What makes the poor deserving?

Question

This question is in relation to an answer I read which stated that Republicans want to rid programs for the deserving poor. [This is not verbatim, but will serve our purposes here].

I am not against providing a helping hand to anyone when they need it. However, the poor have the same opportunities in life as anyone else. I came from a poor family and have done quite well for myself. I didn't do it by waiting for someone to provide a handout, but rather by gaining an education and then engaging in hard work. So my question is what makes the poor so deserving?

Answer 1

People seem to implement the "poor" status with elderly and disabled people, so when asked to help the poor or taxes are given to assist the poor, an image of an elderly or disabled person comes to mind.. Or a picture of child from a poor third world country... What people don't think of or refuse to consider are those able bodied third and fourth generation welfare recipients that do not deserve a "helping" hand from the government.. or those whose bad money management has put them in the situation they now find themselves.. All this "not everybody has the same opportunities" is crap.. In the United States, every person is guaranteed twelve free years of school.. What individuals choose to do with this opportunity lies with their own decision making.. Period.. So what makes the "poor" deserving ??? The human need to feel better about ourselves by helping others. That's why so many are so quick to defend some whose status is due to their unwillingness to succeed...and success can be measured by nothing more than being employed and managing ones own life..

Answer 2

The original definition of the deserving poor were 'widows and orphans', back in the day when a working woman made a tenth of what her male counterparts made. Now we make half if we're lucky. The definition first expanded in recent years to include divorced women and their children, then single mothers and their children. Some people abuse the system, some people grow up in the system, and others struggle their entire lives to leave it.

The cost of daycare alone often eats up 50% of a woman's weekly wage if she doesn't have friends or family to help her out. At that point, she is working to pay the day care provider, and still requires assistance for food, clothing and shelter for herself and her children. She is tired and cranky after a day of hard work and her social worker is hassling her because her boyfriend stays the night occasionally, but isn't supporting her. Sometimes she makes a little extra money cleaning houses and doesn't report it.

Are there welfare cheats? Yes! Anytime there are tax dollars around there are people who are going to steal those dollars. Some will be people too lazy to work, some will be upstanding businessmen who work food stamp scams. My uncle worked construction in the summer and collected welfare in the winter. Even then we knew that was 'cheating.' My father applied for and received food stamps once when unemployed after 25 years in the US Navy! The experience humiliated him so much that he refused to reapply and we got by on my mother's genius for scrimping and making do.

In the United States the assumption is that we all have the same opportunites. That is the fecal matter of a male bovine. My parents valued education and did without to make sure their children all had the opportunity to go to college. It helped that that we children we're all normal to bright-normal people with no dyxlexia or ADD/ADHD, and no physical or intellectual handicaps. We weren't exposed to lead paint as infants, nor were we victims of any special discrimination.

Answer 3

"same opportunities" is a dangerous phrase. For instance, I had a lot of opportunity- good education, family money and connections, etc. However, an illness in my 20's left me permanently disabled. I work very hard at my job, but b/c of my disability, I have not been able to get a good paying job. No one wants to take a chance on a deaf person it seems. A lot of people who didn't have the advantages in life that I had are now making a lot more money than I do just because they can hear and are more likely to be considered for top positions. Therefore I do need my social security disability check which supplements my income from my job.

I guess technically that would make me a deserving poor-the fact that outside circumstances tilted the playing field and hinder me from making a lot of money. UNDESERVING, would be someone who lies about their health to get a social security check and not have to work.

Answer 4

I have a friend who is nearly 60 years old. He was born to a Texas migrant farm worker family. He traveled around the USA with his Mom and Dad, living in the back of an old truck picking fruits and vegetables where there was work. When he was 14 years old the family was picking onions in Walla Walla Washington. He had never once attended school anywhere. Someone from town came and spoke to his parents about their son attending school. After the meeting his parents thought that the Border Patrol would be around soon. His parents abandoned him in a Walla Walla onion field at 14 years of age. Now he is 60, still can not read, spell, do basic math, etc. etc., He works "hard - hard" every day, has never been on welfare that I know of. But, do you think he has had the same opportunity as you??????????

Answer 5

I think it depends on criteria.... What made the "poor" poor?? Was it due to losing a job and suddenly becoming unemployed?? If that is the case then they deserve to have help from the government. Are they disabled and simply cannot work?? If so, then it is our responsibility to do the right thing... If the "poor" in question is simply due to laziness and a lack of motivation and they would rather live off of handouts then they need to be cut off from government help. I think that the welfare system was put into place to help people in need and it is simply abused by what people refer to as "rats". I truly believe there should be stricter guidelines to obtain welfare or any type of governmental assistance. When people go into an office to apply for help, the people processing the paperwork should notice when it is a definite need for help or an abuse of the system.

Answer 6

I think you're one of the reasons for OWS. Growing up poor is no picnic. You don't always have the choices that are available to those who are better off. Sure some bad choices sometimes get made but I've known some poor people who work their butts off. They include people with disabilities both mental and physical who are not capable of working in a high paying job.

Answer 7

Not everyone had the opportunity to "gain an education" as you did. It's easy to say that everyone has the opportunity in school, but if you are part of a poor family whose pressing need is for you to drop out of school and make whatever you can to keep a roof over your head and feed the baby, then you do it.

Many people work 50-60 hours a week and still can't pay their bills. Many people are swimming in debt because they didn't have health insurance or their health insurance decided they didn't want to pay.

The Bush administration passed legislation (as a gift to the credit card companies that supported his re-election) making it extremely difficult to declare bankruptcy, although 90% of bankruptcy requests are do to the inability to pay medical bills, which goes back to health care. And that can make even a middle class wage earner poor pretty quickly.

What makes the health care and credit card industries (that are making record profits) "deserving"? Well, they can buy politicians, the poor can't.

Answer 8

Are you that greedy? These people aren't going to live the high life on welfare. They will be barely getting by with this aid. Do you support corporate subsidies? That's charity money going to multi m/billionaires. Where's your outrage for that atrocity?

The way I look at it is that if 50% of the people abuse welfare but the other 50% are getting money they need then I can look at it as a collateral damage for getting money to the needy. We accept it for when we carpet bomb Iraq and kill 2 terrorists along with 150 innocent civilians. If we can justify those deaths then we can justify a few dollars(literally) following into the hands of people that don't necessarly it.

Answer 9

I believe the term the "deserving poor" refers to a person such as yourself. Someone who can grasp opportunity and aspire to a higher income level. A deserving poor person would be a person who wants opportunity, not a free ride.
There will always be those people who will remain poor regardless of the opportunities given to them. For those people, a welfare check is cheaper than building prisons to house them, as they would turn to crime to get what they need rather than a job.

Answer 10

I find it fascinating that, on this site I see so many questions about how people can keep their tax dollars from going to the undeserving poor. No doubt there are some who might be ripping the tax payers off to the tune of $1,000.00 to $2,000.00 per month. My concern is with the crooked C.E.O.s who, not content with their massive tax breaks from G.W., exploit slave labor in other countries and rip off their share holders and other employees for millions or billions.