Rob Base 2.0
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Post by Rob Base 2.0 on Mar 23, 2017 19:45:51 GMT -5
What do you think?
what percentage are just legitimately unfortunate and what percentage do you think are poor due to their own fault?
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Mar 23, 2017 19:48:34 GMT -5
Really?
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Rob Base 2.0
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Post by Rob Base 2.0 on Mar 23, 2017 19:53:38 GMT -5
Fo'shizzle
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Rob Base 2.0
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Post by Rob Base 2.0 on Mar 23, 2017 20:00:15 GMT -5
I put it at about 25 - 75 or 30 - 70 tops
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busymom
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Post by busymom on Mar 23, 2017 21:31:10 GMT -5
I don't think as many of the poor are "at fault" as the current Republicans in office would have you believe.
Are there people who make poor choices? Absolutely! But, I can remember DH & I going through some rough patches when we were young. It didn't last forever. We had some bad luck. We had some lousy employers. Eventually, all of the hard work began to pay off, & we learned some important lessons from the bad experiences.
One thing I wish we could do, if we truly want to reduce the numbers in poverty, is to give free "life skills" classes, so the next generation would do better than the previous one. Those in poverty can't break the cycle if no one teaches them how to do better.
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sesfw
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Post by sesfw on Mar 23, 2017 21:35:19 GMT -5
I think a lot of it is lack of education/training to get out of this 'poor' classification. Unless kids have help and encouragement at home, they don't have the necessary skills to take personal responsibility.
Some of it is bad luck.
However when I was wondering where we would live, support us, I had the ambition to get some training so I could get a job and a place for us to live.
By no means rich ..... or even middle-middle class ........ but I did improve our circumstances.
Personal responsibility
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cronewitch
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Post by cronewitch on Mar 23, 2017 21:54:34 GMT -5
The disabled are the only poor who don't have some blame for it, except the very young. I was very poor at 18-24 or so but got past it with just doing a little to improve. I was still poor but not very poor at 35 poor again after divorce. It didn't take that long to be not poor again, living below my means and getting a roommate. What it took was seeing I didn't have to stay poor I did more to get over it than many people would be willing to do. I bought a house and didn't heat it or get new appliances or furniture, didn't own a tv or stereo or any electronics beyond a clock radio. While living that cheap I paid double house payments 11.25% interest got the house paid off in about 6 years. Poor attitude people wouldn't have paid extra to get it paid off or worked full time while in college full time they would have stayed in an apartment and taken vacations, ran up credit cards and whined about landlords. It is hard to go from having to save up for the rent to having enough so many never do it. People who make the least attempt to get over poverty seem to get past it by the time they are 40, career gets better, kids leave home, house has appreciated. People who don't make any attempt will claim bad luck but we all lost jobs, divorced, and had cars break down and other standard bad luck. Having a very handicapped child or spouse or self is about the only excuse I accept for poverty past young adult. My guess is about 25% of poor adults is bad luck the rest is a choice.
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quince
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Post by quince on Mar 24, 2017 0:43:52 GMT -5
Why can't it be both?
Can't you be unfortunate and ALSO make mistakes?
Hell, you could be disabled and have made mistakes that lead to worse outcomes. Having a legitimate misfortune doesn't negate personal responsibility, and fucking up royally doesn't negate having bad things happen to you.
I'd guess no more than 10-15% of "poor" people stay poor despite a complete lack of unfortunate happenstance. Since shitty things happen to everyone, that is a massive, massively generous guess.
Shitty things are often shittier when you're poor, though. They can be mildly irritating blips on the radar when you have resources, and can derail you for YEARS when you are starting out/spread thin/just getting by.
The best way not to be poor is not to start poor, from what I can tell.
I guess look at the pool of people who started rich, are now poor, and have no disabilities or other health issues, and you've got some likely bets as to poor only because of their own choices.
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Phoenix84
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Post by Phoenix84 on Mar 24, 2017 7:38:25 GMT -5
What do you think?
what percentage are just legitimately unfortunate and what percentage do you think are poor due to their own fault? It's impossible to know really. You can't look at macro level data and make such a determination, and you can't look at individual circumstances and extrapolate that case to call cases.
Furthermore, it's not a black and white question. Often people can be poor due to circumstances beyond their control, but exacerbate the situation by making poor decisions. Conversely, someone can become poor by making poor decisions, but a circumstance beyond their control can make the situation worse.
The very premise of "fault" is highly subjective, and hard to quantify.
