Are the poor to blame for their poverty?

Great Debates
#1

I just read this on the CNN website in an interview with Dan Quayle (perhaps not the most reliable source):

"If in fact you don’t finish high school, you get married before 20 or you have children before 20, you have an 80 percent chance of living in poverty.

(If you) stay in school, get married, wait until you’re after 20 to start having children, you have less than a 5 percent chance of living in poverty."

If these statistics are correct (and I have no idea if they are):

Does this imply that poor people are mostly to blame for their own poverty?

Does it give strong evidence for the American Dream?

Are people poor because they just didn’t follow the rules?

A person with a high school diploma who married at 21 and had their first child at 22 has a 95% chance of not beoing poor?

#2

Link to the interview in question.

http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/05/09/quayle.cnna/index.html

Dan Quayle–still crazy after all these years…

To address the OP: They aren’t “cause and effect”. Dropping out of high school, or getting married before age 20, or having children before age 20 don’t cause you to become poor. It’s just that many people who are already poor also happen to have dropped out of high school, or to have gotten married before age 20, or to have had children before age 20.

Dan’s “statistics” were idiotic 10 years ago, and they’re still idiotic.

#3

These sorts of statistics don’t prove causality. In these sorts of cases, a friend of mine likes to point out that owning a toaster can be linked to better health – not because toasters actually cause better health, but that those who can afford to buy toasters have better health coverage, better diets, and earn more.

#4

I agree that correllation doesn’t necessarily prove causality, but it may be a good start. There may be both correllation and causality.

It seems to me that an unmarried teen-age girl who hasn’t graduated from high school and who spends her days at home raising her children will have a tough time escaping poverty.

#5

I would also like to point out that if you read the entire speech, it sounds like Danny’s saying that the reason we had the Rodney King riots is because all those black folks are out there having babies without bothering to get married first. He starts out talking about “the breakdown of family structure”, segues directly to “race and racism” and the “black middle class”, and then brings in a whole truckload of statistics about poor black people.

http://www.mfc.org/pfn/95-12/quayle.html

It was stupid 10 years ago, and it’s still stupid.

#6

Even without the causality issue, “dropping out of school” is hardly an independent factor. The simple question is “why did they drop out of school”? Some people do it because they’re lazy or whatnot, but I know others who were hounded out by administrators (due to personality and such) or who left due to unavoidable circumstances.

On the other hand, there remains an excellent argument for the availability of alternate schools.

#7

But the fact remains that if you haven’t finished high school, are under 20, and have children, there is a very good chance that you will be raising children without the means to support them. I think it’s very irresponsible to have children when the odds are overwhelmingly against your being able to support them. Liberals blame the rich for trampling the poor, but most poverty is caused by the poor. Note that I’m not saying that most poor people are poor because of actions they have taken. I’m saying that most poor people are poor because of actions that poor people have taken. Vindictive policies against the rich, such as confiscatory taxes, are not going to solve poverty, because the rich aren’t the ones causing poverty.

#8

Quayle had just given a speech at the National Press Club.

http://webcenter.newssearch.netscape.com/aolns_display.adp?key=200205091811000172405_aolns.src

#9

Vindictive policies against the rich and confiscatory taxes? Which country are you living in, The Ryan?

In the country that I am living in, the richest 1% have been paying a rising fraction of the total individual federal income tax burden over the last few decades only because the income distribution is so skewed that their fraction of the total adjusted gross income has been rising at an even faster rate! It hardly sounds like they have been the victim of vindictive tax policies. Instead, they have been the beneficiaries of an economic and political climate that has allowed them to amass wealth as never before. And, tax rates remain far below anything that could be considered confiscatory.

As for the OP, as others have pointed out, correlation is not causation. Still, I am willing to believe that getting married young, having children young, and dropping out of school are generally self-destructive practices that are likely to continue the cycle of poverty (although it would be nice to see a study on this that compared groups that were otherwise controlled so that they all attended the same type of schools, had the same background, etc.). The questions become, however, why people are making these decisions and what can be done to encourage them to make healthier decisions.

#10

Oh, now that I see december’s latest posting, it is all starting to make sense. See, poverty is caused by characters on TV having lots of premarital sex and occasionally even kids out of wedlock.

Geez, I am glad we have Dan Quayle to help us figure out how the world works.

#11

The richest half of the richest nation in the history of the planet are nobody’s victim.

Statements to that effect are bizarrely beneath criticism.

Some people are poor because of their own actions. To try to generalize that into a class characteristic is rank. It smells.

