In popular American mythology, the rich work hard for their wealth. They’ve earned it. They deserve it. While this is often true, everyone can cite instances of people who have money due to fate and circumstance, not because of hard work and perseverance.
The same holds true for folks at the opposite end of the spectrum. Yes, there are plenty of people who are poor or in debt due to their own bad choices. But this isn’t true in all cases. GRS reader Amy wants to know how you can possibly tell when a person’s poverty is their fault and not the fault of someone (or something) else.
She writes:
I’m a newcomer to the personal finance blogosphere. I recently came across another blog that took a position that shocked me. The author thinks that all the people who live in poverty in this world are simply moaning and crying instead of getting up and doing something about their situation. As a student of international relations, I know that this is simply not true.
It’s one thing to actually be just whining and complaining about your situation, but isn’t it just as bad to completely ignore or deny systemic roots of oppression and inequality? I guess what I’m trying to ask is: When is it not your fault?
I’m all about having a ‘can-do attitude’ and not ‘settling for mediocrity’, but then again, someone has to be the mediocre to your excellence. Does that mean they deserve to live in abject poverty while slaving away day after day? I’m all about working to better yourself, but is it so horrible to just admit that sometimes things are working against you?
As an example, my best friend is from Norway. We attend university together here in the U.K. She has a less stressful time concerning money than I do for several reasons.
- Most of her student loans get turned into grants upon successful completion of her degree.
- In her summer of working at Norway’s minimum wage, she made £6000, and in my summer of working back home in the US I made about £1,600. She worked full time for two months and I worked full-time plus overtime for three-and-a-half months.
- She could go back home after graduation and work as a waitress and still have more than enough money to live on, even if she decided to have a family, while in the US this would be a difficult life.
Where do we draw the line between crying and complaining, and just plain unluckiness in life? And what can we do about it?
Poverty is complex. To simply dismiss each case as an indication of personal failure is absurd. When entire cultures and countries languish in poverty, it’s not a result of collective laziness or lack of spirit. There’s much more going on.
Closer to home, it’s still a mistake to dismiss all poverty as a product of personal choice. Fate and circumstances do play a role. (I don’t like the word “luck”, but that’s really what I’m talking about.)
Sometimes it’s tough to tell if a person is struggling due to poor choices or because the system is broken. One of the problems, of course, is nobody actually thinks, “Well, I’m bankrupt and it’s all my fault.” Each individual thinks he’s done the best he can, and the reason he’s screwed is that bad things have happened to him. This is true even when his friends and family can tell him, “No, you’ve pretty much brought this on yourself.”
In many ways, I think the question of “fault” is a wrong one. It doesn’t really matter who’s responsible for a person being in poverty. What matters is who’s responsible for getting them out of the situation. And in this case, I always come back to one of key points of the Get Rich Slowly philosophy.
Nobody cares more about your money than you do. No matter why you’re in financial dire straits, the person who’s going to be best able to help you escape the situation is you. Instead of waiting for someone or something to save you, save yourself. It’s those who decide to take matters into their own hands who have the greatest odds of finding financial freedom.
Yes, I know this is far easier said than done. That’s why I’m a fan of Muhammad Yunus and others who work to create opportunities for the poor to improve their situations. That’s why I’m an advocate of financial literacy programs. If we want folks to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, we have to give them boots with which to do so.
What do you think? Are there clear answers to Amy’s questions? In poverty, where’s the line between chance and choice? How can you tell whether your situation is your fault or the fault of fate? Does it matter? And how do we fix the problem?
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Choices are made each day, and these choices have consequences. When the results come in less than favorable, somehow it is easier to push the blame toward someone or something else. Often people are quick to point the finger. We blame the politicians, the economy, boss, spouse, children, weather or anyone or anything other than us.. Uur problems begin when we “let somebody talk you into…” anything. This is especially true with finances. And It’s not just an individual even the governments too do it!There was so much finger-pointing and heated rhetoric about the US federal debt and the debt ceiling last few days
Homer Simpson (of American animated sitcom Simpsons) said, “It takes two to tell a lie. One to tell the lie and the other to believe it”
Many people get into financial trouble because of greed, laziness, or lack of commitment. Quit blaming others. When you consistently point fingers at others, you look at yourself as a victim. Have you ever seen a rich victim?
