Poverty

[Beauty Mark]

From the death penalty post, a discussion on poverty sort of started. I didn't want to take over the thread so I thought I'd start a new one.

I don't believe everyone is accountable for their poverty. There are people who are, of course, but I can think of many instances where so many are not. I gave an example of Veterans who are homeless; I frankly don't understand how that happens, but I know it does (I don't understand why the government doesn't help them.) Mental institutions closed down and just released the patients, who have no family, friends, or means of taking care of themselves. Some of my friends have volunteered at homeless shelters and places for poor people. They told me there's problems with the availability of the services to educate these people, as well as getting out the word they exist.

When I mentioned luck in the other thread, I meant it is sheer luck you are born capable to take care of yourself, have the mental capacity, learn about how to better yourself, and have people who'll take care of you and help you out. That's lucky. Some of it you have to do for yourself, but meeting the person or finding the flier that tells you about educational services can be a matter of luck (or the person who hires you.) I consider myself lucky in a lot of those respects.

 

[Ms. Z]

Some people don’t understand how some people end up in poverty or homeless; there are many reasons for this. I’ll go through a few.

Low wages. Many jobs/careers have low starting salaries and little or no insurance. For example I live in NYC and either earlier this year or last year it was reported that newly recruited Police Officers were applying for food stamps because they could not make ends meet on their low wages. Did you know that Home Health Aids are only paid $5.50-7.25 per hour and usually are not provided health insurance? These are two positions where they do such an important job and are not paid a living wage.

No family members: It may be hard to believe, especially for those who have a large or close knit family, but some people have no relatives or some have them, but are unable or unwilling to help or live in another state or country.

Friends: They are great, but how many of them would take you and your family in if you lost your home, especially if you fell on such hard times that you didn’t know when you are moving out. How about if they don’t have the room?

In the past, when I had a large apartment, I have taken in friends/relatives, but now I have a small one, not enough room. On the three occasions, I took a small financial loss helping them and I was poor too! One of them even screwed me over (because of this I also promised myself never to allow friends/family to live with me & my child).

Illness: Many people live paycheck to paycheck and have little or no savings. Do you know that many people have lost their home/apartment because they fell ill and were or unable to recover from the financial loss. I recently took a month off from work for necessary surgery and was only paid 60% of my salary; I’m one of those who earn a low salary and I took a bit of a financial loss, so my bills were late. If I had been out longer, I can see how I would have run into big problems.

I have to go now; I have to get back to work. I received a large bill from the hospital, I can’t afford it, can’t lose my job.

 

[libra14]

Sometimes people have health insurance. They pay $100 a month. Then have a major surgery which takes 10 weeks to heal properly. This is an unpaid sick leave. Then after insurance pays their share, there are still $8,000 in deductibles. The person earns $12,000 a year so she qualifies for financial assistance on her debt but there is one catch. The financial help will not cover insurance deductibles. Had she not had insurance, her debt would have been 90% paid.her insurance paid 60%.

Now the hospital has sued her for the balance and she's been court-ordered to pay $200 a month until its paid. She was barely scraping buy and now I don't know what she is going to do. I don't understand why the hospital sued her for this much. I understand that she has incurred a debt and was provided a service. She was making payments, small but still an effort. She also pays for health insurance. She did everything right and now she is stuck in a whole that she may never get out of.

 

[Hawkeye]

Beautymarked-
I gotta disagree some more. I'm sorry. I'm going to go on ahead and just state right now that this is one of those posts that everyone and their mother on this board will hate me for. I can guarentee that I will be the most hated person on specktra by the end of this post.

There are only 2 reasons that I find acceptable even remotely acceptable to be in poverty in this country. That is if somone is truely mentally handicapped (IE: Autism, Downs etc etc) or truely physically handicapped.
Those are the ONLY 2 exceptions in my thoughts.

Now as for the availability to educate people-there are ways to educate yourself. I knew a guy who was 45 had little money. He bought himself a book to learn a trade and then went to every single place he could to get a job.

In my opinion there is no such thing as luck. You make your own luck. I think a lot of people confuse this with opprotunities. The difference? Opprotunities you actually take. It's not about luck.
It's about 1) Not being lazy (not all poverty people are lazy many I will say are not but many are just as content with letting the government people take care of them) 2) Taking every opprotunity you can to better yourself. 3) Being fiscally responsible. A lot of poverty is the result of irresponsible spending and spending beyond your means. 4) Wanting to get out bad enough.

I mean I keep going back to the story of my dad and if you wanted to, you could almost say that my dad's family wasn't in any situation that he could crawl out of.

Well because of what my dad did: And let me tell you my dad didn't wait around to be a leader or what not like many do, and my dad didn't say he was too good to do something (like many people do)-my dad often tells me stories of when he wanted to make something of himself bad enough he cleaned toilets at the church at the age of 5. Instead of playing outside like most children my dad was working his ass off and the butt of jokes.

My grandfather worked 3 jobs so that his family could live in a home instead of a box.

My dad worked 4 jobs. He took every job he could. He didnt care how degrading it was he took those jobs. He penny pinched. He saved his money and was able to help his parents out and he was able to begin to crawl out of the hole of poverty.

He worked hard and went to college with his 4 jobs. He continued to work until he got into Pharmacy school where he was offered a job at Pharmacy that instead of paying say $2/hr they at least paid $10.

So this whole poverty and we dont have money excuse doesn't fly with me.

