9
Happy Poor People
I'm continuing my series of posts prompted by the question, What's on your mind? One subject that came up was rich vs poor. Robin said she wanted to hear more stories about happy poor people. Kari asks, what is poverty really in our country?
What is poor? The Department of Health and Human Services has issued poverty guidelines for 2009 -- $10,830 for one person, $14,570 for a couple. A family of four that makes under $22,050 is considered poor.
But beyond the numbers, the real question is what does being poor mean? My best answer would be -- struggling to provide basic needs with few prospects for improving the situation. I was barely above poverty level my first couple years out of college, but I knew I would move up eventually. And that makes all the difference. Although, if I was in the same situation in this economy, I don't know how optimistic I would be.
People say, "you just have to work hard and the results will come." But that's becoming more difficult to prove in the new economic reality. We have millions of people who've worked hard and lost and millions more who've worked hard, never had that much to lose, but they feel like even that is being taken away. The class warfare rhetoric is hotter than ever.
Many people see the Wall Street bailouts as an unconscionable transfer of wealth from the lower classes to the wealthy. In a column last week, the Philadelphia Progressive Examiner took the Democratic Party to task on this:
The fundamental problem as Main Street economics 101 could teach Bernanke and Geithner, is that our leaders have downsized Middle Class America's wages to the point that we are not able to buy anything and we have so much debt we can't afford to borrow. Too much wealth has been transferred already yet we just gave away 1 trillion more from Middle Class America to the rich. This economic bailout is robbing us blind and it is no more palatable being people who mouth that they support Middle Class Americans and are from the political party we continue to support.
Others see the rich as the target -- the populist anger theme. I saw this comment in the Asheville Citizen-Times:
Along with the help of the media, the powers in government have promoted financial success as the result of greed and corruption, and not as hard work and dedication. Class envy is easy to promote when so many are economically living on the edge. Government's true motives can be disguised when attention is averted to an object of easy scorn.
And as always, somewhere in the middle of all this, is the Middle Class. From the now-bankrupt Chicago Sun-Times this morning:
"The middle class is in trouble because of 'affluenza,' '' said Thomas Naylor, a professor emeritus of economics at Duke and co-author of a book of the same name. Affluenza is "a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more,'' the book says.
But author Amelia Warren Tyagi disputes the middle class' woes were self-inflicted, noting that spending on clothing and food has actually decreased.
I found another column in the Huffington Post that declares poor people are happier than rich people for the first time in history. Author David Henry Sterry points out that many wealthy people have lost their fortunes, either through their own greed or because they've been swindled by people like Madoff. He quotes a doctor who invested with Madoff:
"It's very depressing," said Gerald, "I worked so hard for so long to build my practice. So I could provide for my family, so I could retire and travel. And now it's all gone. Decades of hard work flushed down the toilet. I'm tired. I can't sleep. And I'm angry.
On the other hand, the lifestyles of the poor and downtrodden have barely changed. Strerry tells the story of Carla, a recovering drug addict. She's a writer, and she's about to get published and get married. She's disabled and lives on fixed income in one of the country's worst neighborhoods. I don't know if she's happy, but she doesn't seem angry:
But it's so hard to live in the ghetto, drugs shoved down your throat, screaming lunatics and junkies, you just know at any minute someone can stick a knife right between your ribs. It just wears you down. If Obama would only give me, like, maybe ten grand, I could get out of the ghetto, get a computer, get on the Internet. Doesn't seem like that much out of $800 billion, does it? But I have noticed you can get pants cheaper on the streets recently, so that's good."
It's the old question of can money make you happy? It's an unanswerable question because it's different for everyone. Of course, life is better when you don't have to stress about living in a ghetto. But plenty of people have committed suicide in mansions.
I think the whole thing is summed up nicely in the last scene of the movie "Arthur," when Arthur thinks he's losing a $750 million fortune:
Arthur: Money has screwed me up my whole life. I've always been rich, and I've never been happy.
Linda: I've always been poor and I've usually been happy.
Martha: Rubbish. I've always been rich and I've always been happy.
John Kennedy once said: "The ancient Greek definition of happiness was the full use of your powers along lines of excellence."
Instead of class warfare, maybe that's what we should be discussing.
Every year or so, I get that Social Security thing that tracks my working career- showing me my working wages. This year will have 30 years of tracking on it. Needless to say, I'm fully vested in SS.
Still, the first 20 of those years reflect how poor I really was financially. In my military years, I peaked at $16K. Technically, I was poor, and remained poor- at least on paper- for the next decade.
But while I might have been short on money, I always had food, shelter, clothing, and a decent job- often in exotic places. They -paid- me to live in Europe! Who could beat that? And I got the fancy stereo system that was all the rage in my day- with installment payments.
I still have that stereo- it was expensive, but it's proved its worth.
Today, I make quite a bit more, but have realized that I may never be able to realize that 'American Dream' of home ownership because while I am no longer technically 'poor', I still don't make enough to qualify- or save for a downpayment- on a mortgage on a home. They're still way out of my range.
But again, I do have a (rented) roof over my head, clothes on my back, a cool job, a rather nice car, tons of books, broadband, kitties, and a great local NPR station to listen to- and I donate to my station.
I've been scrimping and saving so long, it's second nature to me. Welcome to my world.