All of life’s problems can be solved with discipline. Four Foundational Tools of Discipline are:
Acceptance of Responsibility
Delayed Gratification
Seek Truth and
Balance
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“One to tell the lie and the other to believe it”
you certainly are proof positive of that. question is, do you know which half of that equation you are?
(and yeah, i looked at your website)
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Thanks for visiting my site. I hope I am on the side of telling truth or rather making people aware of money related issues so that they can GetRich slowly!!
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“All of life’s problems can be solved with discipline”
Try telling that to someone who’s lost their home, family and ability to work in a natural disaster.
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Natural disaster what about man made disaster, bombs, terrorism, wars. One sometimes wonder why Bad things happen to good people. There are something which are beyond our control, have to leave it to ONE above. But what about those things which we can control like putting on weight, planning for a financially secure future, for those we need disciple.
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I think that a lot of people get caught up on the success stories and forget how rare they really are. The Bill Gates of the world are so rare – the Bill Gates of the world who rose out of poverty instead of halfway up the ladder by being born in middle class America (UK/Norway/Australia/Germany,etc) — who knows how few there are in the world. You could even say that someone who escapes an environment rife with poverty, drugs, gangs, violence, teen pregnancy, STDs, prostitution, neglectful and/or abusive parents to become “only” a school teacher is as successful as Bill Gates.
I also think that it’s difficult to imagine some of the abject circumstances some people are born into if you haven’t been in the same situation. It makes it more difficult to understand that the worst of it is the lack of emotional support. How much worse is it to be raped when you go home to recriminations or indifference? How tempting is it to join a gang when they offer the companionship you don’t get anywhere else? How do you develop kindness or empathy for anyone else if you’ve barely experienced it yourself? How do you break the cycle of poverty if no one has ever supported you, encouraged you to succeed, listened to you and given your dreams serious attention?
Most of those success stories have one thing in common – someone in their life was a beacon for them, someone encouraged them and showed them their life could be different if they made different choices. Yes, everyone is responsible for their choices but some of us have a better tool chest to draw from. Understanding and empathy, along with justice.
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I totally agree. We have a messed up notion of success sometimes.
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A light turned on for me when someone rhetorically asked years ago “Do you think Prince Charles get the same education as everyone else? Of course not, although economics, sociology, mathematics class content are all the same for everyone including royalty. But they are taught from the perspective of the leader not the worker. Is that the difference between Harvard education and public universities education (generalizing)? Possibly for society to function it must create large pool of consumers from the working class. Somehow people must recognize early what stream they are navigating and make the necessary correction. I need to read Adam Smith book again
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per education for leaders and followers, it is interesting that the biggest hope for a follower-educated person is a horatio alger story…(actually been cited in these comments several times)
when Horatio Alger went to Harvard, received a leaders education, and proceeded to write the mythology that kept the followers content with being poor…and creating said consumer class that thinks success is making money and buying stuff one could never buy before.
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It is astounding from reading these comments the lack of knowledge of the poverty circumstances in the USA and what poverty means in general. Every day in the USA adults and children die from lack of food and health care – just like in third world countries. Our news sources don’t carry the story – so out of sight out of mind. The audience on this blog must live with blinders to think that someone with no family support, illiterate, no transportation, no computer, no local job sources, no good credit rating and NO MONEY just needs to try harder. If you’ve never experienced working through government programs for assistance, then you need a better imagination to understand what poverty means to your self esteem. There are always exceptions to all circumstances and someone will rise above the disaster of poverty, but I bet most people on this blog would fail in these circumstances (including me) or give up.
The people who could give more perspective on the subject (truly living in poverty) will never read this blog or comment due to lack of access to a computer. Everyone has a financial breaking point – you just haven’t reached yours yet.
