasion some able-bodied types pan-handling but when you stop and talk to them you usually come to figure out that they have some heavy duty mental issues.

I know there are some folks who have tried the panhandling route for a bit more as an experiment, kind of living off the land as it were, but they usually find it's easier to go to the day labor place.

[pitohui]

68. this cannot be true

I honestly can't think of anyone
I have ever encountered who was able-bodied or brained and still did not work.

you don't know even one rich person or even one person able to retire while still young & healthy enough to enjoy it

that is scary

plenty of healthy-bodied & brained ppl do not work, & they are having a blast

if you can afford it, life w.out work is better & certainly way healthier than life w. work

life in a world where ppl must keep working until they are too broken-down not to work is not a life worth living

[pinto]

12. No, I don't think anyone wants to be poor.

[ulysses]

14. of course there are!

I mean, what's not to like about a nice dry box to live in when your welfare bennies run out? There are nice digs for cheap under the I-20 bridge not far from my school...close to public transportation, low yard maintenance, low utility bills.

[bemildred]

15. There are plenty of people that don't want to work.

Some of them are rich even, but lot's off what passes for work
sucks, blows chunks, and you get treated like shit too, so
the idea that you ought to want to do some shitty job rather
than just hang around is wrong, it's like saying you ought to
be some sort of moron instead of a free autonomous person.

It is also true that many people don't give a shit about
being rich, enough is enough you know, and there are other
things to do with life besides chasing more money than you need.

[StellaBlue]

16. This is sort of how I feel

[zalinda]

17. No one chooses poverty, except for a good reason

There are vocations in which a vow of poverty is required. Still those people have roofs over their heads and food in their bellies. So, it really isn't poverty. Are there people who don't want to work, yes, but they are really such a small group that it doesn't count. And, you have to wonder if crooks would really go in that category.

What you should read is "Nickeled and Dimed" Here's an article about it and the author http://outlook.collegepublisher.com/media/paper171/news/2003/03/11/News/Author.Recounts.Being.nickeled.And.Dimed-390706.shtml

The vast amount of poor people work minimum wage or lower wage jobs. When I made $6 an hour, I took home $187 a week, that's $748 a month. Could your fundie family live on that? For a poor person, there is no planning for the future, since you are dealing with always making sure you have a roof over your head. And, it is doubly worse if you don't have some sort of support system, or add a child into the mix. Your fundie family doesn't realize that those invisible people who clean up after the messes made by the middle class and wealthy, are usually the poor. Who do you think cleans the restrooms, offices, hotel rooms or department stores?

zalinda

[LostInAnomie]

18. You will always find people who take advantage of the system.

For example a woman I work with has for her whole life been on some type of assistance and has no intention of ever getting off. She has a certain level of life that she has become accustomed to and does not desire to ever live beyond it.

She has in her own words "...milked the Indiana welfare system dry (IN discontinues welfare payments after 5 years without work unless you have children and even then there is a certain limit) and now I am playing the unemployment system." She continues to receive food stamps and is on medic-aid, and works part time jobs for a short while and then actively tries to get fired so she can receive unemployment. In her own words again "Hell, I do better when I don't have a job because I make enough off of unemployment to cover my bills and my food stamps increase."

I think that the welfare system is an important safety net that all civilized societies need. I believe societies as a whole are judged by how well they treat their poor. But I hate it when some people take advantage of a system that is designed to put people back on their feet after a being temporarily knocked down.

[DanCa]

37. well thats the exception the way my family talks its the reverse

when i think of poor people i think of people sleeping in homeless shelters, sleeping in telephone booths, and freezing to death in winter. That's my first thought when someone says poor.

In my own case I am 37, have a chronic neurological disease, and can't get hired because a) social security only allows me to make 65 dollars before they take out of my check, and b) my muscles freeze two or three times a day. This goes out to no one on DU but i resent the term 'milking welfare.' Like I said I take it too personally to be objective.

I also think that social security should find jobs for people like me that want to work without fear of loosing benefits. Kind of like a job placement service. I really enjoyed your post kudos.

[newspeak]

48. okay

How do you keep people out of a depleting job market? Prison, school and welfare....Yes, there are a few who live continuously off of the public, but just a few.....Most poor, are the working poor, living paycheck to paycheck, sometimes doing two, three menial jobs. When Welfare Reform passed, I knew it was not going to work, especially for women with children. This country does not have a supportive day care plan for children and day care costs would consume most of their meager wages. Allowing corporations to lower wages to absorb welfare recipients, helps neither the recipients, their families nor communities. "Cadillac moms" are a MYTH!