Most of the rich are not rich because of their own actions. The richer you are, the more likely it is that your parents, and grandparents were rich. That doesn’t mean I have a logically valid reason to assume any person who is successful is so because of his ancestry.

Excuse me, I need to go wipe my feet.

Tris

#12

Do you have a cite? Some statistics are skewed because they include widows of self-made rich men as “not rich because of their own actions.”

However, if one includes these widows in the “self-made” group, it was my impression that the majority of rich Americans have earned their wealth. The very richest Americans, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, certainly did.

#13

december, could you please start using examples that actually illustrate yourt point? Buffet certainly ammassed his fortune on his efforts, but he did not start out in poverty, or anything, having a congressman/store owner for a father.

If Gates had not decided to play in the computer industry (employing tactics that are not generally considered examplars of ethical behavior) he could easily have coasted through life on his inheritance with more money than the overwhelming number of the Teeming Millions will ever see.

#14

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are not typical of anything.

The very wealthy are families of wealthy people. The descendents of the Mellons, Rockerfellers, Carnegies, and a hundred other families who made millions when millions were a lot. While it is certainly not the case that none of those descendents acted to improve their status and wealth, it is certainly absurd to pretend that those families do not benefit from the inherited wealth, not to even mention social and business associations.

In small towns all over America there are lesser fortunes shared over generations as well. There are five people in the county where I am now visiting who, among them, own half the commercial real estate in the county. They are all grandchildren of the same man, who made his fortune in the early days of the twentieth century. Their grandchildren are all reasonably wealthy, as well, owning businesses in which their grandparents are partners, and practicing professions learned in fine universities paid for by that same fortune.

I do not claim this is inherently wrong, mind you, but it certainly is not the case that confiscatory taxation has caused any poverty among the thirty or forty descendents of this man. He is not an unusual case. I know similar stories from other places as well.

Yes, people do become wealthy on their own. No doubt about it, America is the best place to do it, too. But the point of the comment by the Ryan was ludicrous. No, I have no statistical cite to back up my claim, and so must admit that I cannot prove that most of the rich fall into the pattern. But certainly many do. I Know that most of the Rich people in this town do. Most of the richest people in the town I was raised in did. For every nuveau riche dot com billionaire out there, there are a whole lot of landed gentry millionaires with fortunes they got by choosing the right parents. (to quote Malcom Forbes)

Even if they did earn it, I don’t want to hear them whining about all those people who chose to be poor, and needy.

Tris

#15

leaving dan quayle out of this and getting to the basic question… are the poor to blame for their poverty, the quick answer is, in most cases , yes. First, to answer the question, do not compare the poor to the rich,those are the two extremes, compare the poor to the middle-class or lower middle class.

(lots of generalizations coming up, i am well aware that there are exceptions to the rule)

what did the middle-class people do that the poor didn’t? They work at better jobs! they usually stay with the company , show up every day, dont change jobs regulary, and slowly but surely move up.

How do they get the better jobs? Sometimes by connections, but they also dont screw their chances up by quitting school, having criminal record, drug or alcohol problems. If high school is too tough for you, then what the hell do you think work is going to be like?

having children is a big drain on anyones finances, energy,and time. if you can barely support yourself, dont take on the responsibility of supporting someone else for the next 20 years.

the poor generally make the wrong choices in life. many of them have their priorities wrong.

#16

DP: A few problems. First is that income mobility isn’t as great as you seem to imply: many of the middle class are middle class because they’re the children of middle-class parents, not due to any intrinsic superiority. It’s much easier for them to get better education, they can make better connections for later employment or job advancement, their parents are more likely to have contacts in the field that their children are interested in, etc. The claims that there is so much job mobility are often based on a flawed understanding of statistics. Many of those that we call “the poor” don’t even qualify as such: they’re merely people having a bad year (or whatever) and who will come out of it when times improve. This isn’t “the poor climbing out of poverty”… such things are much rarer than those who misunderstand or misrepresent regression towards the mean would have you believe.

Second problem is that, yes, high school is tougher than work. Can anybody who’s gone through hell in high school even possibly deny this? You have a horde of people crammed together, largely against their will, who are flooded with hormones and engaged in a rather darwinian exercise of social education and hierarchy establishment. At least you can choose where you go to work and what you want to do; the only choice with high school is either to go, or to leave. For many, high school is hell. The success of Buffy as an allegory was built entirely upon this undeniable truth.

Again, this is barring the existence of alternate schools. One of my best friends couldn’t function in a regular high school, but excelled in an alternate school and is one of the most valuable people at the office at which he works.

Third, not everybody chooses to have children. That’s a huge debate and I don’t want to get into it, but regardless of the circumstances and morality, not everybody chooses to have children. Again, an argument for alternate schools, but not demonizing the poor.