I typically do not participate in online commentary, and given my generally high appreciation about marketplace this may not be called for. BUT the above poverty discussion is superficial, to put it mildly. You have obviously done no real research into what poverty means in this country and, more crucially, what is considered to be "poverty." How can I say that? Easy, you quote the official poverty guidelines which are inadequate. The federal poverty level "grossly understates how much it takes to support a family" (see, e.g. http://www.nccp.org/publications/pub_825.html), which you could have found for yourself, if indeed you had followed at least the basic level of journalistic due dilligence. In the NCCP estimate, what is needed to stay above the poverty threshold is about twice as much as the official guidelines suggest. Instead you cite a Hollywood production about a multi-millionaire and wax lyrical about living "in poverty" the first years after college and some nonsense the Huffington Post (of all places) reported about. Counting the officially poor, the poor according to people like the NCCP, the near poor, and working poor/near poor we are tallking about up to 100 Mio people in the US. That is, one in three people living in precarious, often intergenerational socio-economic conditions. Plus, and as a for instance, we are talking about 35 Mio people who are "nutritionally challenged", i.e. they do not get enough to eat/enough calories per day (see: http://www.frac.org/html/hunger_in_the_us/hunger_index.html). That is poverty in our country. If you want stories about the "happy poor", watch a movie.
Patrick, yes, it's a fairly superficial look at the some of the issues we're facing right now in terms of rich and poor. It's a blog entry written to stimulate thought, not a research paper. And I agree with your thought about the poverty line. By providing the numbers, I wasn't saying families who make $22,050 are poor, and those who make $22,051 aren't. Or even those who make 30 or 40 grand. Struggling to meet basic needs, to me, is a better definition, as I said. But wherever the line is drawn, you can argue it should be somewhere else. I'm sure there are plenty of people making three times the poverty level who feel fairly poor at the moment or struggle to pay the rent, put food on the table.
But just because they feel poor, are poor or are near-poor financially doesn't mean all of those people are miserable.
Despite your dismissal of the Huffington Post column, I think those two stories are very telling and probably representative of many others. If you want to read a compelling story about someone who learned the hard way about money and happiness, read this:
Scott, thanks for your reply. That's how this blog-thing (not only yours) may actually work...to stimulate discussion. I still do not think that happiness (or not) is the pivotal issue (though, interesting). I fear, for instance, that the frustration of someone who is content with his/her near-poor/poor or even middle class life may still get the better of her, especially if we continue to run into such massive crises. And by the way, if you have an int'l outlook, comparing other so-called "welfare nations" with the U.S. you find a similar discussion. In Germany, for instance, despite higher/longer government transfer payments, precarious economic conditions are the norm for about the bottom third of the population. Recent studies suggest, that not only temporary frustration/despair play a strong role, but also a somewhat hopeless mentality in general a la "nothing will change, ever." Similar stories from France and Japan. To further pick up on the issue of education/rising tuition levels and incomes not staying on par with price increases, particularly the first leads to a widening of educational attainment. But, and that is crucial, not only here in the U.S., in the before mentioned welfare states (where college education is essentially free or nowhere near our tuition levels) as well. Those who start out from a disadvantageous position typically stay there. The trick is to find out why that is the case.
Hey thanks for the response, Scott, I am honored you chose my topic for a blog. A bit more depressing than I had hoped, but still optimistic and insightful. "Afflueza" made me LOL :)
I do have to agree with Patrick about the hidden poverty in our country, but have never been the one to find the perfect balance between helping everyone out of poverty and allowing lazy people to take advantage of the hard workers who just want to help people who can not help themselves.
As I sit in a job that pays barely half of the minimum I had expected to make just out of college, where I continue to take on more responsibility yet the prospect of moving up gets further and further away (thanks, recession!), I can appreciate every penny I have left over after paying rent and bills, and even have a little left over to save for a house one day. I am bitter, yet I can appreciate the lesson in humility. I am cynical about the state of things right now, yet optimistic that in the end we will be better because of it all. And until someone comes up with the perfect solution for ending poverty, if I have it, I will give away one dollar at a time to the homeless veteran on the corner.
From the poor perspective, there are two things that readers should consider.
With regards to happiness,
Happiness is not money dependant per sae. Where money impacts happiness is in health, provisions and justice. Without enough money, it is difficult to see a doctor, even with a co-pay. For those who rent, rents have been climbing in many cities for a long time. Every couple years, or in some cases every year rents went up, forcing people and their families to relocate and spend even more of the money they do have in the move, just to make ends meet. All this in the face of expanding fees. Many utility companies now have expensive deposits for first time enrollies. Even though it will be returned after a number of ontime payments, it still requires that much more to move to a new area. Further, needs are continuing to climb. Food, said utilities, transportation. There are many things which people don't consider necessities, but that are. Transportation may not be a "right" but it is critical to survival in todays America. We have grown up around it, and so have legal and societal expectations. Justice is perhaps the most vibrant failure. Without the funds to hire a lawyer, a person is usually subject to the whims of the court. Anyone who has witnessed the disparity between public defenders and private lawyers knows exactly what that means. Too often plea agreements are taken purley because it is less expensive than hiring a lawyer. Justice is rarely found for the poor.
The other consideration is "hard work." There is no doubt many of the wealthy have worked hard for their wealth, but as was mentioned, the masses who have to live work just as hard without the benefits. While many executives worked hard through college, there are legions who couldn't afford college and worked in factories, restaurants, department stores and other less savory places. These are places where wages are medium to low, work conditions are often hot, dirty and demanding. There is little respect to be found here. Civility is not always the policy and "supposed to" and "is" are two different concepts.
People in this country are still better off than many other countries. But when we make that comparison, what are we saying?
The every person should have the opportunity to improve their standing. I think hard work should be rewarded. But I also think rewards for hard work should not be the exclusive domain of the fortunate. I would hope that even the people of simple means can live a content life, with food on their table, warmth in their hearts and with a confidence that justice will be met.
