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What keeps people poor?The Dallas Morning News Sunday, October 2, 2005 Thanks to recent news broadcasts, America’s dirty little secret is out. Poverty persists in our country, too. And many don’t seem to understand why. Some of us appear shocked. Others act indifferent. And then there are those who are quick to assign blame. These folks will tell you that lower economic status is a result of making bad choices. Countless times I’ve heard some otherwise intelligent person remark, “They [welfare recipients] ought to just pull themselves up, stop having babies, dropping out of school and living on taxpayers’ money.” If you pick the scab off a wound, you’ll likely find a little raw tissue and maybe some blood. But you surely won’t get any kind of view into the internal workings of the body. And looking at poverty isn’t much different. What keeps impoverished, illiterate and underemployed people from advancing to middle-income, educated professionals? Lack of intelligence? Drug addictions? Criminal lifestyles? Well, definitely all of those suggestions could be roadblocks. But for the majority, the answers are neither that sinister nor that simple. While I don’t pretend to be an authority on this subject, I do possess first-hand knowledge of what it’s like to live beneath the poverty threshold. I’ve been a high school dropout, a pregnant teen and a tenant of public housing. That’s a period of my life I’ll never forget. But what I remember most is the difficult and painful journey of my escape into mainstream society. Based on those experiences (and that of others I’ve interviewed through the years), I’ve identified many reasons for why low-income U. S. citizens frequently fail to improve their conditions. Here are my top ten:
1) Inaccurate assessments of their capabilities, intelligence and worth 2) Lack of support from family, peers and social environment 3) Insufficient funds for, and access to, transportation and childcare 4) Obligations to care for elderly or disabled family members 5) Erratic work schedules that prevent opportunities for education 6) Inability to navigate complicated legal, social and education systems 7) Insufficient information or instructions on how to receive help 8) Learning disabilities 9) Personal health issues 10) General fear of the unknown Yes, there should be individual accountability. I’m not trying to make excuses for bad behavior, here. All of us make daily decisions – ones that often produce unintended or undesirable outcomes. But choices that have been analyzed by an adolescent brain shouldn’t handicap an entire family for multiple generations. And yet often that’s exactly what happens. So before you declare hundreds of thousands of your fellow Americans as lazy, stupid and downright criminally-bent, you might want to dig a little bit deeper. That’s what I recently suggested to a hard-core, Rush Limbaugh listener who spouted, “They ought to quit dropping out of school and having babies. They’ve got to help themselves before they ask me to pay their bills.” I fully agree that education is the key to eliminating poverty. The problem is that education begins at home, with the young and impressionable. It starts off with children learning they are valued, recognizing they have potential and discovering their true worth within our society. These lessons commence in the delivery room (if there is one) and end at the funeral parlor. And everyone in between those points is a teacher. So maybe we should all take a closer look at what messages we’re conveying. Poverty is everyone’s problem. Hurricane Katrina proved we’re all stakeholders in the results of this social challenge. But to eradicate it, we’ll need to look well beyond the visible surface. ### |
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Copyright © 2005 Diana M. Estill - All Rights ReservedLast Updated: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 09:01 PM
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