
Why do the poor remain with us?  - cwan
http://lorenzo-thinkingoutaloud.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-do-poor-remain-with-us.html
======
patio11
I think the "recent entry" effect is underemphasized in a lot of discussions.
It is like the old not-quite-paradox where you can move a kid between class A
and class B and increase the average score in both rooms: transfer a middle
class Mexican family to the southern United States and twelve months later
_every actual human is better off_ , but both Mexico and the United States
suffer statistically.

~~~
klipt
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox>

------
jshen
"They have life expectancies, security of food and shelter and rates of
possession of consumer durables that mark them out as among the blessed of
history."

I think this guy has never walked down skid row in a big city. If we act like
a whole subset of people don't exist we can make crazy claims like the poor
are blessed.

~~~
lotusleaf1987
It's sad that you're one of the few who can see this and yet the other replies
to your comment seem to give bizarre rationalizations of why it's okay to be
poor. I don't think there's an excuse at all. Go to Denmark or Canada or a
number of other countries and they've all but wiped out poverty. It's a
pathetic rationalization that poverty "is relative." The more I read HN the
more tired I get reading these over-used libertarian fanatical positions. The
poor are not just drug addicts, there are many people who've had much fewer
opportunities and never had a chance to go to college or get an education.
There are many many people who fall into "the working poor" look at any number
of people stuck in dead end jobs but with little to no ability to get out of
the situation.

Meritocracy is a complete myth. The poor work the hardest and most dangerous
jobs and the most hours. If all it took was 'hard work' then these people
would be filthy rich by now. But obviously not all work is valued the same.

~~~
rick888
Really? They wiped out poverty?

<http://www.redbarnet.dk/Default.aspx?ID=2208>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_Canada>
<http://www.economist.com/node/17581844>

Poverty exists in every nation in the world.

There are a small percentage of people that have mental or physical issues,
and they should be helped by the government. The rest need to get jobs.

If you are stuck in a dead-end job, I don't feel sorry for you. I was stuck in
one. It takes hard work, dedication, and sacrifice to get out. I've know a ton
of people stuck in those types of jobs and most of them weren't willing to
sacrifice their free time for their career. Instead of sitting at home and
watching TV, playing video games, or hanging out with your friends when you
get home from work, educate yourself. We are in an age where you can get tons
of free information online. MIT even has free courses. Hell, if you want to go
the less legal route, you can find almost any college textbook in pdf format,
for free.

I'm tired of people making excuses for lazy people. It reminds me of when I
was in school: we would have group projects where one or two people would do
all of the work and the rest (usually 4-5 people) would sit and earn the same
amount of credit. I suppose this was a model for real life.

"Meritocracy is a complete myth. The poor work the hardest and most dangerous
jobs and the most hours."

If you have a job that anybody can do, you aren't going to get paid very
much..because its value is low. Making money has never been just about working
hard. It also takes intelligence, skill, and there needs to be value in it.

~~~
z0r
Making money is about exploiting economic opportunities. "Value" is an almost
meaningless word. The garbage men who take the trash off my curb provide more
value than a lot of white collar management, in my opinion. If you're either
intelligent and skillful, you'll certainly have a better chance of identifying
a desirable economic niche to fill and being able to work your way towards it.
But is it right that many of the hardest working people in society, doing
undesirable jobs, are compensated so much less than "knowledge workers"? Do
you really think an 8 hour day sitting at a desk deserves twice as much pay as
an 8 hour day digging a ditch? What the fuck is value? The compensation of a
ditch digger has more to do with what a ditch digger can be offered to sustain
himself than with any intrinsic 'value' of his work. That's true of a lot of
shitty jobs, and it's bullshit that the people who have figured out how to
exploit these shitty jobs to generate 'value' also somehow deserve respect,
while the exploited are denigrated for their moral failures (such as
laziness).

~~~
rick888
"The garbage men who take the trash off my curb provide more value than a lot
of white collar management, in my opinion"

The garbage men in my city get paid $50,000+/year (it's in the midwest). I
think this is a pretty good wage.

"Do you really think an 8 hour day sitting at a desk deserves twice as much
pay as an 8 hour day digging a ditch? What the fuck is value?"

It's not for me (or you) to decide. If someone is willing to pay a ditch
digger $300,000/year, so be it. The market decides value and it's usually
based on supply/demand. Since anyone who is under 40, healthy, and has two
legs can dig a ditch, I don't see the wages being that high.

"That's true of a lot of shitty jobs, and it's bullshit that the people who
have figured out how to exploit these shitty jobs to generate 'value' also
somehow deserve respect, while the exploited are denigrated for their moral
failures (such as laziness)."

Why don't you start a company and pay ditch diggers the same as office
workers? I know you won't, because you would rather force other companies to
do it instead.

