# Confronting the ''Culture of the Poor'' Ideology **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 1, 2013, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-the-culture-of-the-poor-ideology/654578 "2013-04-01T22:34:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-the-culture-of-the-poor-ideology/654578/81 "2013-04-03T09:52:51Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I was born poor. My father came to this country from Central America with, literally, the shirt on his back and not much else. > > I don’t regard myself as having made “exceptionally good” choices. Just correct ones – nothing that requires some huge flash of insight. Avoiding overextending credit or buying things I couldn’t afford, for example, simply because they were “no money down.” Primarily what allowed me to succeed was this simple mantra: _I am not entitled to good stuff just because other people have it._ You sleep without air conditioning because you want to save money. You don’t have a color TV because you want to save money. You mush all the little leftover slivers of soap together into one much-soap-bar because you want to save money. > > And you watch your neighbors buy color TVs and sleep comfortably at night, because in their minds they’re entitled to it, because other people have it so why shouldn’t they? > > And they live paycheck to paycheck and never get ahead and lament how unfair it all is. > > That’s not “extraordinarily good.” That’s baseline obvious. In general if you want to transcend your origins economically in this country you need to do what you say here, which is similar to what I did (I don’t come from a wealthy family, but we were better off than an impoverished first generation immigrant.) That basically means doing everything you can to minimize bad decisions and make good ones and over time you build up a life above what your parents had. But most people don’t do that **in any of the various socioeconomic levels.** I can’t tell you how many doctor’s and lawyer’s kids I know, that went through college and got their first job making $50-60k a year in the last 3-4 years and then bought a $50k car. These are kids from relative privilege, but their parents didn’t spoil them and don’t fund their adult lives, basically **choosing** outrageous consumerism over more responsible behavior. But because of their background and their “base level” of socioeconomic security they can make bad decisions. At worst they stay middle class, never equal the achievements of their professional parents, but they don’t end up poor. The people who make the right decisions are, in my opinion, generally the exception and not the rule. But if you have a middle class family with a strong support system you can make the same _type_ of bad decisions and not suffer the same type of consequences as someone from a poor family. The specific decisions will usually be different, for example a doctor’s son isn’t likely to fall into the same exact pitfalls as a son of a poor single mother in an urban slum, but they both have a good chance of making a lot of bad decisions in life. All this is to say, we shouldn’t model our thoughts on what the most successful do. We should let them reap their rewards and help out, at some subsistence level, the least successful. The fact that a very small percentage of the poor can work their way up to wealth has undermined a lot of common sense thinking on the issues of poverty. Very few middle class people are able to work their way up to being rich, but we have no problem giving a lot of benefits and privileges to the middle class (the homeowner’s tax credit being one of the biggest ones) regardless of their ability to transcend their upbringing and background. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-the-culture-of-the-poor-ideology/654578/82 "2013-04-03T10:15:07Z")
It really is an interesting concept especially for Christians: The poor have too much money and the rich not enough. I recently found out that over 20 TRILLION!! dollars has bee shuffled to overseas accounts as a tax haven by the wealthy, the poor and middle class are doomed. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-the-culture-of-the-poor-ideology/654578/83 "2013-04-03T13:12:46Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > It just takes that, huh? Worked for my great-grandfather who managed to work his way UP from a child runaway laborer to a longshoreman. Worked for his son, who graduated high school, started work as a bank teller, and ended up a bank executive. Worked for my father, who went to college, and managed to keep our family solvent despite being laid off, and out of work for something like 4-5 years. It’s entirely a matter of values, not person exceptionalism. None of us are particular brainiacs in my family; we just work hard, save money, and try and do the prudent thing. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-the-culture-of-the-poor-ideology/654578/84 "2013-04-03T14:11:23Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Worked for my great-grandfather who managed to work his way UP from a child runaway laborer to a longshoreman. Worked for his son, who graduated high school, started work as a bank teller, and ended up a bank executive. Worked for my father, who went to college, and managed to keep our family solvent despite being laid off, and out of work for something like 4-5 years. > > It’s entirely a matter of values, not person exceptionalism. None of us are particular brainiacs in my family; we just work hard, save money, and try and do the prudent thing. So wait. It worked for all of these ancestors of yours but none of them actually succeeded in getting the next generation out of poverty so the next generation had to do it again? That sounds like scraping by, which is what lots of people succeed in doing. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-the-culture-of-the-poor-ideology/654578/85 "2013-04-03T14:33:33Z")