[DanCa]

55. I really would like to see a disablity job placement program

I am on disability and let me tell you it really takes away my self esteem. That and all the rw ing freeloading bull shit. I know people need it and cant do work i.e. make factory quotas but I would like too see something where a person can work just a few hours a week, on a volunteer basis, and depending on health level, were he or she can provide something for themselves.
I am not knocking anyone on the program I am on the program. I am just tired of being made to feel useless every month. And that is how I feel and not a disperison on anyone else.

[Sapphire Blue]

77. If you're looking for volunteer opportunities, check here...

http://national.unitedway.org/volunteer/

[DanCa]

81. Thank you ill check out the website tomarrow. - nt

[LostInAnomie]

78. I know that the idea of a "welfare queen" is a myth.

The woman I described is just an individual case but she a good example of what many hate about the welfare system. Like I said in my other post I believe in a strong welfare system that takes care of those who need it. If it were up to me I would expand welfare to cover everything that a person would need to be able to re-enter the workforce. People like her though do serious damage to the welfare system not because they take money and resources but because they give all of those opposed to welfare a prime example of how the system is not working, how there are people with no intention of ever getting off. This causes resentment from the working class who should probably be the people who support it most of all.

But I digress.

The OP's question was if there are people who want to be poor and in her case I would say so. If she would continue to work at my place of employment there is plenty of room for advancement to where she would be making decent money. When I spoke to her yesterday though she told me that she had about two more months there until she could draw enough from unemployment to support herself and then she was just going to quit showing up so she can get fired.

She is far from being a "welfare queen" in fact she lives very near the poverty line, but that is the lifestyle she has become accustomed to and is comfortable with.

[KittyWampus]

19. Wealth/Poverty/Security Issues. Each Individual's Evolution Involves

working with these issues.

A lot comes down to letting go of our petty ego and acknowleding the great extent we aren't self sufficient islands.

And also letting go of preconceived notions we all have about our own limitations.

We can accomplish great things, but are battered down since birth to believe we must accept less then we are capable of.

[msmcghee]

23. Actually, in a sense that happens . .

Here's how:

From age 2 through 4 we learn the general outlines of who we will become. No 3 year old has the ability to say, "Gee, I don't like the way these people are living. Think I'll look around for a different lifestyle."

Instead they learn ways to deal with life that are consistent with their surroundings - and using as role models those people around them who care for them. During this time they learn to love and depend on those people and to imitate their ways of dealing with life.

From ages 3 on they start filling in their personality. Remember the ad on TV where the little girl says to her little brother, with her hands on her hips, "I think someone needs a time out"?

A good ad that showed how children use imitation to fill in their personality. They are not just pretending - they are growing their "self". If they have a single mother who lives in poverty they grow into imitating their mothers ways of coping. This becomes ingrained into their personality. It is who they are. And that will no doubt include ways of dealing with life (poverty) that minimize whatever discomfort that brings, that provide self respect, that lets them acquire friends who cope in similar ways, etc.

Children don't choose to live in poverty. Instead, if they are raised in poverty they have to choose to become a different person than have become - when they get old enough to do that, if they want to stop.

And that's not easy to do. Many who choose to leave poverty can't manage to do it. They get negative feedback from society when they try. They have become a person who gets more positive feedback from their society by staying in poverty - and they can't give that up for an imagined new set of positive reinforcements that may appear sometime in the future - and may not ever appear as far as they know since they've never lived otherwise.

A long post just to say that's it's easy for a middle class person to wonder why anyone would choose to live in poverty. Probably for the same reason most of us here have "chosen" not to be millionairs.

[wellstone dem]

44. I adopted my daughter at age 9 from foster care

I asked her once if she was sad in her first family, she said no, because she didn't know anyone lived a different life.

If I have given her anything, it is belief in herself and her potential. She'll be going to college next year.

[msmcghee]

45. That warms my heart.

I think she's a lucky girl.

[expatriate]

85. How wonderful!

So many older child adoptions do not have such a happy outcome.

I had a similar experience with my adopted son - he never realized that the way he lived before being adopted by me at age seven, that anyone lived in any other way. In his little mind, everyone went from foster home to foster home, ate takeout pizza that the foster parents spent the support checks for the kids on rather than cooking, and had toys given to them by Toys For Tots for Christmas.