~~~
z0r
Your point about supply and demand determining value is well taken, and I
acknowledge that is the way capitalist economies operate. I was criticizing it
because I find the commodification of labor to be dehumanizing. If only there
were some theory of value that took labor into account...

------
yummyfajitas
I'm guessing one of the big reasons we still have poor people is simply human
preferences, as well as the fact that poverty is defined in relative rather
than absolute terms.

Some people prefer to consume goods and services. These people trade work for
money, and have many goods and services.

Other people prefer to consume leisure and avoid work. They have a standard of
living lower than the workers (from who they receive large subsidies), but
still much larger than the historical average. If we properly accounted for
leisure, we would realize how well off even the "poor" are.

<http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2007.pdf> (This report shows that most of the
poor consume leisure.)

~~~
jellicle
Yes, the reason that poor people are poor is that they're lazy.

And the reason rich people are rich is because they're hard-working and
deserving.

It has nothing to do with educational opportunities, wealthy parents, or
anything like that. That 50-year-old housekeeper who almost graduated from
high school, but couldn't because she had to work after her mother lost one of
her two jobs? She's poor because SHE'S LAZY, never mind that she spends 9
hours a day scrubbing toilets. And the CEO who got the job because his father
is a Senator and works about 10 hours a week? He's rich because HE DESERVES
IT.

> <http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2007.pdf> (This report shows that most of the
> poor consume leisure.)

It shows nothing of the sort. The word "leisure" isn't even in that report. In
fact the report says that the working poor are usually screwed by
circumstances beyond their control - layoffs, involuntary part-time work, pay
that is illegally below minimum wage.

~~~
yummyfajitas
If you bothered to read the first couple of paragraphs of the report, it would
tell you that most of the poor are _not working poor_ (by choice). If you
skipped ahead to the tables, you'd realize it also tells you that only 12% of
the poor work full time for at least 27 weeks/year.

You are committing a logical fallacy. You are acting as if I made a blanket
statement rather than a statistical one, and refuting only the (obviously
false) blanket statement.

If you want a report on leisure, rather than simply not working, here you go:
<http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm>

That doesn't specifically carve out the poor, but it shows that people with
low income consume 30 min/day more leisure than the highest income groups. The
"not employed" (a category which encompasses about 80% of the poor) get
considerably more than 30 min/day.

Sorry if the inconvenient facts get in the way of your moral posturing.

------
jtbigwoo
The trouble is that the poverty rate, like the unemployment rate, can never
actually fall to zero in a market economy. "Full employment" still results in
an unemployment rate of 2 - 6% (depending on how you're counting.) There are
always going to be layoffs, family illnesses, fights with the boss, etc. that
keep everyone from being employed all the time. In a healthy economy, though,
those people are quickly cycling through unemployment and back into the
workforce.

In a similar way, something like a 10% poverty rate would probably qualify as
"zero poverty." The goal, then, of anti-poverty initiatives should not be to
eliminate poverty or to simply provide for the basic needs of the poor (1).
The goal should be to ensure that each person below the poverty line is set up
to rise up out of poverty as quickly as possible. The trouble is that the
programs that help the poor the most (education, substance abuse treatment)
are labor-intensive and expensive.