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I certainly agree that poverty is severe for some in the USA. However, I’m not aware of people actually dying from actual starvation in the USA due to lack of money. Yes people do go hungry. Some people may also due of causes related to malnutrition (poor diet) but I don’t think that actual starvation is at all common. If you’ve got any sources or data about starvation mortality rates in the USA that say otherwise, I’d be interested to see it.
Overeating is a much more serious and widespread problem in the USA even among the poor. That says a lot.
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I don’t think that it’s overeating among the poor that’s the issue so much as quality of food available and eaten. Fast food and corner stores exist in urban areas, but grocery stores do not. Poor people don’t have the access to fresh food nor does the culture of poverty support eating those kinds of food. Also at issue are lack of cooking facilities, transportation, cost of healthy foods, lack of safe places to exercise or play. There are no simple answers.
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The Meals On Wheels Association of America Foundation (MOWAAF)report The Causes, Consequences and Future of Senior Hunger in America (released 2008) found “that in the United States, over 5 million seniors, (11.4% of all seniors), experience some form of food insecurity” and “of these, about 2.5 million are at-risk of hunger, and about 750,000 suffer from hunger due to financial constraints…Over 50% of all seniors who are at-risk of hunger have incomes above the poverty threshold.”
In the USA you don’t starve, you have “food insecurity”. Which according to the USDA racking children is about 12% of working households.
And more recent studies show that the cheap, nutrient poor, processed food of poor americans… yes, cause obesity, but with a side of heavy malnutrition which is more of a contributing cause to health problems than the extra weight AND that the body stores the unhealthy fat BECAUSE the nutrient poor food signals that the person is living in famine conditions.
egads, the studies abound but no one wants to connect the dots.
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Nancy L – AMEN. With the volatility in the world, people cannot stay with one job due to layoffs/firings/outsourcing. It’s not like it was 50 years ago. My family has lost jobs and we had to drastically reduce eating and meds to live.
As for healthcare, How can you compare the USA to socialist nations? Even socialist countries have issues with healthcare. I receive a british paper every quarter that tells about how diabetics are being denied test strips due to high costs. They get a whopping 2 strips per day or none at all. If that’s what the doctor says, then that is all you get. Nice, huh? And 50 % or more of their paychecks go to these entitlement programs? Look at the american journalist whose mother lived in Canada. Mom had cancer. Mom was put on a 6 month wait list. She was 70 years old. She died way before 6 months ended. So, she didn’t deserve treatment because why? I can go on. There is no perfect system.
I, personally, liked my healthcare. I paid for it with my money and my job paid part of it. I chose my doctors. Nowadays,with the penalties placed on businesses if they DON’T offer healthcare (thank you to our gov’t), they just pay it as it’s cheaper than actually offering benefits. Our benefits are shrinking and we have to cough up more money for major health crisis out of our pockets. We can lose our homes if we get sick. If we go socialist healthcare, we may go on a wait list and lose our life. Which is better?
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Right, because one story is somehow representative of my entire country? Sorry, but I know quite a few people who have been successfully treated for cancer in here in Canada! I have a family member in the U.S. who went bankrupt due to cancer treatment. Does that mean that everyone in the U.S. is going to go bankrupt when they get sick? No, but a story like that sticks out in people’s minds more than the many people who don’t go bankrupt getting cancer treatment in the U.S.
Yes, healthcare in Canada is far from perfect, but every country should work on its own weaknesses rather than picking on others, don’t you think? I’m sick of Canadians putting down U.s. healthcare and vice versa — you’ll never turn the U.S. in Canada or Canada into the U.S., but maybe we could learn from each other rather than using each other’s failures to justify our own imperfect systems.
Okay, political rant over
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Beth is right. Every nation has some healthcare horror stories and the USA has its fair share. To pick out individual failures from nation wide systems is not going to prove anything. Any national healthcare system will have some unfortunate failures or inadequacy. An entire nation can’t be perfect all the time.
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Poverty can be caused by chance or other outside force. These include being born in a poor country. That’s why it’s such a poverty that our immigration quotas are so low. Anyone can make it in America as long as they have health, brains and willpower. If someone can’t make it in America, then they lack one or more of those attributes.