I'm glad you were able to help your daughter. Far too many older adoptees are so patterned that it's impossible to turn them away from the way they were raised.

Best of luck to you and your daughter!

[Journeyman]

24. Back in the '90s I worked for a company whose building. . .

was next to a railroad track. All I ever saw on the line were Amtrak trains, and they were moving fast.

One day, years after we'd been in the building, a new guy showed up. Tall, scruffy looking, dirty clothes -- best we could tell, he lived somewhere beneath the tracks, or in an dug out hole, or in some protected corner of a building rarely visited by anyone.

We tried to talk to him, to learn his story, but though he seemed reasonably intelligent he didn't want to have anything to do with us. Some guys offered him food and clothes but he rejected them, same as he did the company vp when he offered him a job. But though he wouldn't take what we freely offered, if we left it outside overnight it disappeared before morning.

Was he mentally unbalanced? Maybe. He didn't sound it, but who can judge on such limited knowledge. Did he want to be poor, or did he simply want to not be a part of society? We'll never know. A week or so after we did our best to help him, he stepped in front of Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner.

[Quixote1818]

25. It's a self fulfilling prophecy and a vicious cycle

When you are born into a world of poverty and crime that is the world you know. It becomes a part of the way you view the world and what you come to EXPECT out of life. People who come from poverty tend to lack self respect because of our Capitalistic society that looks down on poverty. So poor people born into a society that looks down upon them tend to live up to society's expectations.

I don't know if they want to be poor but that is how they view themselves. To change this the poor and abused need to be caught in early infant childhood and given a different view of the world and themselves. If you take a child out of the ghetto and put them in a middle class or wealthy family they will most certainly have a higher probability of having successful money making jobs. It's not as simple as ending welfare but catching them young and teaching them about the opportunity's out their. It's also about teaching them interpersonal communication skills, parenting skills, conflict resolution skills etc.

[NorthernSpy]

67. the usual bunch of Great Society-ish crap, I see...

I don't know if they want to be poor but that is how they view themselves. To change this the poor and abused need to be caught in early infant childhood and given a different view of the world and themselves. If you take a child out of the ghetto and put them in a middle class or wealthy family they will most certainly have a higher probability of having successful money making jobs. It's not as simple as ending welfare but catching them young and teaching them about the opportunity's out their. It's also about teaching them interpersonal communication skills, parenting skills, conflict resolution skills etc.

Aw, fuck that shite. I'm damn sick of this smug assumption that poor people are poor because they lack "conflict resolution skills", or whatever else today's social workers fancy themselves to be saving the world by teaching.

Our economic structure guarantees the existence of an impoverished class. Every poor person in America could go out right this very mintue, and develop all those life skills and moral values and whatnot, and you know what? Most of them would remain poor, because WalMart needs stockboys and there's only so much room available in the middle class.

Why can't you life-skilled Enlightened Ones get that through your heads?

[expatriate]

87. You are so correct.

Once you slip into poverty in America - or if you're born in it - it's damn near impossible to get out any more.

At one time, there were educational grants available to poor kids to go to college. They weren't huge, but they would cover the cost of a public university. Most of that was destroyed by the Reagan Administration. I knew many people who got into and through college on those grants, where they didn't have to cripple themselves with student loans for years.

After Welfare Reform a la Clinton, now people have no choice but to take dead end, minimum wage jobs - and once you're in one (or several) of them, and have a family to support, it's all but impossible to spend time acquiring job skills or job hunting. You just hang on to the shitty job, hoping you don't lose it. No health coverage, no benefits of any kind - usually only considered "part time" because employers don't want to have to pay benefits for a full time employee. Not exactly a situation where people can better themselves and pull themselves up by the bootstraps.

Poor people have just as good communication skills and conflict resolution skills as the next person. It's just that once you're at that income level, getting out is a super human effort, now that so many of the things that used to help people out of poverty have been cut out of budgets and annihilated by various administrations.

[AuntieM1957]

26. I'd rather than be poor than be...

a member of the Bush family.

Liars, cheats, killers, drunks, coke addicts.

Thanks, I'll pass.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

27. People who have a hard time getting hired (black males, indiv. over 50)

There have been many studies showing that many employers feel "more comfortable" hiring black females - I saw a study where it said that employers felt "intimidated" of black males.

In addition, people over 50 are thought to be "stuck in their ways." Obese/ugly people are thought to be lazy and have all kinds of traits tacked onto them. There are many many stereotypes that people have in their minds - (consciously and subconsciously).

