Why are poor people poor?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes, for a very small amount of people, Poverty is their own fault.

But for the overwhelming majority of people living under the Poverty line, it's a result of factors beyond their control.
And when you're at the bottom of the ladder it's very, very hard to climb any higher.
That's not a "nice" thing for most people to acknowledge but it's the truth, painful as it is.

[dazzleman]

Yes, for a very small amount of people, Poverty is their own fault.

But for the overwhelming majority of people living under the Poverty line, it's a result of factors beyond their control.
And when you're at the bottom of the ladder it's very, very hard to climb any higher.
That's not a "nice" thing for most people to acknowledge but it's the truth, painful as it is.

I don't believe that the "overwhelming majority" of people living in poverty have no control over it, at least on some level.  It would actually be easier to believe that, and if it were, anti-poverty programs that provide resources of different types to poor people would have been far more successful than they have been.

It's a lot harder to help people when they are their own worst enemy, and this is the case with a certain percentage of poor people.  Almost every poor person I personally know has at least contributed to their own situation, to one degree or another.

It's not all black and white, but I think we have done the poor a disservice by failing to face reality, and squandering opportunities to design more effective anti-poverty programs than the failed programs that liberals have produced.

[John Dibble]

I just got back from doing my Christmas shopping, and I saw this beat up old car with the greatest vanity plate I've ever seen. It said

I FIGHT POVERTY
      I WORK

[Chiahead]

I won't say that all those that are poor made themselves that way, some are born into it, but this country gives every person the ability to make it in this world if they work hard and obey the law they have a good shot of making it out of poverty. 
There are those that do choose that lifestyle, maybe due to some addiction or criminal lifestyle, they do want out of poverty, but refuse to comply to societies guidelines, such as laws or acceptable behavior.

[opebo]

I just got back from doing my Christmas shopping, and I saw this beat up old car with the greatest vanity plate I've ever seen. It said

I FIGHT POVERTY
      I WORK

Two paychecks away from the poor house.

[John Dibble]

I just got back from doing my Christmas shopping, and I saw this beat up old car with the greatest vanity plate I've ever seen. It said

I FIGHT POVERTY
      I WORK

Two paychecks away from the poor house.

You of course know this being the ultimate manager of money and knowing every aspect of the person's life.

[JohnFKennedy]

If you're born to parents who aren't very educated or capable of doing much, you'll probably be poor until you're 18. After that, it depends on how educated you are, and what you're capable of doing.

It is quite improbable that the children of poor people will be very educated at all.  Even if their public school was capable of providing an education (highly unlikely), how could they attend college?

Scholarships. That and having high enough SAT scores.

sheesh!  You're only talking about maybe 1-2% of the poor then.  Not a very demographically meaningful method of bootstrapping.

Well, you have to consider a couple things - how many are capable of it, and how many want it? A capable student can learn enough in almost any public school, and there's a lot of people who don't even plan on going to college. That changes the numbers quite a bit, doesn't it?

But they can't if they have to drop out and work to help support their family. (Not sure if this had already been said).

[Confabulator]

For most poor people, it is impossible to really ever escape poverty.  You can't stay in high school if you have to work to support your family.  It's really just impossible, unless you are one of the lucky few who are geniuses.  And if you don't have a high school graduate, then you can't get any sort of good job. 

There are some poor people who are poor because of themselves, though.  There are a lot of people who live as if they were in the upper middle class, but really just cannot afford to do so.  It's a big problem here in the US, and what happens is that whenever we have a recession these people are screwed.

[John Dibble]

If you're born to parents who aren't very educated or capable of doing much, you'll probably be poor until you're 18. After that, it depends on how educated you are, and what you're capable of doing.

It is quite improbable that the children of poor people will be very educated at all.  Even if their public school was capable of providing an education (highly unlikely), how could they attend college?

Scholarships. That and having high enough SAT scores.

sheesh!  You're only talking about maybe 1-2% of the poor then.  Not a very demographically meaningful method of bootstrapping.

Well, you have to consider a couple things - how many are capable of it, and how many want it? A capable student can learn enough in almost any public school, and there's a lot of people who don't even plan on going to college. That changes the numbers quite a bit, doesn't it?