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Value Buy
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Post by Value Buy on Mar 24, 2017 8:24:21 GMT -5
what if, what if, the world is full of what if's. In generic terms, I go with 30/50 There are always the Yes, but, exceptions blurring the reasons
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2017 8:26:36 GMT -5
I agree- too complicated. It starts with the values of the family into which you're born. If Momma had you when she was 17 and Daddy disappeared and you subsist on income-related government handouts, that's what you know as "normal". I think a lot of the poverty in this country comes from one-parent families and that's partly because women get pregnant when they don't have the resources to support a child and partly because the men don't take any responsibility. You can change that, of course- my niece had a baby at age 19 by a guy my sister (the grandmother) described as "a sweet little guy with the brains of a paramecium". She had the kid, grew up, got a degree as an X-ray tech and is now trained for radiation therapy and is married to an architect. It took a lot of support from my sister and her husband to get her there.
Another example from my family- Dad wanted to go to college. My paternal grandfather, who'd worked in factories all his life, had expected Dad to do that too and wasn't really crazy about Dad getting an education. It was my grandmother who went to work in a restaurant to help finance his education. In another family, pressure from the relatives might have discouraged him from even trying. Dad told me that the first night he ever spent away from home was when he went away to college (5 hour road trip from home). The basic values were there but he still had a lot to overcome to do something as radical as go away to college.
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Rob Base 2.0
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Post by Rob Base 2.0 on Mar 24, 2017 8:50:30 GMT -5
What do you think?
what percentage are just legitimately unfortunate and what percentage do you think are poor due to their own fault? It's impossible to know really. You can't look at macro level data and make such a determination, and you can't look at individual circumstances and extrapolate that case to call cases.
Furthermore, it's not a black and white question. Often people can be poor due to circumstances beyond their control, but exacerbate the situation by making poor decisions. Conversely, someone can become poor by making poor decisions, but a circumstance beyond their control can make the situation worse.
The very premise of "fault" is highly subjective, and hard to quantify.
I agree with everything you said. That's why I said "what do you THINK?" And not "What do you KNOW?" Or "What is factually PROVABLE?"
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swamp
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Post by swamp on Mar 24, 2017 9:26:04 GMT -5
I think it's probably about 50/50.
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MJ2.0
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Post by MJ2.0 on Mar 24, 2017 9:44:34 GMT -5
why do you care so much about why poor people are poor? Are you going to try and fix the problems they have?
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Phoenix84
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Post by Phoenix84 on Mar 24, 2017 9:50:30 GMT -5
It's impossible to know really. You can't look at macro level data and make such a determination, and you can't look at individual circumstances and extrapolate that case to call cases.
Furthermore, it's not a black and white question. Often people can be poor due to circumstances beyond their control, but exacerbate the situation by making poor decisions. Conversely, someone can become poor by making poor decisions, but a circumstance beyond their control can make the situation worse.
The very premise of "fault" is highly subjective, and hard to quantify.
I agree with everything you said. That's why I said "what do you THINK?" And not "What do you KNOW?" Or "What is factually PROVABLE?" About 22% of the U.S population is under 18 years of age, so it's probably somewhat a safe assumption that around 22% of poor people are minors not at fault for their situation.
About 4.6% of the 18-65 population is on some kind of disability benefit program.
The percentage of U.S population over 65 is about 15%. Again, we will extrapolate this to about 15% of poor people being elderly.
So, some quick back of the napkin math shows.
22% + 15% + 4.6% = 41.6%.
So, I think that 41.6% of poor people are not at fault, and 58.4% are at fault.
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Rob Base 2.0
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Post by Rob Base 2.0 on Mar 24, 2017 10:35:20 GMT -5
why do you care so much about why poor people are poor? Are you going to try and fix the problems they have? I'm just a curious cat.
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swamp
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Post by swamp on Mar 24, 2017 11:45:17 GMT -5
DH says "Think of the most average person you know and then realize that half of people are dumber than that." The math is wrong but it's still something to ponder. There's evidence that being in poverty leads to bad choices (it's the equivalent of losing 13 IQ points), that being born into poverty has long term consequences for mental health and prospects, that living in concentrated poverty also worsens your choices of escaping, and that income mobility is declining. So it's nature and nurture together. I think the question more for me is how much of an ethical obligation do we have to help.
If you grow up around people who continue to make choices that keep them in poverty, it takes some serious education, mentoring, and luck to get out of that social pit.
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MJ2.0
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Post by MJ2.0 on Mar 24, 2017 12:16:42 GMT -5
DH says "Think of the most average person you know and then realize that half of people are dumber than that." The math is wrong but it's still something to ponder. There's evidence that being in poverty leads to bad choices (it's the equivalent of losing 13 IQ points), that being born into poverty has long term consequences for mental health and prospects, that living in concentrated poverty also worsens your choices of escaping, and that income mobility is declining. So it's nature and nurture together. I think the question more for me is how much of an ethical obligation do we have to help.