And that’s what this is about, isn’t it? If you can blame the poor for their own misfortune, all of them, then you don’t have to feel responsible. You don’t have to do anything, and can feel smug in your own superiority. Even if there’s a small minority that fit this qualification, too many times people will fixate on them and say “see! see!” in the hopes that nobody will notice the economic forces and aspects of pure luck that often contribute to chronic poverty. It’s so much easier to blame them, and it lets you feel so much better. I can understand the impulse, even if it’s nonsense. It must feel so satisfying.

#17

DP: A few problems. First is that income mobility isn’t as great as you seem to imply: many of the middle class are middle class because they’re the children of middle-class parents, not due to any intrinsic superiority. It’s much easier for them to get better education, they can make better connections for later employment or job advancement, their parents are more likely to have contacts in the field that their children are interested in, etc. The claims that there is so much job mobility are often based on a flawed understanding of statistics. Many of those that we call “the poor” don’t even qualify as such: they’re merely people having a bad year (or whatever) and who will come out of it when times improve. This isn’t “the poor climbing out of poverty”… such things are much rarer than those who misunderstand or misrepresent regression towards the mean would have you believe.

Second problem is that, yes, high school is tougher than work. Can anybody who’s gone through hell in high school even possibly deny this? You have a horde of people crammed together, largely against their will, who are flooded with hormones and engaged in a rather darwinian exercise of social education and hierarchy establishment. At least you can choose where you go to work and what you want to do; the only choice with high school is either to go, or to leave. For many, high school is hell. The success of Buffy as an allegory was built entirely upon this undeniable truth.

Again, this is barring the existence of alternate schools. One of my best friends couldn’t function in a regular high school, but excelled in an alternate school and is one of the most valuable people at the office at which he works.

Third, not everybody chooses to have children. That’s a huge debate and I don’t want to get into it, but regardless of the circumstances and morality, not everybody chooses to have children. Again, an argument for alternate schools, but not demonizing the poor.

And that’s what this is about, isn’t it? If you can blame the poor for their own misfortune, all of them, then you don’t have to feel responsible. You don’t have to do anything, and can feel smug in your own superiority. Even if there’s a small minority that fit this qualification, too many times people will fixate on them and say “see! see!” in the hopes that nobody will notice the economic forces and aspects of pure luck that often contribute to chronic poverty. It’s so much easier to blame them, and it lets you feel so much better. I can understand the impulse, even if it’s nonsense. It must feel so satisfying.

#18

I also have to agree that there is cause and effect. The only thing that might be a cause and effect there is that finishing high school means that you will be much less likely to live in povery than those that do not finish high school. Then again, the poor tend not to finish high school for other matters.

The problem is, of course, the educational systems in the inner cities. Since a large portion of the poor are in inner cities and the schools there are failing, you can see the causation at work here. Education has usually be linked to poverty. Those poor that get out of their situation are those that go to school, somehow do well, and go to college (and take loans to go).

#19

The rich aren’t the one’s causing poverty? The rich and ruling classes are not the one’s who create the very conditions that see their wealth increase at the expense of the poorer classes? The condition of many third world countries is not the result of unscrupulous opportunistic corporations milking the human and natural resources of such countries?
Now call me a Marxist if you will, but such stupidly naive comments as that one by The Ryan above make me wanna punch a hole in the wall. The gap between the rich and the poor is ever widening in most Western societies, and the opportunities for the poor to break the cycles of povertyare becoming increasingly difficult. Poor people don’t want to be poor, but it is in the interests of the RICH to make sure that scarce resources are reserved for themselves. While they may not actively CAUSE poverty (although I would argue that oftentimes they DO), they certainly help to perpetuate it because it is in their best interests to do so.

Oh, and by the way, the wealthy pay disproportionately less in taxation (loopholes, tax havens etc) than the rest of the population. It’s quite obscene really.

#20

The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at the gate
God made them high and lowly
And settled their estate.

Blame God. But don’t blame someone who comes from a poor, disadvantaged background, probably with less educated parents, who probably can’t afford college, for growing up with a sense of despair and hopelessness that leads them to give up on school and try and find alternative happiness, albeit with an early marriage and kids.

Yes, it’s continuing the “cycle of poverty.” But the thing about a vicious circle is that the victim is generally trapped in it to some extent, and it requires far more strength of character, exceptional courage and motivation to snap that cycle than someone from an advantaged background is ever required to show. So expecting someone to do it, and blaming them because they don’t, is holding them up to a higher standard than the rest of the world.