Respect poor

There’s no shame in being poor .

That shouldn’t need to be stated, but unfortunately many people are ashamed when they fall on hard times — when they lose their homes, when they can’t provide enough food for their children without help from the government, when they are forced to rely on charity. They believe, as do their neighbors, that it’s their fault, or that somehow they are less valuable because they are poor .

The stigma is, at least for those who have enough, that poverty comes from laziness, irresponsibility or even a desire to cheat others out of their hard-earned money. We have many words we use to cast this blame — bum, loafer, deadbeat, beggar, derelict, vagrant and so on. By contrast, we have few words that carry the idea of someone who works hard, but is poor anyway. Even the places these people live are stigmatized — “bad neighborhoods."