I'm actually watching a girl right now who is in poverty. She has a baby and is pregnant with another one. She found someone who will watch the baby for her while she works for borders, she takes her baby with her while she cleans houses. She saves every dime she can. She is now in the process of moving from the projects to a nice appartment.

It's not luck. It's doing what you can to get out of the situation you are in.

Many times (and yes I do realize I will be the most hated person on specktra right now) I feel that a lot of our poverty stricken people in the US are almost comfortable there. They like the government helping them out (Those on Welfare), they like being poor and getting sympathy-being lazy and thinking they are too good for something (Cleaning toilets?)

I mean it just boggles my mind when I see people who have no family etc be able to pull themselves out just by sheer determination, hard work, good decisions, etc and then see those who choose to be there.

And we all wonder why the government isn't helping more? They shouldn't be helping at all! (With the exception of those mentally handicapped and physically handicapped and when I say physically I mean a heart condition that could kill you, a missing limb etc this whole oh my back hurts doesnt fly, get a chair already)- I mean look at the jokes of social security, welfare, FEMA, etc etc etc.

The government programs do NOTHING anyway except drain the taxpayers of money therefore hendering anyone to help move up. So all these programs people are screaming we need = guess what? We don't! It's more taxation which just seems to be the government digging our grave for us.

The US as a society has FAILED with our individualism, our self sufficiency, etc. AND Once they GET to the top (where my dad is and those who are actually trying to DO SOMETHING about being poor)- The government we so desperately want to help the poor instead begins to chastise and degrade and tell the people who actually DID something about their situation shut up, we wont have it here are some more taxes for you to pay US. Those who strived for achievement and self-sufficiency were likely to be derided derided and mocked while their pockets are being picked. They were the evil, greedy rich.

And now your going to tell me about what about the single mothers out there who have children who are on welfare? Well again it comes to lazyness. There are many instances (here in ATL too) where people get laid just so they can have more kids so they can remain on welfare. Many would rather spend money on drugs, hookers, beer etc.

These people know the system and beat it at the costs of taxpayer money which again leads to the taxation of people trying to crawl out of the hole making things worse.

I'm going to be honest-do I who have watched all this, have heard from my dad the stories he went through, heard from his sister the stories, watched many people crawl out of poverty-am I going to have pity on those who can and have the ability to get out of poverty but refuse not to?

The cold hard answer is no. I feel compassion towards them yes, but I hold them accountable for their decisions. I feel more compassion towards the children who were born into it because they have hope to get out of it. They didn't chose to be born into poverty but they can get out of it.

So to me it's not about luck. It's about cold hard determination.

Those who do have a situation where it involves a physical handicap and or a mental handicap I will give to you, we should have more people take care of them but we cannot as a society keep going like we are going or we will ALL be in poverty. Especially if we continue to depend on the US Government to "Pull our weiners outta the fire" like we have been doing (EX: Katrina)

I will say that there was only one time my heart ripped out for the poverty sticken. And it was because I knew the economic situation I knew the opprotunities etc were so very limited. The only time I truely felt sick over poverty was when I was in South Africa and I saw Suwetta.

We have places that are strikingly similar to suwetta here in the US. The only difference is in the US we have opprotunities to do something. In Suwetta, they do not.

So it baffles me beyond words having seen all I have seen when people whine and moan about the poor pitiful poverty stricken poor when no you had decisions, you could've made them. You had the opprotunities to get a job you could've taken them. You had choice to sit and have children while depending on welfare or getting out there and scrubbing toilets.

Now I'm just repeating myself. America is a society of excuses. We will never hold anyone accountable for anything. We are a lazy society. We are a society that conforms with the masses.

I would seriously be a lot more understanding of the poverty argument if we lived in an oppressive government such as Zimbabwe, or Mexico, Cuba, etc. But we don't. We don't take the opprotunities we have and that sickens me beyond words.

Anyway. That's my stance on it. And I gotta be honest with you, I will never find a reason to believe that poverty is an excuse (with the exception of physical or mental problems). I'm sorry it's just me.


Flame away.

 

[Shimmer]

I firmly believe that a healthy intelligent individual can overcome poverty.
My father did, my mother did, my family did.
I see no reason anyone else, regardless of race, cannot do the same.
It involves hard work and determination, but there's no reason it can't be done.

 

[MxAxC-_ATTACK]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shimmer I firmly believe that a healthy intelligent individual can overcome poverty. My father did, my mother did, my family did. I see no reason anyone else, regardless of race, cannot do the same. It involves hard work and determination, but there's no reason it can't be done.

100% true.

 

[Raerae]

Yup I agree... If your willing to work the hours, you can get out of it imho. You dont even really have to make "that much" money to get an apartment, just be willing to put in the hours. I've seen people living out of their cars get off the streets (worked at the telemarketing place i worked at a few years back).

And dont even get me started on unemployment and welfare... I've known people who happily collect their unemployment checks because it pays more a week than going out and getting a job. So where is thier motivation to find a job...

 

[d_flawless]

i can't agree more with shimmer. adversity can be overcome, and even if you do have some "disability" (i.e. blindness, physical handicap), some schools, even a public school like mine (sfsu), would love to have you, and would be willing to help fund your education.
poverty seems like it becomes a pattern, because people know it's liveable, though hard, yet they don't always know how to get out. it's totally possible though, not to name names, but we've all seen it happen.