[Jeanette in FL]

30. When you are poor

Nothing else dominates your thoughts than what you are going to do next. You are not interested in politics or education or health or anything. You think about how are you going to feed your family, how are you going to pay your bills, what if the car breaks down, what if anyone in the family gets sick. When you are poor, you lose any power in your life, you become a slave to the system.

Once you have money to meet your essential needs, money becomes irrelevant. You move on to what you would like to have.

Many of us have been poor. It will never leave your soul. You will always remember what those days were like.

[Igel]

33. I worked for a church back in the '80s.

There was one family, man, woman, and two kids (later, 3 kids). none had great education, but the man was healthy enough, as was the woman, to work. But they'd have to take care of their two kids while working.

He'd get a job, and decide that it wasn't worth his effort: it didn't utilize his skills, or they didn't properly respect him and his efforts. He wouldn't quit, he'd just stop showing up. Then he'd complain he was fired and disrespected (not his word for it, of course).

Welfare had limited patience for him. Unemployment didn't want him. The church got stuck with him, mostly because of his wife and kids. She tried getting a job: she'd come home to find the kids unmonitored and unfed. If she left before the kids went to school, if they didn't pack their own lunch and get themselves ready, they didn't go. Their father didn't care.

Finally we pooled our resources and sent him off to a tech training school for 6 months in a different city. Their placement services got him a job locally (to us, not to the school). He didn't last two weeks before he couldn't be bothered: $14/hr or whatever wasn't worth his attention.

We offered to pay for non-church counseling for him and his wife. He was insulted.

The only proper thing would have been for the church to tell him to get out. But being pro-family, the church couldn't break up a family. When I left the church, they were still living in church-owned housing, with the wife doing odd jobs for the church to justify her stipend, with church women helping out with the kids while the wife worked. Her husband was a slug. And their teenage son was learning all the wrong lessons about work and women's duty to their husbands.

He didn't want to be poor; he believed himself to deserve a middle-class income and life-style. He just couldn't raise a finger to do anything about it.

[patdem]

72. I would say he was mentally ill...along the lines of GWbush**

A narcissist...

[Igel]

90. Yes.

Nonetheless, he refused help that would enable him to actually feed himself. It was others' work.

There are such people. Thankfully, they're not very numerous.

[FloridaPat]

34. Poverty doesn't mean you don't work. It can mean that and it can

mean you can't get a job good enough to get you out of poverty. As for working, I don't want to work either. I've had enough of the crap. The gov't is sending computer jobs overseas as fast as they can. I would like to do something I really like to bring in money. A lot of programmers are having trouble getting a job. Me included. And I've had 25 years of this crap. I want to retire but can't.

[philosophie_en_rose]

38. Poverty happens when you don't have a choice.

Maybe some people choose to have less possessions - Mother Theresa, Gandhi, Thoreau - but that's a whole different beast than being forced into poverty.

[DanCa]

41. I wanted to thank everyone for thier thoughtful and intelligent posts.

I get a lot of grief for being on disability and for being a liberal in general. That's why I love DU. You guys and gals are the biggest support system I have. I hate being trapped in a red house. :hug:

[ignatius 2]

42. I doubt if anyone really wants to be poor. Money doesn't mean as much

to some, but it does make life easier and gives you options.

Many homeless people are mentally ill including many Vietnam vets. Many are just down on their luck and sometimes if you don't have clean clothes,decent food,or a place to bathe you cant even apply for work. It is a vicious cycle.

In this country,since Bush has been in office, over 4 million more people have fallen into poverty and I doubt that any of them want to be there.

Does your family have a clue what it is like not being able to take your child to the doctor because there is not money..eating bologna sandwiches for the third straight day, losing sleep wondering how the hell you are going to pay the heat bill..dreading asking tour family for a loan "until payday" that you all know isn't going to get paid back..

This was my family 40 years ago after dad left. My mom did her best and the poor dear worried enough for 10 moms. I can tell you for a fact, she didn't like being poor, it was so hard and I know she always felt guilty about not being able to give us more.

They are feeding you a line of bullshit,,out of the millions in this country who are poor, I bet you couldn't find a handful who like it.

[lumberjack_jeff]

43. Poverty? No. Simplicity, yes.

After 20 years of servitude, I've chosen to stop living for a paycheck.

