Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The best way to become poor is to be a criminal. Or, have parents who are criminals. There is no money in crime, criminals eventually get caught. Lawyers take what they have and then they are unemployable. Hence, the large portion of the poor who commit crimes. Its not the other way around, folks. People get poor by being criminals, they don't commit crimes because they are poor. That is insulting, condescending and naive.
Next best way to be poor is the become addicted to drugs or alcohol. Its pretty hard to go to school, work or even a social service agency if you are high. So the use of drugs and alcohol makes people poor. Alcohol and drugs also displace conscionce and morality and cause people to do dishonest things. See above.
Finally, there is some (a very very small) portion of the poor who are not to blame or whose parents are not to blame. Our society reaches out to these deserving but unfortunate people. They are the elderly and the disabled. If you are elderly or disabled, the public and private resources available to you are too numerous to even start to list here. Could we do better by our elderly and disabled. Yes.
Wow, you are really out of touch. I know of two suicides on the Net that resulted from people who ended up homeless through no fault of their own (outsourcing or lost jobs), so it is relevant to the discussion. Google on unemployed forums and you'll see what I mean.
You've seen it with your own eyes? I used to have a job working with them. Yes, some do work the system, just like some don't file income taxes. But many really need the help and can improve if given the help. Oh, and I volunteer at a food and clothing bank. Guess who shows up? The poor. I can't tell you how many times I've heard "no, I don't need clothes. I want someone who needs them more than I do to have them."
Have you ever thought about how many wealthy people commit suicide?
Being poor is not a factor in suicide. Mental illness is.
No, the poor will not be valued in the future because they are not valued now.
If suddenly all the poor disappeared from the planet, who would be left doing the menial jobs that the poor do?
Think about all the jobs that the working poor are doing. Think what your life would be like without ALL of them working.
The poor run the country much like a housewife runs her household. We take them for granted, but they are always there and getting the job done on a daily basis.
Today when you go back to work and stop to get that coffee or have a quick lunch thank that poor person behind the counter.
They ARE valuable and we should care about all of our citizens - not just those who have "money".
The poor aren't doing all the menial labour. The janitorial staff at many schools get paid more than teachers because of the overtime they make. The janitorial staff at the colleges get a starting pay of $20 an hour.
Teenage kids and senior citizens are fine being paid minimum wages at the fast food places.
I don't think that the poor's problem is working menial jobs, their problem is dropping out of high school and having kids too early in life, then having too many kids all of their lives so that most of their earnings is going towards the expense of maintaining a large family.
Then it's the poor that don't value themselves. And they don't set their goals to be middle class, rather they long to be a rich celebrity, musician or athlete. They want glamour, not some boring 9-5 office job and the house with the picket fence. And instead of working hard towards any sensible goal, they are addicted to buying lottery and scratch tickets in hopes of hitting it big. And of the poor that have won the lottery, they are unable to do anything permanently good with that money, and they lose it all and stay poor.
The key, is to help the poor kids early in life. They have lousy public schools in poor areas. So their public school system, needs to be improved. That's the first step, to providing opportunities to the poor, to get out of poverty.
Because we have a federally centralized department of education, shouldn't all public schools be equal?
Have you been in an inner city public school?
They all have access to the same resources, but schools within the same school district in Philly all have different outcomes.
They take resources from "good schools" and transfer it to the "bad schools", yet, the results don't change.
The teachers are the same. The problem is the parents.
I think you're making an assumption here. I used to be a caseworker and while some parents had issues, some were also very concerned about wanting their children to get the necessary help.
That translates to "I don't want to do the work myself. Please take my kids and educate, feed and clothe them for me."
People only get concerned when they see the assistance from the government going away.
What about the problems with the children of the poor having only a single parent to raise them? The lack of a good father figure seems to cause these kids to have discipline problems and enter gangs, and relationship issues that later on create more baby mommas.
And what of the inner city schools where the teachers are getting physically assaulted by their students and the parents aren't doing anything to stop it?
Nobody cares.
In fact, they bury those assaults.
Many young, well intentioned teachers go in with the best of intentions.
I suppose that the most effective way to lift poor people out of poverty would be to take them at birth and give them to families who are not poor. The problem would be almost completely solved in one generation. What do you think of that solution?
I stand by my solutions that I outlined in my post. Removing babies from their families of origin, may cause a child more problems, than it would solve.
Good for the soul? How about something cheap like a matinee movie and chinese lunch to perk up the soul that costs far less than $300.
That's a good idea. A person's soul needs tending to, just like their financial needs. A Netflix membership, costs less than $40 a month. If the soul of a person isn't nurtured, they can become very demoralized and withered-up inside.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