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I would add, they can make it if they have health, brains, willpower, resources to draw on, positive role models that show that there’s greater possibilities than their life currently holds, encouragement, support, mentoring, a good education, a good network, and unshakable faith in themselves when others sneer at them for appearing poor while they pull themselves up. It also helps a lot if they don’t have dark skin.
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Actually, it HELPS if you have dark skin. Especially if you’re looking for a scholarship for a college. So many colleges (including the one I’m attending now) have scholarships based only on your dark skin color. If you’re lily-white, you’re out of luck for any extra help.
That goes for jobs too. In these super-PC times, someone with darker skin will get hired over someone who is white, simply because the company wants to be PC and ensure there is a good mix of non-whites in the company. I have personally seen companies reject a better-qualified candidate who was white in lieu of a minority who wasn’t even qualified at all (in terms of education and experience) just because he was a minority.
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Hmmm, I wonder why scholarships like that exist? I wonder why corporations think it’s a good idea to improve their recruitment of minorities?
Here’s an idea: why don’t you do a little reading on the subject? You might learn something.
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Hey Imelda, how about you try not to be so condescending to people you don’t know? Maybe then people won’t be turned off by your snarky attitude.
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I am so tired of this complaint. Yes, there are minority scholarships. Usually it is because the University has had minorities under-represented and want to be more diverse, like the real world is. Often it is because the University also understands that more minorities are first generation college students and therefore, need more assistance. More often those scholarships are based on race, need and merit (minority, poor and smart).
Also the idea that all scholarships are based n color is ridiculous. Your school has no scholarships for athletes, engineering majors or future poets? I do not find that likely.
Another great story is all the white men not hired because they hired a less qualified minority. How many times have minorities not been hired or interviewed because of their names? There have been studies that show that people with ethnic names are less likely to be interviewed even with equal qualifications. If you didn’t make the hiring decision you have no idea why one person was hired instead of another. Maybe the white guy was rude in the interview or made a sexist joke, it is impossible to know.
Unless you are a minority (and in case you were wondering I am of Puerto Rican descent) you have no idea the challenges that come with entering college and the work force and being the only brown face in the room. Often being a minority especially one that started in poverty, is like running a relay race with one too few people on your team. It doesn’t mean you won’t finish the race, it is just harder to do so.
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are you an immigrant? is that why you came here? Or is that what you learned watching school house rock growing up?
I live amongst immigrants of all types from all places and from war torn countries and poverty backgrounds…
and yes to a man they all say they came here because of what you and most of the world believes about america….
know what they say after they’ve been here a while? that it is not what they expected–even those with realistic expectations–and if they could do it again, they would not have come here…maybe somewhere else but not here.
They say at least in other places no one is pretending that is no emperor or that he has clothes.
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These are important things to ponder, and here’s an example of it previously being thought through.
Barbara Ehrenreich a lady viewing the world with left polarized glasses on, wrote a book called Nickel and Dimed, another called Bait and Switch. Adam Shepard, a young college graduate, wrote a rebuttal called Scratch Beginnings. I would wholly recommend Scratch Beginnings. I haven’t read the other two. My library doesn’t carry them.
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I wonder how many of the “poor” know about or take advantage of the inter-library loan system. If your local library doesn’t carry a book they can usually order from one that does.
I also wonder how many Americans today still read books. There was a survey in 2007 that said 25% of Americans hadn’t read one in a year. A study of comparing the hours people of all classes spend texting, twittering and facebooking instead of reading would be of interest to me.
Some of the job applications I reviewed lately tell me the digital dumbing down of America is working.
I attended a very poor school in rural South Dakota. I was taught to respect my teachers, do my homework on time, and figure things out for myself with very limited resources. I wasn’t distracted by a television until the man walked on the moon though so I learned to love books and use my imagination.
I still read everynight to fall asleep. I would be classified amongst the working rural poor in America, but I am very content. Perhaps we need to unplug our children more often. It worked for me.