But they can't if they have to drop out and work to help support their family. (Not sure if this had already been said).

How many poor kids actually work to support their families?

[A18]

In this country? About one or two.

[Confabulator]

Maybe in whatever paradise you live in.  What exactly do you think people do when they drop of school?

[John Dibble]

Maybe in whatever paradise you live in.  What exactly do you think people do when they drop of school?

The people I know who dropped out were irresponsible good-for-nothings, and if they did get a job they did so only to support themselves, not their families.

[opebo]

I just got back from doing my Christmas shopping, and I saw this beat up old car with the greatest vanity plate I've ever seen. It said

I FIGHT POVERTY
      I WORK

Two paychecks away from the poor house.

You of course know this being the ultimate manager of money and knowing every aspect of the person's life.

I don't think its much of a stretch to assume most working people are depending on that next paycheck.  After all, if they didn't need it desperately, why would they be working?

Worst of all of course, a very significant percentge of people are poor even if they *keep* the job - making $7-8 an hour leaves you poor every week, not two paychecks away.  The two paycheck away thing is to remind the 'middle class' that they're really no different from the working poor.

[John Dibble]

I just got back from doing my Christmas shopping, and I saw this beat up old car with the greatest vanity plate I've ever seen. It said

I FIGHT POVERTY
      I WORK

Two paychecks away from the poor house.

You of course know this being the ultimate manager of money and knowing every aspect of the person's life.

I don't think its much of a stretch to assume most working people are depending on that next paycheck.  After all, if they didn't need it desperately, why would they be working?

Worst of all of course, a very significant percentge of people are poor even if they *keep* the job - making $7-8 an hour leaves you poor every week, not two paychecks away.  The two paycheck away thing is to remind the 'middle class' that they're really no different from the working poor.

My point was you assumed that the person had no savings for a rainy day. I also think you don't know how to be effectively frugal with money(many people don't, which worsen's their own situation), in your case due to probable lack of experience how to.

[senatortombstone]

It is up to the individual to make themselves more viable to employers.  When you're playing an RPG, you don''t fight the next enemy with poor armor weapons and low-levels.  You build yourself up and gain experience.  It is the same in real life.  If you want to succeed then you have to work for it.  One of the key ingredients to failure is the refusal to delay gratification.

[opebo]

I just got back from doing my Christmas shopping, and I saw this beat up old car with the greatest vanity plate I've ever seen. It said

I FIGHT POVERTY
      I WORK

Two paychecks away from the poor house.

You of course know this being the ultimate manager of money and knowing every aspect of the person's life.

I don't think its much of a stretch to assume most working people are depending on that next paycheck.  After all, if they didn't need it desperately, why would they be working?

Worst of all of course, a very significant percentge of people are poor even if they *keep* the job - making $7-8 an hour leaves you poor every week, not two paychecks away.  The two paycheck away thing is to remind the 'middle class' that they're really no different from the working poor.

My point was you assumed that the person had no savings for a rainy day. I also think you don't know how to be effectively frugal with money(many people don't, which worsen's their own situation), in your case due to probable lack of experience how to.

Frugality benefits you only if you have an income.  Unemployed people have none, and the 'working poor' have too little to even house themselves, much less save.   And in any case, the amounts that working people can save don't essentially change their class identitiy - whether you are 2 paychecks from destitution or 5, you're still working class.

On the other hand once you save up a couple of million dollars, well then maybe you're a member of the owning class.  Does working and frugality get one there?  I'd say highly unlikely.  But perhaps if you're one of the lucky ones you'll finish that project just in time to die of old age.

[John Dibble]

Frugality benefits you only if you have an income.

So if I have a thousand bucks in the bank, but no income, it's not beneficial for me to be frugal? Bull. Being frugal especially benefits you when you have no income. Maybe if you have no money, sure, it wouldn't benefit you - but anyone can beg, and even the homeless can benefit from getting the most from the few measly dollars they might have. Your statement above shows just how ignorant you are of the world of the working class.