Our family lives simply and we've never been happier. If you look at our family income, we probably qualify as poor by most *income* (as opposed to assets) guidelines.

I suggest reading the book "your money or your life". A lot of people have confused "simplicity" with "poverty", "income" with "wealth" and "standard of living" with "quality of life".

There are definitely people out there who want for necessities and they need our support and guidance. There are others out there who have the necessities covered, and can afford enough luxuries (like DSL ;)) to make life enjoyable.

They have enough.

[seabeyond]

46. there always have been and always will be people that dont pull

there weight. there will always be the irresponsible. there will always be those that choses drugs and crime. there will always be those that have a lower than average i.q. and are relegated to the lowest paying jobs, unable to provide for the family.

of course there are those that refuse to work. we will continue to have a certain number at unemployment because they will just refuse to hold a job

the question becomes, what is our role in our society to all factions of our community, even those that dont pull their weight, or aren't able to provide for other reasons.

[newspeak]

52. perceptions about assistance

there's a couple employees who are avid rush fans, always spouting off about the undeserving on welfare, how we're paying for it. One employee was injured playing baseball, then said he was injured at work, used company vehicle go to games. Another employee who complained about welfare would spend half his time BSing with friends around town, drinking coffee while he was supposed to be on a call. Everyone, I mean everyone, exploits or uses the system or each other one time or another. The thing is, the employees couldn't identify themselves with those that they were complaining about.

[Alpharetta]

49. Today's post on Henry David Thoreau's "blog" talks about that

http://blogthoreau.blogspot.com/

I realized how incomparably great the advantages of obscurity and poverty which I have enjoyed so long (and may still perhaps enjoy). I thought with what more than princely, with what poetical, leisure I had spent my years hitherto, without care or engagement, fancy-free. I have given myself up to nature; I have lived so many springs and summers and autumns and winters as if I had nothing else to do but live them, and imbibe whatever nutriment they had for me; I have spent a couple of years, for instance, with the flowers chiefly, having none other so binding engagement as to observe when they opened; I could have afforded to spend a whole fall observing the changing tints of the foliage. Ah, how I have thriven on solitude and poverty! I cannot overstate this advantage.

[Ron Green]

50. This is a good thread with thoughtful replies. I'm gonna nominate it.

[LeahD]

53. Yes.

I know someone that works for human services in a small town in the midwest, and whether most of us want to believe it or not, there are people who want "something for nothing." With welfare reform, and work requirements, "going on disability" is now abused....back problems, getting diagnosed as bi-polar. The very sad thing is that they are thinking so short-term. Where will they be in 30 years? They may think they're getting "something for nothing" but they are paying dearly.

[patdem]

73. Honey, your friend who works for Human Services is probably POOR!

My husbands sister has worked for her Masters Degree in Human Services and moved to NY in order to work and yet she is still paid a pathetic amount of money. Sorry being POOR does not mean NOT working!

[LeahD]

79. Well, she's definitely above the poverty line,

for a single person, with adult sons, but she did have a second job for two years.

And, yes, working does not mean that one is not poor.

[Rabrrrrrr]

54. Sure, some people intentionally live below the poverty line

They tend to be educated liberals who have the resources to CHOOSE that lifestyle, though, living off the grid and growing their own food and bartering and etc. I've heard of some who do this for ecological and social reasons, some who do it so that they don't have to pay any taxes and thus don't have to support the military. And some do it for religious reasons (either for reasons above, and also the nuns and priests and monks and others who take vows of poverty; but those who take those vows are still provided for by other people, so they aren't really living "poor").

And choosing to be poor doesn't mean that one is choosing not to work. I'm sure these people work a hell of a lot, they've just eschewed the capitalist "get all you can" credo.

However, most people in poverty are forced into it (some get it because of their inability to control themselves, but most of them are few), or are born into it and a very bad social structure that makes it almost impossible for them to get out of it (both the US social structure that makes it hard, but also their immediate social structure that might imply they are uppity by trying to do better than their peers or parents).

[rniel]

56. Well look at it like this

For those that believe there are poor people taking advantage of the system do they not believe there are rich corporations taking advantage of the system.

For those against welfare are they also against corporate welfare. No bid contracts to companies that charge 5 times the price for everything as a big ripoff scam.

[newportdadde]

58. You can make choices which in turn cause you have a worse economic situation

They of course aren't the only ways you can end up in a bad situation but they certainly don't help.