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I read both Nickled and Dimed and Scratch Beginnings. while both authors were college graduates (which gave each of them a leg up in navigating the system), it was notable to me because one was from the perspective of a women and the other was from a man. I think it would have been harder for Barbara Ehrenriech to try what Adam Shepard did because he slept outside at times to save money or when he didn’t want to bear staying in a shelter with a bunch of other men. How safe is it for a woman to sleep outside? How about a woman who has children to care for also? He took a moving job which requires the ability to do heavy lifting because it paid more. He had more opportunities in his “test” than a woman would have had, especially a poor single mother. I thought both were judgmental and both were simplistic in their narratives when coming to conclusions.
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I don’t think either book did much to prove anything. They both demonstrated that able bodied, mobile, single, college educated, white people can find low paying jobs and feed & house themselves when the economy was booming. Neither demonstrated much else.
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I don’t understand your cynicism here. Yes, the Ehrenreich book wasn’t perfect, but she certainly recognized that she had advantages that the true working poor didn’t. For instance, she knew how to cook lentil stew from scratch and eat it for days on end in order to save money. This was also a temporary situation for her from which she could escape at any point. I still think despite its faults the book was an interesting exploration of the problems that plague the working poor. It certainly illuminated some things for me – an early 20s educated middle class person who was pretty clueless in most respects. I guess your preference would be for an actual working class person to write the book? I would certainly agree with that, but writing and arguing cogently are skills that unfortunately takes time (and privilege!) to learn.
I’m an historian and this is one of the problems with writing history. Most often the records and memoirs we have are from the privileged. Sadly, it is much harder to get a true sense of how the lower classes of previous centuries lived and thought.
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People like to reward attitude and hard-work because it’s something we aspire for and we believe enables the American Dream, for which we hold as the idealistic place to reach one’s potential.
I want to keep up with the Jones or pass them bye but I find it’s just not easy. My wife, since marriage, has been diagnosed with Bi-Polar disorder and struggles to remain well enough to be employed for any extended period of time.
I’ve busted my tail and doubled my income since but the net outcome hasn’t moved us any further up the income ladder. We’ve had to rely on Disability and Unemployment to help us manage the gaps. We’re getting by but not thriving and both of us internalize it as if it’s some personal short-coming of our own. We know it’s an illness but it’s a struggle to treat it as so just because of the pervasive culture of personal responsibility for success and failure.
I now know there are a lot more variables than simply having the right attitude and work ethic. It doesn’t make it any easier though.
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I don’t think most people understand what that’s like. Medical science has come a long way, but it hasn’t come far enough that everyone can lead “a normal life”. The sad fact is that many illnesses — like bipolar disorder or autoimmune diseases — can be very difficult to manage (and can take years to properly diagnose!). There seems to be this expectation that if we exercise, eat right and take the right pills that everyone should be fine. It doesn’t work like that.
I hope things get better for you
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Just my two cents. I’ve been reading this blog a while and I’m still living paycheck to paycheck. Sure, some of it is bad choices, but this year’s been rough. A layoff at my job and I hadn’t been working long enough/enough to qualify for unemployment. A vehicle with repairs that wiped out savings. Finally getting back to work now, but right now we’re sacrificing so my husband can attend school full time. What’s saving us is he gets a housing allowance since he’s a vet.
But we’ve struggled for years. No kids, because we wanted to wait until we could afford them. It’ll probably never happen. My associates degree is practically worthless, but I can’t afford to get a bachelors [maybe next year after hubby finishes]
As far as those proverbial ‘fat checks’ for the poor go, as a married person with no kids, good luck getting any help. I had a situation a few years back where I got very ill just after losing a job. We applied for help, but had made too much money the previous year. Something like 18k that year, because we’re married with no kids. Same with applying for food stamps when I got laid off in April.
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That’s very close to my story too. People with no children rarely qualify for any help. We struggle on with very few extra resources to help out through tough times. It’s sad that America rewards people for having children when they can’t afford them, and practically punishes people for NOT having kids.
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And I’ve been told, verbatim “You pay taxes, get help.” Sure, right…
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“It’s sad that America rewards people for having children when they can’t afford them, and practically punishes people for NOT having kids.”