If you grow up around people who continue to make choices that keep them in poverty, it takes some serious education, mentoring, and luck to get out of that social pit.
that's why it annoys me a lot when people say things like "if I can do it, anyone can do it". No two people are the same, even if those people came from similar beginnings. Overcoming great odds takes a certain strong and tenacious type of personality. It may involve taking huge social and personal (as well as financial) risks. It takes a certain mindset that a lot of people don't have. Also it requires a long-term thinking mindset that people living a hand-to-mouth existence might not be able to wrap their brains around. Some people can certainly rise above, but there are countless people who try and fail because of various reasons. The people who rose above the others are not "better" - they just looked at their circumstances differently and made different choices and sacrifices.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Mar 24, 2017 12:17:12 GMT -5
There are no poor. Everyone gets hundreds of thousands of dollars of government aid that goes on for a lifetime. I read that somewhere.
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MJ2.0
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Post by MJ2.0 on Mar 24, 2017 12:19:10 GMT -5
There are no poor. Everyone gets hundreds of thousands of dollars of government aid that goes on for a lifetime. I read that somewhere. The Onion?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2017 12:20:28 GMT -5
why do you care so much about why poor people are poor? Are you going to try and fix the problems they have? It's a start. I've been seeing a FaceBook meme posted by well-intentioned friends stating, "I don't care if school lunches improve kids' grades. I just want to feed hungry kids." What *I* want to do is find out why so many kids go to school hungry. Is there food in the house but the parents are too lazy to fix anything? Are they selling the groceries they buy with their EBT card for drugs? Are they too drugged out to even buy groceries? Are they working 2 jobs and can't get to the food bank? Did the fathers flee the scene and ignore their obligations? We've gone from free lunches for a few kids (and I use the term "free" loosely since they're paid for by taxpayers) to free for everybody, either to avoid stigma or because a huge % qualify anyway, to free breakfasts, and BackSnacks on the weekend. Yes, I'd LOVE to figure out the root causes and resolve those instead of applying more and more band-aids.
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MJ2.0
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Post by MJ2.0 on Mar 24, 2017 12:23:16 GMT -5
why do you care so much about why poor people are poor? Are you going to try and fix the problems they have? It's a start. I've been seeing a FaceBook meme posted by well-intentioned friends stating, "I don't care if school lunches improve kids' grades. I just want to feed hungry kids." What *I* want to do is find out why so many kids go to school hungry. Is there food in the house but the parents are too lazy to fix anything? Are they selling the groceries they buy with their EBT card for drugs? Are they too drugged out to even buy groceries? Are they working 2 jobs and can't get to the food bank? Did the fathers flee the scene and ignore their obligations? We've gone from free lunches for a few kids (and I use the term "free" loosely since they're paid for by taxpayers) to free for everybody, either to avoid stigma or because a huge % qualify anyway, to free breakfasts, and BackSnacks on the weekend. Yes, I'd LOVE to figure out the root causes and resolve those instead of applying more and more band-aids. if you'd like to get to the root cause and fix it from there, that's great. It's really something we should all look to do as it affects everyone. I just don't believe that's why the OP started this thread. It's the 2nd one in several days from him basically bashing poor people.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Mar 24, 2017 12:26:04 GMT -5
You'd have to remove these children from their parent to save them and that will never happen.
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Miss Tequila
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Post by Miss Tequila on Mar 24, 2017 12:26:45 GMT -5
DH says "Think of the most average person you know and then realize that half of people are dumber than that." The math is wrong but it's still something to ponder. There's evidence that being in poverty leads to bad choices (it's the equivalent of losing 13 IQ points), that being born into poverty has long term consequences for mental health and prospects, that living in concentrated poverty also worsens your choices of escaping, and that income mobility is declining. So it's nature and nurture together. I think the question more for me is how much of an ethical obligation do we have to help.
If you grow up around people who continue to make choices that keep them in poverty, it takes some serious education, mentoring, and luck to get out of that social pit.
As someone who grew up in government housing eating free cheese, I disagree. I didn't have serious mentoring or serious education. What I had was a drive to have a better life than the one I was raised in.
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on Mar 24, 2017 12:29:32 GMT -5
What do you think?
what percentage are just legitimately unfortunate and what percentage do you think are poor due to their own fault? In America? 100%
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gs11rmb
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Post by gs11rmb on Mar 24, 2017 12:34:26 GMT -5
I don't know the percentage of poor people who could be classified as 'at fault'.
What I do know (or at least believe) is that children raised in poverty and surrounded by people making bad choices start at a deficit. Their saving grace should be a decent education but so many poverty-stricken children attend terrible schools. Poor family, poor environment, and a poor education are unlikely to lead to good choices and success.