What’s your definition of “getting the next generation out of poverty”? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-the-culture-of-the-poor-ideology/654578/86 "2013-04-03T14:41:42Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Worked for my great-grandfather who managed to work his way UP from a child runaway laborer to a longshoreman. Worked for his son, who graduated high school, started work as a bank teller, and ended up a bank executive. Worked for my father, who went to college, and managed to keep our family solvent despite being laid off, and out of work for something like 4-5 years. > > It’s entirely a matter of values, not person exceptionalism. None of us are particular brainiacs in my family; we just work hard, save money, and try and do the prudent thing. How fortunate for all of those people that the family breadwinner did not die in his 20’s in a car accident, or wind up paralyzed or dying from cancer. How fortunate your family didn’t lose all in a fire or hurricane and have to start over again from nothing. Sorry, your family also had an element of luck in its success, too. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-the-culture-of-the-poor-ideology/654578/87 "2013-04-03T14:43:09Z")
> [@threeorange](#): > > You’re far too modest. The kind of delaying of gratification and self-imposed deprivation you describe in your upbringing requires a constant swimming against a major current of the culture of your father’s chosen nation. The fact that you did so successfully while so many others could not implies that you are, in fact, quite extraordinary. > > It is sad, however, when the extraordinary have such contempt for the ordinary. “There is nothing so admirable - or so generally insufferable - than a self-made person” Can’t remember who said it, though. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-the-culture-of-the-poor-ideology/654578/88 "2013-04-03T15:43:54Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > So wait. It worked for all of these ancestors of yours but none of them actually succeeded in getting the next generation out of poverty so the next generation had to do it again? That sounds like scraping by, which is what lots of people succeed in doing. I’m a little baffled about how starting out as a child runaway\*, and ending up with a solid blue-collar job, and then having a son who started with a low-level white collar job and ended up an exec is “scraping by”? At each step, the children ended up doing better than the parents, with the possible exception of my Dad, who managed to handle some pretty adverse circumstances exceptionally well, retired as a middle manager in the Houston city government and set me up to be better off than he was. (I make about 50% more than he did when he retired, and I’m just 40) My main point is that when you exclude luck, the more prudent, but less fun behaviors will pay off in the long run, and that’s the ticket out of poverty. Anything else is effectively a bandaid on the problem- without the proper behavior tools to take advantage of any aid, transfer payments or windfalls, they’ll just be squandered. I do realize that luck does play a big role in things, and impacts poor people more than better off ones, but it’s not something that can be accounted for. The best we can do is prepare for it, and that’s where saving and being prudent is especially helpful. By “child runaway”, I mean that he ran off with his older brother when he was 8, and ended up malnourished enough to be only about 5 feet tall as an adult; his sons and grandsons are all well over 6’, so we suspect he might have been a lot taller with proper nutrition. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-the-culture-of-the-poor-ideology/654578/89 "2013-04-03T17:28:32Z")