For instance when I see someone using food stamps to buy food for themselves and their kids, yet in the parking lot they get out a pack of cigs that is a choice. Same for booze, gambling etc, destructive choices. Same for idiots who get a 42 inch plasma TV on a credit card, bad choices.

Any recreational activity we choose to do takes away resources from other activities and it does bother me when I see people making these choices which in turn impacts their family. For example I could if I wanted to do so, go to the casino once a week, get a new mustang to drive, buy overpriced crap from China etc.

Those choices might mean my family gets to eat Romain noodles all week.. so I choose not to give into what I want because of the costs to myself and my family.

Other choices we make that cause individuals to teeter on the edge even with a good income: Buying new cars, especially ones we do not need but get for status, running up credit card debt on junk you don't need. Buying a home on crazy mortgages, no money down etc. There you have a group of people who should be doing great but are sabotaging themselves.

[triguy46]

60. Prob not, but...

There are people who will accept it as the "price" of doing nothing.

[Seansky]

61. I couldn't stay away from this question.

I am sharing this out of memory, so if someone has heard this doctor, please fill in the blanks.

A couple of months ago I stumbled into a speech by a renown doctor being aired in Pacifica Radio. The renown doctor (to this date I haven't checked who he is) was telling the audience an anecdote about his visit to Nepal when he was young and not yet a doctor.

He had been hiking the countryside and ran into a family living in what I understood were some form of tents and basic ly conducting all their daily routine outdoors, in an environment lacking all modern luxuries.

And, as in most humble environments, the family welcomed the young man into their home as if he were one of them.

The young man, noticing how poor these people were, felt sorry for them, but realizing that these people didn't know they were poor, he noticed how content they were with their.

Coming back to the present, the doctor pointed out that the reason this family didn't know they were poor was because they had no advertising. No one telling them how much is there to have.

Now, from this anecdote to facing the reality of poverty in the world superpower, (no offense intended on this) how could we sincerely ask the question does anyone want to be poor? With so many telling so many others how much there is to have? No matter what answer we come up with, seems to me, it won't be complex enough to provide any light into the issue.

I want to believe that no one wants to live in poverty (whatever definition exists for poverty wherever they live) but I can't ever forget that the human mind can't always provide all the necessary tools for all individuals to properly face the demands of society, life, other people and so on.

How many people get so burned out for trying to fulfill the definitions of not being poor in their social environment? How much has the peer pressure for keeping up with the Johnsons affected the debt rate of each US family? And of those, how many are working hard to keep it ut? Are these people that are working hard to obtain all there is not to be poor getting themselves into poverty anyway by accumulating so much debt?

Very good question, but I think there is never going to be a simple answer.

Sorry about the long post. Got carried away. Now please blast my response. Want to hear more.

[patdem]

74. Seansky, I agree totally, I had my own AHA moment ..stop wanting more

I had a perfectly clean, comfortable, small but enough space for me and my son townhouse in a good neighborhood...and yet I used to pick up those free to all housing books to see all those WONDERFUL homes I could NEVER afford just to see what I was MISSING!...Suddenly it dawned on me, if I just quit getting those books, I could finally enjoy what I had! It worked miracles, I tell you!

[Guaranteed]

92. Outstanding post. And they probably lack the bitterness, too,

of being told that they're worthless by those same media.

[Connie_Corleone]

62. Monks

[triguy46]

63. don't confuse being "poor" with "not working"

Many people choose a simple life that is not dependent on traditional economic models, rather they work to self sufficiency, live off the grid, barter, trade, sell a little for some cash for those things you can't make at home. Are they poor? They don't have to file income tax forms, so by that definition, yes. But they would argue that they are rich in other ways.

that is not the same as "not working." These people work their asses off, just in a different way than a paycheck.

[Midlodemocrat]

64. I don't think anyone would want to be poor, unless it was for

spiritual reasons. People who are poor are poor because of situations out of their control. Middle class whites, like me, have a leg up just by being born middle class and white. Entitlement. I never had to worry about not getting enough to eat, or how I was going to get to work, or not being able to pay for college.


Now, with my own family, I sometimes worry about money, but only because we tend to spend a lot. We eat out a lot. It often makes me feel extremely selfish that I am enjoying a nice meal that some people will never be able to afford.