Instead of viewing it as a “reward” to the parents, what about thinking of it as taking care of children who didn’t have the good fortune to be born to parents who knew better. Just a thought.
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@Merinda – Though my monthly medical expenses exceed 50% of my income, I still didn’t qualify for food stamps because my medical bills still wasn’t high enough.
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When I got laid off in April I applied for unemployment. I’d worked full time plus part time another job from late November until then, and part time before then. I was told I hadn’t made enough money because they only counted the six month increment from July-December of the previous year, but I could reapply in July since they’d then count the first part of 2011. What I was supposed to do until then, i don’t know.
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My husband and I have four kids. When he was laid off last summer, he took an over the road driving job with a company of questionable record because he had been driving a local route for several years and even local routes seem to want drivers with six months recent OTR experience. The pay was not great, probably low-thirties and variable. Insurance for my husband was worthless but cheap. For the kids and I it was worthless but expensive. The kids qualified for medicaid, but my husband and I did not. We also did not qualify for food stamps or other assistance.
We were working class/poor children of the eighties and were naive enough to believe that if we didn’t do drugs, stayed in school, went to college, and lived modestly we could afford children. What a crock we were sold! I love my kids devotedly and fiercely. Next to my husband they are the greatest joy in my life, but we were young and didn’t have a very good idea of what we were getting into. We also observed that many couples that wait to have children until they can afford them find themselves infertile with a very short time frame to work with and that sometimes people could afford kids, but their circumstances changed and they still found themselves in difficult situations.
I think it is completely screwed up that childless people cannot qualify for assistance they obviously need. I also think it is screwed up that people that are trying to do the right thing by saving and living frugally are penalized. Our family of six cannot receive any assistance if we earn more than $2000/mo or have more than $2000 savings. It perpetuates the cycle of poverty, IMO. Oh, another thing that is screwed up, IMO, often you cannot receive medicaid UNLESS you are pregnant, so it makes it difficult for poor couples to postpone having children until they are in better circumstances.
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Yeah, we’ve been not doing anything to prevent children for five years now…and it doesn’t seem it’s gonna happen. And not like we can afford to investigate fertility options. We’d adopt, but, well, that costs money too.
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I have watched my brother struggle for years. Every time he seems to be getting on track something happens to knock him off. He is finally going back to college at 34, and doing very well. Unfortunately, now he and his wife have separated and a divorce appears likely. While many out there, myself included, manage to work while in school others can only handle so much at one time. The speeding ticket example was excellent for showing the impact a minor inconvenience for some has on others. Sometimes it is easier to see the correct financial choice when you have more liberty.
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I love this topic, and am struck by the certainty that even three years ago, it wouldn’t have attracted any attention. The recession has had the beneficial effect of bringing this fine-line subject out into the open.
I think plenty of people struggle because they make bad decisions in life that seem like a good idea at the time. Quitting college to take a decent-paying job is one. Marrying for love more than for money is another. Moving to a new town, expecting better opportunities is still another. I don’t think too many people deliberately set out to make these decisions. They may reject advice from parents or friends, which might make them more blameworthy. But what if they don’t seek advice at all, not seeing any reason (at the time) to do so?
It’s easy to say that once you realize you’ve made a bad decision, you go and rectify it. But any school dropout will tell you, it’s often very hard to get back into school, both for academic reasons (studying for an exam after you’ve worked a 10-hour shift) and financial ones (for-profit college debt nightmares, anyone?). And how wise is it to divorce the underachieving spouse when you’ve now got kids?
I think it all goes back to the “don’t judge unless you’ve walked in their shoes” proverb.
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Well, looking at this blog after a hectic few weeks of summer courses is a joy. It feels especially good to take a break from all the public policy class papers that I have to write.
If we look across countries the one key factor behind lack of poverty always seems to be the effectiveness of government institutions. Good government matters. A country’s natural resources sometimes matters but not nearly enough as good government. A good government maintains strong property rights, has a relatively smooth-running justice system, is stable, and is relatively transparent. This usually (but not always) means a democratic government. A good government invests in roads, electricity, water, sanitation and other things that attract investment, which put people to work. Most importantly, it invests in education, which turns farmers into software engineers within a few generations.
