The "Don't Give Them Money" Poverty Lie

As I am moving to Steemit, I am moving some of my older articles to the platform. This is one of those articles:

I have wrestled with a line I have heard over and over again in an approach to poverty. The line is that we should never, ever give money to the less fortunate, as they will squander it.

It is based on a very nasty stereotype: that the poor are poor because they are poor stewards of money. It is the Horatio Alger myth revisited. And it is false.

The fact is, it takes money to survive in the real world. I remember a time when we were in very poor shape, and I couldn't count the amount of junk that was donated to us with good intentions. And, in fact, it was truly JUNK. In my misguided effort to try to appear grateful, I didn't throw anything away, and the "stuff" quickly got ahead of us.

None of it was valuable enough to resell at a garage sale. Little (less than 10%) was useful to our family. Most of it simply accumulated while we were too passive to tell people that we simply didn't need what they had to give us. Broken appliances, furniture in serious need of upholstery (when we already had furniture), mattresses with a questionably sordid history, the list goes on.

We had THINGS (broken things, yes, but things); what we lacked was money. Those "things" didn't pay the utility bills. Those "things" didn't fix things as they broke around our house, and as anyone who has dealt with broken plumbing, faulty wiring or a bad roof knows, these problems do not fix themselves. The hazard gets worse.

In our case, the hazard GOT worse. We piled our junk in a room we did not use, and quickly discovered that, far from the meddling living areas of the house, the mice pretty much built condos with the fabric and stuffing from the furniture. As I said, the problem got ahead of us.

Admittedly, at the time, we weren't the best financial stewards. But we weren't the worst either. The modest salary I made sustained a family of seven, then eight....by the time we reached nine, I was making a better wage. As it dwindles back down to eight, then seven, as my oldest children moved out, though, our income did not increase, it decreased

At this point, I would wager a fair sum that I am a BETTER financial steward than those who would say what we don't need is money. After all, we manage right now on wages of $10 an hour, and, while our emergency fund has been depleted, necessitating a crowdfunding campaign for a replacement vehicle, we nonetheless manage to squirrel away a few spare dollars even on that meager income. And our eating habits are OK; not as healthy as they should be, but not laden with crap foods either.

And we're not alone. Time after time I have seen families juggle incomes that shouldn't be enough to support a family. When their buying power declines, they make do. When one cut of meat becomes unaffordable, they buy another. They find ways to take advantage of sales when they can.

YES, the poor disproportionately spend money on the lottery. But the one in ten million chance of becoming a millionaire is mathematically better then the zero in ten million chance that their career path offers. YES, they patronize payday lenders and rent to own places, and other predatory lenders. But it is usually a misguided, albeit well meaning, attempt to have their children feel "normal" and not impoverished. YES, they sometimes spend their SNAP money on more expensive cuts of meat. But...well, forget that. I won't touch that. Middle class folks do it too; it's called a SPLURGE.

The truth is, the "don't give them money" myth is rooted in the harshest judgment; that poor people are somehow unworthy of feeling human, even for an evening. As the wealthy person heads home to enjoy a glass of chardonnay, he will begrudge the homeless fellow a Colt 45 that might take the edge off of a rough night sleeping on gravel, or somehow numb the pain from deep inside that will not go away.

I'm not saying we should shower poor folks with cash, because it in itself doesn't solve the problems. But we should be careful about making a universal policy out of a harsh stereotype. Because letting someone feel human for a moment is NEVER poor stewardship.