Fertility - the ability to access birth control and the knowledge of how to use it are crucially important to ending the cycle of poverty.
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gs11rmb
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Post by gs11rmb on Mar 24, 2017 12:41:10 GMT -5
If you grow up around people who continue to make choices that keep them in poverty, it takes some serious education, mentoring, and luck to get out of that social pit.
As someone who grew up in government housing eating free cheese, I disagree. I didn't have serious mentoring or serious education. What I had was a drive to have a better life than the one I was raised in. I would guess that your formal education wasn't terrible. There are students attending schools that are atrocious. My daughters' school is part of the district's School Choice program (we are zoned there) and I was chatting with a couple who drive across town to send their children to our school. Why? Their zoned school is apparently the 5th worst performing school in the state. I'm friends with other parents who would describe their zoned schools as "Shitsville Elementary". I can't help but feel the children who have to attend those schools are doomed.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Mar 24, 2017 12:44:00 GMT -5
Why is this elementary school "shitsville?" What causes this?
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gs11rmb
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Post by gs11rmb on Mar 24, 2017 12:47:27 GMT -5
Why is this elementary school "shitsville?" What causes this? Ummmm... I actually came up with that term but they agreed . Close to 100% poverty, appalling test scores, no parental involvement, not the best teachers, discipline issues. The list just goes on and on.
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on Mar 24, 2017 12:55:06 GMT -5
But seriously- there are those exceptions, but they are statistically insignificant. I would say that the number hovers somewhere between 85% and 95% of those "less fortunate" that are really just less industrious.
I have a questionnaire which we use when putting employees (not many) or independent contractors on our roster- I collect these, so I'll just share a few from ONE (1) category- "What is the number one weakness you have that you feel is holding you back at work, or professionally?"
TOP ANSWER- and by a big margin (44%-- the rest are scattered around between I don't have a college degree, I don't have enough experience, etc) NUMBER ONE: I can't get to work on time. So much so we added a drop down because I was intrigued: What is the biggest reason you can't get to work on time? (It's fill in the blank)
These are real answers:
1. My car doesn't always start 2. I don't have a car (interesting because having access to a reliable vehicle which you are willing to drive to appointments is a requirement) and my wife, mother, roommate, cousin, neighbor lady doesn't get me there on time) 3. I have insomnia and can't get out of bed in the morning 4. I don't always hear my alarm clock (I had this problem once- I got another one. It's louder, and I put it where I had to physically GET UP OUT OF BED to turn it off)I 5. The bus, train, or whatever is always late (Um, if it's late- that's not your bus. Your bus is the one BEFORE this. And anyway- again, you need access to a vehicle) 6. My mom was always late (Oh, I see- tardiness is hereditary-- through mom under the late bus, lol) 7. I get sick a lot and can't make it to work (oh, now we get the real story- you're not just late, you miss a lot of work- thanks for letting us know. Next!) 8. My dog, cat, parakeet, hamster, ferret, goldfish, hedgehog sometimes makes me late 9. My kids don't get ready on time in the morning. 10. It's impossible to get to work at the same time every day because I don't know what traffic is going to be like 11. Traffic 12. The cleaners lost or were late with my clothes 13. My washer / dryer / iron isn't working 14. I get stuck in the drive-thru
I could go on- we literally have 100's. These are just the more common ones. I don't have access to the whole list where I am right now, but I'll post some of the more absurd ones. Mind you this is just ONE of the many "weaknesses" people have- tardiness- and these are just SOME of the myriad excuses people offer for it. It's the most common one, that's why we added the box- the others aren't worth knowing about, but this one intrigued me.
I have two and only two character tests- the #1 is how I observe that you treat people- and especially those that are not in a position where most people would perceive that they can do anything for them (and if possible, my test of this is to see how they tip- I bristle at breaking out the abacus to see what 15% is (it's 20% now anyway) but I'll reluctantly accept it. Low or no tip, we're pretty much done professionally. We can be friends, but I can't do business with you. And we're never going out to eat together; the second is related-- because it is disrespectful if you're not- and that is punctuality. Being late says "This isn't important to me", or "I don't respect your time" which is to say: I don't respect you.
The bottom line- it's no small number of people that are willing to admit to a prospective provider of paid work that they cannot get there on time (or at all). It is the number one weakness people are willing to admit to- at least in our small corner of the world. I recognize it's not scientific, but anecdotally-- you have to admit you know someone for whom terrible, unfortunate things continually happen-- e.g. fired; always having trouble paying the bills, etc-- and honestly: are they ever where they said they would be when they said they would be there? Of course not. We all know them. These are just some of the volunteers.
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