[pitohui]

65. no one wants to be poor but plenty don't want to work

For the life of me i can't imagine anyone not wanting to work.


then, no offense, but your imagination is v. limited

we have limited time & energy on this earth

i certainly would not waste my time working if i didn't need the $$$, most ppl dream of the day they will be retired & no longer forced into harness

i think, given choice, v. few ppl would choose to spend the best part of their lives working to enrich the top 2 percent

most work is just a waste of time meant to bring home a buck

no one chooses poverty but neither do most ppl choose work

we don't get a choice in these matters

before i was born god did not ask me if i wanted to be paris hilton and inherit my looks, riches, & fame, or if i preferred to work all my days for a fraction of what she gets just for being born

choice is not a reality for most americans, it is only real for rich ppl

i doubt anyone in yr fundie family has any great, rewarding, enriching job, but if they do, they are certainly a minority

[NorthernSpy]

70. middle class people always assume that they could handle poverty...

... better than poor people themselves do. They fancy that under those same circumstances, they could be wiser and thriftier; so much wiser and thriftier, in fact, that they'd have lifted themselves out of poverty before long.

This of course is pure conceit -- what you get when you start with a warped view of the realities of the poor life, and add to it that immense surfeit of self-regard that the affluent always seem to have.



Read all about it at http://www.nickelanddimed.net/ !

[Seansky]

71. DanCa have you seen this? Seems to be about your qs.

at buzzflash.com

[DanCa]

80. Uhm youre missing the article link but I have an inklin of what you mean

i read buzzflash three times a week. I can just search for poverty articles. Thank you my friend.

[cynatnite]

75. not wanting to work and poverty are two different things...

I don't want to work and fortunately we can afford for me not to. Not everyone has it.

Don't confuse the two.

[Bouncy Ball]

76. No, they say you have to CHOOSE to be successful and wealthy.

Funny, last week, I decided to try it and I CHOSE to be wealthy.

It didn't work.

Of course no one WANTS to be poor! Why would anyone want that? It's a really stressful life, constantly wondering how to pay for this or that.

Rich people make plenty of bad choices, the difference is when Paris Hilton makes a horrible choice it doesn't affect her checkbook because there's so much money in there to begin with. But a poor person makes one bad choice and it just digs them in even deeper.

There is ZERO room for error if you are poor.

[moondust]

82. Some people

don't care much about material wealth. Others refuse to adopt greed as a way of life. It's not so much that some people choose poverty but rather they reject in varying degrees the value system and behavior of shallow materialism. "Subsistence Plus" isn't bad once you get used to it.

The pursuit of gross excess is the root of most evil.

[expatriate]

83. I can tell, then, that you've never been poor in America.

Or you wouldn't even ask that question - particularly if you mean by "poor" that you do not have sufficient income to meet basic needs.

Being poor enough not to be able to afford decent housing, food, medical care, clothing and everything else that goes into an acceptable standard of living is a degrading, heartbreaking, endlessly desperate experience. No-one in their right mind would choose such a degrading and miserable existence.

Now, if you're defining "poor" as those who accept a simplified lifestyle, so long as their basic needs are met and they have an acceptable standard of comfort and decency, yes, there are people who want to be "poor". I know many people who have done the back to the land thing, and get by on very limited incomes, but they work hard to be able to do it, and their basic needs are met.

Then there are a lot of people who are working, but are poor - they still can't meet their basic needs, or get medical care, because they don't qualify for Medicaid (being too "wealthy") and they can't afford medical insurance and their employers don't offer it. Many of the working poor are making the federal minimum wage of $5.35 per hour. Can you imagine trying to live on that? Making a budget to live on a paltry $215 per week - and not being paid a living wage, even though you are working?

You can't imagine anyone not wanting to work? Well, you must not get around much, or you must have a really nice job. Plenty of people would love to be able to get rid of being a wage slave to be able to pursue a vocation in art or music, or to write. Plenty of people would love to be able to live the life the ultra-rich, like the Bush family, live - they can buy their way into dream positions, like governorships and Presidencies, they can travel anywhere, they can see or do anything they like, and they don't have to lift a hand to earn the money necessary to make it all happen.

Plenty of people have spent their lives in miserable jobs they hate. Those people certainly can imagine not wanting to work.

As for the smugness of your mother and sister assuming that poor women are just sitting around popping out babies - haven't they heard of welfare reform, which was enacted during the Clinton Administration? Now there is a lifetime cap for welfare payments - 60 months, total. In 24 month increments. So after 24 months - off to work in some minimum wage job you must go.

There are no Welfare Queens.

Tell them that the maximum welfare payment to a family with dependent children in Louisiana is $240.00 per MONTH. Two hundred forty dollars. Period. Ask them to make up a budget with that.