(1) One possible exception - providing for the basic needs of children in
poverty.

~~~
jseliger
The other issue, which has gotten more and deserved press lately, is that of
zero marginal product workers:
[http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/01...](http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/01/cowen-
and-lemke-on-the-job-market.html) . Some people do not appear to offer any
margin on their labor, which is a big structural problem that I don't think
anyone knows how to solve. If you're interested in the subject, see the link.

------
tgrass
Ever see a poor person in a Hugh Grant movie? I propose ending poverty by
shuttling Hugh Grant all around the world.

------
shawndumas
A corollary question, Who Are the Poor [1]?

\----

[1]: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S-O6WDalug>

------
dpatru
There are two ways not to be poor: either you're productive yourself or you
are supported by someone who is productive.

If you are not productive, it's because you don't want to be or because you
can't. You may not want to be productive if it's easier or more pleasant not
to be (eg, if you're receiving large unemployment check from the government.)
You can't be productive if factors outside of your control prevent you (eg,
you suffer from a severe handicap, you're in prison, or no one will hire you.)

If you're not supported by someone, it's because you either don't want help or
you don't have anyone in your life whose willing and able to support you.

In the modern, these two cases (being productive and having someone willing
and able to support you) are often merged. For example, there are many people
who are essentially professional beggars. They are not productive in the way a
farmer is. A farmer works at farming and lives directly off of the wealth
produced by the farm which he trades. In contrast, a fundraiser for a charity
works at convincing people to give for something that is only indirectly
beneficial to themselves.

Sometimes the same person may play both of these roles. A politician may ask a
working person to vote for him because he will provide students with financial
aid. The politician in this case is acting as a kind of professional beggar on
behalf of students. The worker who votes for the politician does not expect to
receive a direct benefit. The worker's vote is an act of charity. The same
politician may ask a student for her vote because he will increase her
government-provided student aid. The student's vote is a kind of business
decision. (Although of questionable morality since her vote is not a vote for
charity so much as a vote for coercing others to give.)

The social welfare state has also given rise to what are essentially
unemployed beggars: People who in the past might have lived off of the charity
of others but now don't even ask for support. They simply declare their need
to the government which supports them.

~~~
michaelchisari
I think you have a major misconception about how welfare works in the U.S. The
idea of a "large government check" or that living off of welfare is preferable
to a living wage job, is not really realistic. Since welfare reform in the
90's, TANF, for instance, runs out in just over two years.

Further, countries which have the greatest welfare systems available, don't
suffer from the kind of malaise people often incorrectly correlate with the
availability of welfare.

~~~
dpatru
The choice that welfare allows is: welfare (much leisure with little money)
versus work (little leisure with X money), where X depends on your
productivity. For people with little productivity, welfare looks very
attractive.

~~~
michaelchisari
You make a series of egregious assumptions in your analysis of poverty. First,
is that "productivity" is fixed in any way. New skills can be learned,
attitudes can change, etc. I would especially argue against the idea that
leisure is a virtue amongst the poor, instead arguing that _depression_ and
social alienation are greater issues than a culture of leisure.

Second, you ignore the point that welfare, in the U.S., is not perpetual. TANF
expires after 60 months. Unemployment runs out. Disability requires a
disability, etc.

In fact, there's a strong case against what you're arguing, because countries
such as Norway, Sweden, Germany, which have extensive welfare systems, do not
follow the trajectory of encouraging low productivity as you would suggest
they do.

~~~
dpatru
> I would especially argue against the idea that leisure is a virtue amongst
> the poor. . .

Leisure may not be _good_ for the poor (because it leads to depression and
social alienation) but it is _valued_ by the poor. Just like an alcoholic may
value a drink even though it causes him harm. All things being equal, leisure
is generally preferred over work.

> welfare, in the U.S., is not perpetual . . .

The fact that the government-offered choice not to work may not be permanent
does not mean that it does not contribute to poverty. If I can spend spend
five years of my life not working, making kids, and getting myself in trouble,
not only am I likely to be poor during those five years, but I may well
continue to be poor for a long time thereafter as a result of the choices I
made during those five years.

See [http://nationalinterest.org/article/swedish-
models-869?page=...](http://nationalinterest.org/article/swedish-
models-869?page=show) for a long answer on why Sweden does not present a good
model for welfare.

