# Poverty Apologists / Apologetics **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 5, 2016, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poverty-apologists-apologetics/751287 "2016-04-05T19:52:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poverty-apologists-apologetics/751287/241 "2016-04-13T13:52:32Z")
Back to the OP, I dont think anyone who has ever worked at programs designed to help the poor hasnt at times wanted to just walk away from frustration over just how some of those people act. Nevertheless, you really just have to grit your teeth and keep helping anyways because every so often you will come across the person whom the aid really helps and makes a difference in their lives. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poverty-apologists-apologetics/751287/242 "2016-04-13T13:57:14Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > I’m sorry your gut tells you that you don’t want to live alongside poor people. I’m a lower class person. I’ve never been arrested or convicted of any crime. I’ve never committed any act of violence. I have zero debt. I show up to work on time. I call in sick maybe one day a year. We are human beings just like you, and we wish to be treated with dignity and respect. Imagine replacing everything you say about poor people with the word “black”, and realize how offensive your generalizations are. I’m not so sure about that. I’ve known some upstanding people who chose to live in a poor neighborhood, who had all the empathy in the world and were really working to help others, yet their home has been broken into several times and their personal possessions stolen. Same as some guys I know who work in shelters. One rule is “dont bring anything here you cannot live with being stolen”. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poverty-apologists-apologetics/751287/243 "2016-04-13T14:58:48Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > In my eyes, UBI = just another wealth redistribution scheme. Yes, yes it is. One that is supposed to replace all the current wealth distribution schemes. This concept comes from the right, not the left. The right has changed its position on social safety nets. > [@](#): > > ETA: if you make $50K in America, your income tax burden is probably closer to $0 than $10K. I was speaking hypothetically but its really not hard to impose a 20% income tax on people with 50K income if you are giving them the 10K to pay the tax with. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poverty-apologists-apologetics/751287/244 "2016-04-13T15:01:01Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I don’t know much of anything about the cost of self-driving cars, but I’ll be impressed if they can be purchased new for only $33K in my lifetime. I’d be shocked if they couldn’t be purchased for less than that in my lifetime. The cameras and computer necessary for driverless cars is probably less expensive than my laptop. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poverty-apologists-apologetics/751287/245 "2016-04-13T15:05:24Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > I’m sorry your gut tells you that you don’t want to live alongside poor people. I’m a lower class person. I’ve never been arrested or convicted of any crime. I’ve never committed any act of violence. I have zero debt. I show up to work on time. I call in sick maybe one day a year. We are human beings just like you, and we wish to be treated with dignity and respect. Imagine replacing everything you say about poor people with the word “black”, and realize how offensive your generalizations are. You, I might want to live by. Some of the other people who live alongside you, not so much. I live in one of those areas (Lake Highlands, Dallas) where a meddling Federal judge (Jerry Buchmeyer) decided to forcibly break up a cluster of poverty and force suburbs to accept Section 8 housing and poor residents back about 30 years ago. And yes, they’re predominantly black as well. Guess what? The apartment complexes in my area are some of the highest crime areas in Dallas. The people are still poor as shit who live in them, and the schools their children attend have abysmal test scores (see other threads I’ve participated in for examples). And the area is worse for the decision overall than before, as the area prior to the decision was a upper middle class, low crime, high property value area with nice stores and no issues walking around. Now, the houses are still worth a lot of money, but the schools have gone down the toilet with the influx of apartment kids whose parents don’t value education, there’s a news report about a shooting or other violent crime in the nearby apartments somewhere between weekly and monthly, and shit like burglaries and car break-ins is all too frequent. So long story short, the decision didn’t help the poor people at all and just screwed the non-poor people in the area. The poor people are still segregated into their low income apartment ghettoes, and they’re still extremely low income, but now they’re blighting an area that would otherwise not have significant crime problems or educational issues. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poverty-apologists-apologetics/751287/246 "2016-04-13T15:05:46Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > You can’t morally sell a program like Social Security as an individual benefit linked to life time contributions and then just steal it to pay for another program. Sure you can. We do it right now. There are several categories of people that were exempt from social security tax because there were other income guarantees in place for them. When they were brought on to the social security system, we truncated their benefits to reflect the windfall they would have received otherwise. Looking at it from the other end, we can simply reduce their basic income so that their after tax income would be the higher of the basic income or their social security benefit. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poverty-apologists-apologetics/751287/247 "2016-04-13T15:08:00Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > The reason we have SNAP, TANF, rent assistance, etc, instead of just giving the poor cash is because the poor are generally poor decision makers when it comes to money. What do we do with all the poor little children that got evicted because Mommy spent their basic income on meth, or Daddy lost it all at the slots in Vegas, or blew it at the strip club? Now who is being a nanny? > [@](#): > > You can’t realistically expect to throw cash at poor people and have them all make good decisions with it. Some of them are going to waste it on unbelievably stupid purchases. And they’ll do it month after month for as long as you’re willing to keep giving them cash. What do we do with those poor people who are still homeless, hungry, or in poor health after UBI? Start up SNAP 2.0 and TANF 2.0 to cover the needs they failed to adequately budget for with their basic income? That’s all we have. They have to rely on charity at that point. Their kids get taken away, they can live in homeless shelters and if they are really that incompetent then they can be remitted to a facility that will take care of them. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poverty-apologists-apologetics/751287/248 "2016-04-13T15:22:49Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > First, we don’t set a tax tables to target effective tax rates. Income tax rates are based on tranches of income. Yes I know but the math is not really that hard. > [@](#): > > Second, in your example, that may work for the person that is earning $50K, but it fails once you have a person that earns $40K, or 100K, or any different amount. No it doesn’t. The family making $40,000 get to keep a little bit of a basic income, the folks making 100,000 pay more additional taxes than they get in basic income. The entire point behind the basic income is that the benefits (and burdens) of the basic income are recognized gradually as income increases or decreases. > [@](#): > > Third, this is as I described in post #197, unless the tax rate on this new income is 100% (that’s how it would have to be in your example), then the income isn’t going to be subsumed by some new tax. No, the change is supposed to be gradual, that is a large part of the benefit of a basic income. The incentive to work is still there but you have to pay taxes on that work, our current system can result in an additional dollar earned leading to the loss of several dollars of benefits. This is not the case with the basic income. Additional dollars earned are subject to tax but you don’t lose $100 in benefits because you have crossed some benchmark income level by a dollar. > [@](#): > > * * * > > I’ve long supported a negative income tax which is directionally similar to what you are saying but much better fleshed out. But only as a replacement of all other transfer payments. Nobel prize winning conservative economist Milton Friedman has fleshed out basic income plenty. In fact, the negative income tax that you are proposing is probably one of several possible incarnations of the negative income. And yes it replaces all other social safety nets. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poverty-apologists-apologetics/751287/249 "2016-04-13T15:48:25Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Nobel prize winning conservative economist Milton Friedman has fleshed out basic income plenty. In fact, the negative income tax that you are proposing is probably one of several possible incarnations of the negative income. And yes it replaces all other social safety nets. If you’re talking about a negative income tax that’s fine. That’s not how I interpreted your original statement. The way you phrased it made the example seem more static - a sliding scale that is inherent in the negative income tax addresses those issues. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poverty-apologists-apologetics/751287/250 "2016-04-13T18:06:48Z")
I dont think its so bad to “segregate” the poor because if the poor live in one place (say a housing project) it is easier to provide services for them. For example my church supports a ministry that provides tutoring. Another group has a job center there. I think there might be a drug treatment center nearby. Thing is all those services are right where the people need them all within walking distance. And yes, police know where it is to and they can work on ways to deal with crime. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poverty-apologists-apologetics/751287/251 "2016-04-13T18:29:27Z")
Also, it makes it easier to ignore them. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poverty-apologists-apologetics/751287/252 "2016-04-13T18:31:08Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > I dont think its so bad to “segregate” the poor because if the poor live in one place (say a housing project) it is easier to provide services for them. For example my church supports a ministry that provides tutoring. Another group has a job center there. I think there might be a drug treatment center nearby. > > Thing is all those services are right where the people need them all within walking distance. > > And yes, police know where it is to and they can work on ways to deal with crime. So you’re fine creating ghettos for poor people, because they deserve to be isolated among their kind? :dubious: ---
**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 13, 2016, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poverty-apologists-apologetics/751287/253 "2016-04-13T20:27:18Z")
So if you’re a middle-class person who falls into poverty you should be forced to move out of your neighborhood and home and warehoused in a project? ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poverty-apologists-apologetics/751287/254 "2016-04-13T20:32:54Z")
Not quite. Segregation based on income happens naturally unless there are outside forces at work (low income housing requirements, etc.) Just about the only way a low income person is [nautrally living in Diablo](http://www.city-data.com/city/Diablo-California.html) is if they are homeless and walk over, or are a dependent of someone else. An average per capita income over $160K and median house value of \> $1M does that. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poverty-apologists-apologetics/751287/255 "2016-04-14T14:01:16Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > So if you’re a middle-class person who falls into poverty you should be forced to move out of your neighborhood and home and warehoused in a project? I think what the earlier poster was getting at is that when poor people end up self-segregating due to market forces, it is convenient from the perspective of providing services and outreach to them, as they’re in a handful of areas. But like Bone says, you’re going to effectively do that to yourself, as if you can’t afford to live in the middle class neighborhood, you’ll move somewhere that you CAN afford, and it won’t be as nice as where you used to live- it may be further out, it may be smaller homes, it may be older homes, it may be poorer neighbors, or some combination of all of them. It works that way up and down the scale; if I was to somehow come into a job that pays 300,000 a year, I’d move into a nicer neighborhood, and if I suddenly ended up earning 40,000 a year, I’d have to move into a less nice one. That’s, I think the problem I have with the idea of artificially moving low income people to more affluent areas; one or both of two things happens- either it’s a hardship on the low-income people as the goods and services nearby are more expensive than what they used to have, or by virtue of living there, they drop the prices around them, and start a vicious circle in their area that makes their immediate area more attractive to low-income people, making prices drop, etc… and at some point, the affluent people leave, which accelerates the problem, causing the same situation as before, just somewhere else. And meanwhile in many cases, the affluent people are getting bitched at for “gentrifying” the old area, which is often in closer to the central business district, has older, “cooler” homes, and is inexpensive. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poverty-apologists-apologetics/751287/256 "2016-04-14T18:39:04Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > So you’re fine creating ghettos for poor people, because they deserve to be isolated among their kind? :dubious: No, well yes, sort of, maybe… it’s complicated. Thing is most of the poor need services and what good is it if those services are back where they used to live? And you know, sometimes it’s nice being around people who are in the same boat as you. And BTW, even if the poor move to a nicer area their is still segregation. For example a housing development might have 1 or 2 lower priced homes BUT those 2 houses are located in the worse locations. or it could be a street of condos in the midst of single family homes. ---
**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 14, 2016, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poverty-apologists-apologetics/751287/257 "2016-04-14T22:52:06Z")
Always the assumption that the poor need “services”. Why is that? At any given point in time a lot of poor people are poor for very simple reason - they have lost a job (or a breadwinner). I wasn’t poor because I made bad decisions or did drugs or had a child out of wedlock, I became poor because I was laid off at a time when jobs of any sort were in short supply, so for some time I was either without income or insufficient income. What I needed was not “services”, what I needed was A JOB. Fulltime work, actually. Once I got steady full time work I started climbing out of the hole. (Nor did I have to move anywhere else, either, but that’s partly luck I’ll admit.) Yes, there is a subset of poor people who are chronically poor. That’s a tough nut to crack. But there are tens of millions of people who have gone through an episode of poverty and got past it. What you need to do for the two different categories are quite different. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poverty-apologists-apologetics/751287/258 "2016-04-14T22:59:10Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Always the assumption that the poor need “services”. Why is that? > > At any given point in time a lot of poor people are poor for very simple reason - they have lost a job (or a breadwinner). I wasn’t poor because I made bad decisions or did drugs or had a child out of wedlock, I became poor because I was laid off at a time when jobs of any sort were in short supply, so for some time I was either without income or insufficient income. What I needed was not “services”, what I needed was A JOB. Fulltime work, actually. Once I got steady full time work I started climbing out of the hole. > > (Nor did I have to move anywhere else, either, but that’s partly luck I’ll admit.) > > Yes, there is a subset of poor people who are chronically poor. That’s a tough nut to crack. But there are tens of millions of people who have gone through an episode of poverty and got past it. What you need to do for the two different categories are quite different. Did you have children? Did you need job re-training? Did you have a substance abuse issue? Was there a food bank if you were hungry? Was there a free medical clinic nearby if you were sick? All those require services. ---
**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 15, 2016, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poverty-apologists-apologetics/751287/259 "2016-04-15T01:29:44Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Did you have children? No. > [@](#): > > Did you need job re-training? No. Well, my current employer trained me to drive a forklift, but that was after I was employed for over a year. > [@](#): > > Did you have a substance abuse issue? No. > [@](#): > > Was there a food bank if you were hungry? Never got that bad off. We did have SNAP, but you can use that almost anywhere these days, it doesn’t require living in a ghetto or project, and we have a garden to supply most of our vegetables for a few years. > [@](#): > > Was there a free medical clinic nearby if you were sick? About 8 months after my layoff I was able to get insurance so we wound up with a lot of options for doctors. If we have any free clinics in my county I’m unaware of them, my information is that those without coverage or money either use the ER or do without. > [@](#): > > All those require services. None of which my household needed. Which is sort of my point - not all poor people need services, some just need a job. Which is really what I needed: a job. Sometimes it’s really that simple. Sometimes it’s not. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2016, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poverty-apologists-apologetics/751287/260 "2016-04-15T01:46:45Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > None of which my household needed. Which is sort of my point - not all poor people need services, some just need a job. SNAP is a service, isn’t it? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poverty-apologists-apologetics/751287.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poverty-apologists-apologetics/751287.md?page=14)