[kineneb]

84. there is work, and then there is "work"

I am part-timer now, since the Chamber of Commerce where I work reduced my hours(budget problems). No one has mentioned the famous Soviet-era quote that applies to so many of us:

"I pretend to work, and they pretend to pay me."

That is the way I feel about my job. They demand loyalty to the "company" but they don't give a shit about the worker. Therefore why should I give a shit about my job?? Especially with fewer hours and the same responsibilities. I take home $219 per week now. I can't imagine how people who earn even less survive (I don't call that living, but surviving, like an animal in the pound.)

Here is the situation: Hubby worked for WorldCom and got laid off in May 2002. There were few IT jobs left after the dotBomb collapse and none that would hire an over-50 male with health problems (diabetes, kidney disease,eye problems). We sold the house in the Bay Area and got enough to buy a place in rural Lake Co. But the COBRA health insurance ran out, after he was put on insulin. So after paying down what retirement money we had, we went on CMSP/MediCal so he could get care.

Now the kicker: to qualify, two adults can have no more than $3000 cash assets (checking/savings), and they have a earnings "limit" of $934 gross/month. Everything earned above that is considered "share of cost" and must be paid out before the medical coverage will kick in. This means if the couple earns $1000, they pay out the difference ($66) before they have medical coverage. (There are a few adjustments, but they are minor.) The proportion does not change with income, so that one's income winds up remaining $934 (or less) before taxes. This means Hubby is penalized if I make any extra income. And we still wind up with under $934/mo.

On this plan, what incentive is there to improve one's self? None that I see. If I could get a job that had health insurance that was affordable, could I get Hubby on it? Or would they deny him coverage for "pre-existing conditions"? Or would it be so unaffordable that I would take home less than I do today?

We await his disability approval and payments. Dialysis is such a wonderful way to leech off the system. :sarcasm: At that point I may need to quit my "job", become a caretaker and go back to teaching piano part time for cash. We may be doomed to be on CMSP if we don't break even on Medicare. Hubby will still have a pile of meds that we otherwise will be unable to afford. Oh, and he will soon be having surgery to remove one of his kidneys, which the docs suspect has cancer. Then he immediately begins dialysis.

No, not all work is equal, and also not all poverty. Sometimes the system guarantees that people will be poor and stay poor. If the jobs available lack health benefits, then why bust your butt if you have a family member with a chronic health problem. It doesn't pay.

[ladylibertee]

86. Barbara bush seems to think so.Ask that Bitch

[union_maid]

89. There are lots of reasons for poverty

Choice is rarely among them, at least in terms of lifelong poverty. There's mental illness, drug addiction, both of which can give the appearance of an element of choice. In the case of the first, there is none and the second, it's not for me to say. Then there's disability. If you can't work, and work as hard an long and reliably as an employer wants, poverty is certainly a possibility.

There's also lack of family resources. How many people have to go home to their parents for a while to get on their feet? Lots do. Sometimes they even bring children back with them. For many younger people, home is a middle class safety net. But if your mom is living in Section 8 housing and isn't allowed to let you stay? Then you're homeless. And it's really hard to get out of that hole. Some do, but it's a very tough climb and there are a lot of things beyond your control that can derail your efforts.

If your family is wealthy you can afford any number of youthful indescretions and still wind up as president. If you're middle class and have a supportive family you can still get a second or third chance if you mess up, or if shit just happens to you. If your family is poor, you better do everything perfectly the first time. There won't be a lot of chances to learn from your own mistakes.

[Guaranteed]

91. Absolutely not. Some have resigned to it, though.

That's what happens when you don't see any opportunity for years and years, perhaps your entire life. Eventually, you just say, "Fuck it."

On edit: I think I made an inadvertant reference to Chapelle Show, there.

[mondo joe]

93. I have known people who were willing to be PRETTY poor if it meant

not working.

I grew up poor. Much of my family was on some sort of public assistance, as were the majority of people in our neighborhood.

There were people who had no better choices.

But there were some people who were happy to stick with it because they had enough. One cousin was thrilled when she was pregnant because she considered a sort of golden ticket for welfare for years to come. She was able to do it because she had parents who would buy her and the baby things, though they weren't well off themselves.

No one I knew was one of the "Cadillac Driving Welfare Queens" - they were poor. But some, like my cousin, could have worked but chose not to and didn't really see any reason to do things differently.