[Erc]

I just got back from doing my Christmas shopping, and I saw this beat up old car with the greatest vanity plate I've ever seen. It said

I FIGHT POVERTY
      I WORK

Two paychecks away from the poor house.

You of course know this being the ultimate manager of money and knowing every aspect of the person's life.

I don't think its much of a stretch to assume most working people are depending on that next paycheck.  After all, if they didn't need it desperately, why would they be working?

Worst of all of course, a very significant percentge of people are poor even if they *keep* the job - making $7-8 an hour leaves you poor every week, not two paychecks away.  The two paycheck away thing is to remind the 'middle class' that they're really no different from the working poor.

My point was you assumed that the person had no savings for a rainy day. I also think you don't know how to be effectively frugal with money(many people don't, which worsen's their own situation), in your case due to probable lack of experience how to.

Frugality benefits you only if you have an income.  Unemployed people have none, and the 'working poor' have too little to even house themselves, much less save.   And in any case, the amounts that working people can save don't essentially change their class identitiy - whether you are 2 paychecks from destitution or 5, you're still working class.

On the other hand once you save up a couple of million dollars, well then maybe you're a member of the owning class.  Does working and frugality get one there?  I'd say highly unlikely.  But perhaps if you're one of the lucky ones you'll finish that project just in time to die of old age.

Only 20% of millionaires inherited their wealth.

[phk]

Religion causes more poverty than there should be.

[John Dibble]

Religion causes more poverty than there should be.

And what logical or scientific basis does this observation of yours have? Heck, I remember a study showing that countries where the majority of people believed in hell were more industrious than ones that didn't.

And we all know that the secular USSR, who forced people not to be religious, wasn't a poor nation or anything.

[phk]

It gives poor people hope in something that doesn't exist. It's sad, when you're hopeless and you're putting all your hopes in something that doesn't exist, that's cruel. Pray to something that doesn't exist, that's a cruel game. Making fun of suffering of millions of people.

Honestly, there are things that have to be said. I hate religion. My grandmother has fifteen kids and they were poor--a poor peasant, and every time they went to church to say that they didn't want more kids, the priest would say, "You're gonna burn in hell." The whole role the church plays in the oppression of poor. You gotta say things the way they are.

[John Dibble]

It gives poor people hope in something that doesn't exist. It's sad, when you're hopeless and you're putting all your hopes in something that doesn't exist, that's cruel. Pray to something that doesn't exist, that's a cruel game. Making fun of suffering of millions of people.

What's better - having false hope that allows you to go on, or having no hope at all and giving up. And I really hate the people who say that a religion is definitively wrong - you can't prove it. Sure, they can't prove it either. That's why I'm an agnostic. Atheism is just as arrogant as any religion.

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You hate organized religion. Religion itself is not bad. Organized religion, like any form of power structure, is corruptable - just like government, corporations, and various other groups where there is a hierarchy. But each of these entities must be judged seperately - if they are not then it is just as ignorant as judging people because they are of a certain race. You present a single case of a single preacher, yet there are thousands of other preachers who would say very different things, but you judge them out of the acts of a single man - how enlightened of you.

[phk]

Religion is a powerful tool, because it is created to control you through consciousness. Now that I'm atheist, I feel so free, I feel like I took a 10-pound weight off my back, like I broke a chain. Your whole understanding of the world is much more advanced. Once I became an atheist, it was so liberating. People deserve to be liberated from perpetual poverty. Religion creates a consciousness in you--if I didn't agree with my father, I'm a sinner, I'm gonna burn in hell. It's a psychological war.

If its just religion that is bad,  Moses and all those people killed millions of people, and all those things are celebrated in the bible. About Lot--how he gave his daughter to be raped, and god celebrated that. Those wars were blessed by god. This is backwards thinking.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Religion causes more poverty than there should be.

Rubbish

[opebo]

I think Phnrocket is correct that religion does create some poverty, mainly through encouraging excessive reproduction and Luddism.

However I think its primary purpose is to get the lower classes to accept their lowly position in the heirarchy.  Dibble, you're quite correct that the religious probably tend to work harder, but of course this doesn't particulaly benefit them - it benefits their bosses.