Poor counties – even those with abundant natural resource wealth – are poor because their corrupt governments squander the money, not because their people are any less industrious than ours. These countries have thugs as policemen, and do nothing to provide businesses with the environment to grow and flourish (roads, electricity, stable property rights, etc.).
It’s a bit different in the US. Within our country, the poor are usually poor because they lack marketable skills and education. Why this happens is the big question. Some people that we term “lazy” often really are “unlucky” – they come from broken families, with a busy single parent and went to an underfunded school with mediocre teachers. The quality of the education matters, and in their case, the education system failed them, and they didn’t learn the skills that would make them productive citizens. Of course, this would never happen in a well-off home, where the parents make a point to invest in early education, to pay for after school programs, and for the affluent, to pay for tutors.
Climbing out of poverty is possible, but it’s always easier not to be poor in the first place.
Working hard is part of the equation, but education determines whether you work 10 hour days in a law firm or 10 hour days in a McDonalds. The better question to ask is why our education system is failing the disadvantaged.
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I think GRS reader “Amy” has made the first step towards bringing poverty upon herself by majoring in “International Relations” (little to no job prospects in the US), going to grad/undergrad school in the UK (yikes student loans in UK pounds! – unless scholarships are involved) and comparing the US to Norway (a socialist democracy with 60-70% income tax, read: little to no opportunity for wealth building and entrepeneurship). Please, kids grow up and face the real world! Idealism dies when you start living outside of academia and paying taxes (the latter kills it twice). A message to those in college: get a real major with high job prospects, save the lit and poetry for the weekends.
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Obviously you’ve never been burned by that kind of thinking. I became a teacher (which is a great job in Ontario — good pay, job security, fantastic pension) at a time when everyone told us we were practically guaranteed a job. Guess what? The baby boomers didn’t retire, our province eliminated a year of high school and enrollment went down. I lost my job after two years (due to lack of seniority).
And friends of mine who did degrees in computers? Guess what happened to them when the tech bubble burst?
I love my job, but it didn’t exist when I started university. No one knows how the job market is going to look in five or ten years. To base your entire life on “good career prospects” isn’t the sound strategy it promises to be.
(Incidentally, I do know someone who has a degree similar to the poster. She’s got a great job.)
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Funny considering that university in the UK is A LOT cheaper than here in the US which means that I can afford to go with minimal loans (I’ll have about 7k in loans when I’m through). My loans are not in pounds as I am an American and therefore have American loans. You know, like FAFSA and stuff?
Please, adults, stop thinking that you know everything about how everyone should live their lives!
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I’m sure people mean well, but there is no way to know how the job market is going to go. What could be a good career prospect right now might not be by the time someone actually gets there.
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Just don’t be 50+ and laid off. I have friends who have been looking for a new job for over a year.
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I graduated law school about $60,000 in debt. I was well-employed and on-course to pay that off when I suffered a catastrophic illness. I could no longer do the job I had and went on short-term disability. During the time I made an effort to find a job I could do given my condition. My desire to keep working resulted in no suitable job and denial of long-term disability benefits. I went on SSDI but made too much in benefits to qualify for Medicaid; I had to wait three years before I qualified for Medicare. During that time, over 50% of my very small monthly income went towards insurance and non-covered medical costs. How much of that student debt do you think got paid during this time?
Meanwhile, my condition did not respond to treatment and I was strongly discouraged from exploring alternative treatments. I did so anyway and finally got to a point where I could work again, but not as an attorney. I could find no job that would cover the monthly costs of my student loans and eventually defaulted on the private loans that made up a small percentage of the total debt. I finally went back to school for retraining and am gainfully employed again, but not at an earning level anticipated when I took on the debt to finance a legal education. I’m covering my bills now, but I’m left with little left over and my credit is still being rebuilt.