> [@threeorange](#): > > You’re far too modest. The kind of delaying of gratification and self-imposed deprivation you describe in your upbringing requires a constant swimming against a major current of the culture of your father’s chosen nation. The fact that you did so successfully while so many others could not implies that you are, in fact, quite extraordinary. > > It is sad, however, when the extraordinary have such contempt for the ordinary. This is the problem: “…while many others could could not…” I say nonsense – anyone can. Many choose not to. You say, or seem to say, that they couldn’t. You regard it as an inability, not a choice. When do you regard people as responsible for the choices they make? ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-the-culture-of-the-poor-ideology/654578/90 "2013-04-03T17:34:56Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > **ralph** , did someone mention lack of money as the problem? No, I did not say that. However, you cannot divert so much talent, energy and money to the military without having some serious effects upon the rest of the country. Take a military base-it is basically a whole community that works for the government. yet is produces very little (no products, goods, services (except for defense)). Now compare that base with a factory that makes say, trucks-it does produce products. What I see happening is that we in the USA, cannot make much anymore-we import most manufactured goods. Is that good or bad? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-the-culture-of-the-poor-ideology/654578/91 "2013-04-03T17:52:36Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > Shodan, > > Zuckerburg was also born with a lot of brains. My little brother was left back in third grade because he has some learning disabilities. Do I think he should work? Hell yes! He’s had a full time job in the past and can certainly hold one now. Lord knows I’ve sent him enough job leads for him to have found something. Do I think he’s had the same opportunities in life as Mark Zuckerburg? No. > > Let’s not get carried away by pretending that we’re all born equal and it is simply a matter of effort to become a billionaire. No offense, but we are not talking about becoming a billionaire. We are talking about not being poor. And no, we are not all born equal. But doing the things that lead to being non-poor do not require extraordinary brains. As you say, your brother could get a job. He doesn’t have to sponge off your father, and if he were forced to it, he could support himself. > [@](#): > > I intend to do my damndest to make sure my girls graduate from college, marry (if that’s what they want) and not have children (if that’s what they want) until they have a college degree and the right partner. And thereby you are doing a lot more to prevent poverty than any number of government programs. [QUOTE=ralph124c] What I see happening is that we in the USA, cannot make much anymore [/QUOTE] The USA is the world’s largest manufacturer. [Cite](http://shopfloor.org/2011/03/u-s-manufacturing-remains-worlds-largest/18756). Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![elninost0rm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ed655f/32.png) [@elninost0rm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elninost0rm)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-the-culture-of-the-poor-ideology/654578/92 "2013-04-03T18:23:57Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > This is the problem: “…while many others could could not…” > > I say nonsense – **anyone** can. Many choose not to. > > You say, or seem to say, that they couldn’t. You regard it as an inability, not a choice. > > When do you regard people as responsible for the choices they make? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-the-culture-of-the-poor-ideology/654578/93 "2013-04-03T18:42:30Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > This is the problem: “…while many others could could not…” > > I say nonsense – **anyone can**. Many choose not to. > > You say, or seem to say, that they couldn’t. You regard it as an inability, not a choice. > > When do you regard people as responsible for the choices they make? I wonder if you would be comfortable changing that to “_everyone_ can.” ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/82dd89/32.png) [@Kearsen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-the-culture-of-the-poor-ideology/654578/94 "2013-04-03T19:29:53Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > I’m all for this in one way. Hire 'em to dig holes on Monday and fill in holes on Tuesday. It’s amazing how even stupid pointless work makes people feel useful and raises self esteem in a meaningful productive way. > > Hell, I know blocks and blocks of neighborhoods that could use a trash detail at least once a week…except (and here’s where the idea begins to falter under the weight of reality) if you hire Joseph to dig holes or clean up trash on the wrong block, Michael is going to shoot his ass for being on the wrong side of the gang line. Then, if we’re phenomenally lucky and someone is willing to testify, Michael goes to jail. > > And meanwhile Tammy is at home with three kids under the age of 6, one of whom is severely disabled, her mother with Alzheimer’s living in the back room, and no dads in sight to help her pay for appropriate medically supervised adult and child day care so she can work at one of these created jobs. > > It works in general theory. It falls apart when you start considering the behavior and needs of actual individuals. > (The above is based on one of my patient’s families, although names and details have been changed.) Why do they need to do useless unproductive work? Beautification projects all over need doing but it usually needs people to do it, have people the government is already paying do it. Now that I think on this a bit more, I think this would provide it’s own means testing. Those with no “side job-cash only” would have no problems doing this. There “free time” would be spent learning a valuable life lesson about working ethics, punctuality etc and hopefully making them more employable. But even if they never learn anything, they are doing something that needs doing. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-the-culture-of-the-poor-ideology/654578/95 "2013-04-03T19:32:29Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I’m a little baffled about how starting out as a child runaway\*, and ending up with a solid blue-collar job, and then having a son who started with a low-level white collar job and ended up an exec is “scraping by”? I see. So, it was only the one ancestor who got himself out of poverty rather than all of them. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-the-culture-of-the-poor-ideology/654578/96 "2013-04-03T19:56:34Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > I see. So, it was only the one ancestor who got himself out of poverty rather than all of them. Well, all the subsequents acted in ways that did not return them to poverty, if that is what you meant. No doubt if **bump** ’s father or grandfather acted the fool, they could have made themselves as poor as his great-grandfather started out as. But that’s the point. It is possible, if you act in accordance with “the Culture of the Poor”, to become poor. It is equally possible to become non-poor if you don’t act in accordance with that culture. **bump** ’s ancestors, and **Bricker** , are examples of that. **LavenderBlue** ’s brother is apparently an example of someone heading the other way. There are no guarantees. But the cycle of poverty tends often, to be self-perpetuating. So does the cycle of non-poverty. Both cycles perpetuate by people acting in certain ways. And both cycles are broken by people not acting in those ways. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-the-culture-of-the-poor-ideology/654578/97 "2013-04-03T20:24:47Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > I wonder if you would be comfortable changing that to “_everyone_ can.” No. There are those who do lack the intelligence and/or physical capacity to do this. So not everyone can. But the number of those who cannot is vanishingly small. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-the-culture-of-the-poor-ideology/654578/98 "2013-04-03T21:01:15Z")
I’d also like to point out that even while one is IN poverty one’s conduct can make a significant difference in one’s life. For example, the mere fact my spouse and I do NOT smoke significantly improves our standard of living over that of other people of similar means. When things get dire we also give up alcohol (not that we drink much anyway) that, again, frees up resources for things like car repairs and maintenance or a modest rainy day fund. Cooking from scratch rather than relying on convenience foods, growing a garden, sticking to a budget… all of those contribute to a better life at a given low income than doing otherwise. Will it guarantee a climb out of poverty? No, actually, it won’t - but it can keep you from sinking deeper. It will also position you to better take advantage of any good luck that happens your way. I grew up in a middle class household where learning these things was part of growing up. My spouse grew up poor and most of his relatives never learned it - I gather he learned partly from observation and innate smarts, and partly from hanging out with people other than his natal socio-economic group. Once again illustrating that concentrating the poor together doesn’t help them. The more people of diverse backgrounds you associate with the more likely you are to pick up alternative strategies to those you grew up with - that could work against as well as for you if you pick up bad habits, but if the habits of those around you are crap it might well improve yours. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-the-culture-of-the-poor-ideology/654578/99 "2013-04-03T23:41:08Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > I think you’re missing the point that merely having money isn’t indicative of “doing everything right”. It can also mean you were born into a wealthy family, or you picked a winning lottery ticket. > > Likewise, you can do everything right and STILL wind up poor - natural disaster, illness/disability/accident, a profession that looked promising 40 years ago is now obsolete, etc. I understand that, but that really isn’t the point. Good decisionmaking is good decisionmaking, regardless of the eventual outcome. Case in point, you might “win” at Russian Roulette. That doesn’t mean playing is ever a good idea. I understand your point is that shit happens. You can do everything right and still find misfortune. That’s why we have safety nets. Poverty isn’t just about bad choices. It’s having reduced choices. Or at the very least, it’s being unaware of them. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-the-culture-of-the-poor-ideology/654578/100 "2013-04-03T23:55:38Z")
I question that we have meaningful safety nets. But that’s probably a debate for another thread. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-the-culture-of-the-poor-ideology/654578.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-the-culture-of-the-poor-ideology/654578.md?page=6)