I didn’t have to take on the student loan debt, but I was 22, optimistic and had been told over and over again that education was the way to financial security. Obviously, there’s no guarantee I would have kept that job had I not gotten sick, but losing the job when and how I did was definitely not my fault. And between being denied long-term benefits/adequate health coverage and being discouraged by doctors from pursuing the course of treatment that eventually controlled my condition, it sure felt like conditions beyond my control were making things way harder than they should have been.
I’d say my financial state right now is a combination naivete and bad luck. It could have been worse; it was my personal tenacity that got me through the illness and vocational retraining. The thing is, none of you know me or anything about me. You wouldn’t know all the above had I not just chosen to share it. And it’s not your place to pass judgment on my financial situation and how I got here.
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There are two kinds of poor. There is societal poverty like you see in Somalia and there is individual poverty which is what you will see in the United States. I don’t think it’s fair to lump them together and the arguement always grows tedious when one makes a comment about a welfare queen and the response is about starving children in Africa.
Societal poverty typically cannot be placed at the feet of individuals any more than the rest of their societal structure can. There is an arguement about how to change it but that wasn’t the question in this post.
Individual poverty, specific to the US, can obviously often be attributed to individuals, but the line you are asking one to drawn is going to be in a different place for different people. One man’s excuse is another’s motivation: one child of addicts uses his background as an excuse why he is a loser, another child of the same addicts uses his background as motivation to work hard an succeed. One child of wealthy parents fails because they never had to work for anything (ironically ending up a loser addict like the first guy), another uses it as a standard to work toward and surpass.
Therefore I have a hard time with the premise of the question. I think of life much like a game of poker. The winner of a hand is based on both the luck of the cards dealt and the skill with which the hand is played. The unfortunate reality is that some people will be dealt bad hands, and many will play those hands poorly. The important part to me is the rules, not who gets the chips, because it will never be even. To me EVEN is not FAIR as people with more skill should win the hand and there is nothing you can do to take the chance out of the game.
I believe as a compassionate society, no matter the reason for poverty, we should supply a survival level for any member of our society. To me ‘survival’ is likely more basic than to most people (think dorm living and cafeterias). It should protect people from the elements, but not be comfortable enough that reasonable people who can take care of themselves would rely on it for long.
As far as I am concerned the only time I care if someone who is poor is deserving or not is 1) when I argue public policy, or 2) when I am practicing personal charity.
In the first case it is purely to make a point as I think policy written because of individuals is often the most flawed (write fair rules, but don’t expect even outcome). In the second case it doesn’t matter where my general line would be because it would be made on a case by case basis: I provide cash to those who are good with money but strapped, material assistance (ex. food) to people who are clueless about money but honorable, and absolutely nothing to total losers who wouldn’t appreciate it anyway (I speak of people I know, I don’t have the information to classify strangers so they usually get some food if they look hungry).
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In a land as free as America, it actually might be tougher NOT to be financially stable and successful.
There’s such good correlation to hard work, creativity, and building relationships to success here. Nobody is stopping you from doing what you want.
Sam
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It’s safe to say that the country you live in has a lot to do with your financial situation. As Warren Buffett says in several of his books “I’ve won the ovarian lottery”, meaning simply that he was born in the right place, and at a time where the opportunities he had will never be quite as perfect as they were for him. Does that mean he was lucky? I don’t believe so. I believe he was simply a responsible individual. Anyone else at his time could have done the same, so why didn’t they? Responsibility.
I learned about responsibility when I worked as a commercial pilot for 7 years. The reason flying taught me about responsibility was because a pilot is responsible for his or her actions, whether they believe so or not. You could choose to ignore the fact that the results of a simple decision can kill you, or get you safely to your destination. This applies to life in general.
Every action has a reaction, as we’ve all heard, and positive actions often result in positive reactions.
To sum things up, everyone is living their daily lives the way they see fit. Most of us don’t stop and think that the little things we do each day have huge direct impacts on our lives. Take smoking, or eating unhealthy as examples. Often times we don’t realize it until it’s too late what we’ve done wrong.
So do we really have control over our financial futures? Yes. You simply have to acknowledge being responsible for your actions, and admit that where you’re at in your life is 100% your fault. Everything else falls right into place after that.
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