While standing in the grocery store, I overheard a conversation between two people. They were commenting on the laziness of people who are poor. The gist of the conversation was that if people would work harder they would not be poor and that people who are poor are not intelligent; otherwise, they would have a gotten a better education, a better job. After a little more bashing of people in poverty they walked out of the store and climbed into a $99,000 vehicle.
If I were a person who liked to kid myself, I would believe those ideas are isolated and out of the ordinary, and I had just witnessed something very rare.
Unfortunately, thats not the case. The idea that people who have wealth, or even just a good income, are more intelligent and hardworking than people who are poor is an idea that is shared by at least 27% of the population according to a CBS news report. In America, 43% of people believe that anyone can find a job if they really want to work. If your income is greater than $50,000, you are more likely to believe that there are fewer people living in poverty. If you earn less than $25,000 you are more likely to actually have an understanding of how many Americans are poor.
Most great wealth in America is inherited. Among the top 1% of wealth owners, 41.4% say they have inherited at least $4.8 million. That is the amount voluntarily admitted to and remembered.
Apparently, they have a hard time remembering all of the money theyve been given.
That aside, there are lots of people who have earned their wealth. They have received a good education and have made their way in this world to amass their fortunes. For most, there were opportunities that came to them some by sheer luck that helped them along the way. For others, they had an upbringing that allowed them to see the opportunities and take them.
The truth of the matter is that there are many things that contribute to someone living in poverty: a childhood full of abuse, being born into a poor family, health-related disasters, trauma, a lack of a mentor while growing up, untreated mental illnesses, the chaos that surrounds living in poverty, and unplanned pregnancies. None of those have to do with intelligence. None of them have anything to do with laziness.
Other reasons for poverty are the cost of college education, a lack of effective sex education, jobs with low wages, the disappearance of unions, an inadequate minimum wage, lack of public transportation, poor employers, the high cost of housing and utilities, and the high cost of medical treatment.
All of those are issues that can and should be addressed. If we want to change our world, then we have to change it. If we address the systemic reasons behind poverty, a lot of the reasons why poor people stay poor would end.
But while we work on these changes, it is important to remember where we came from, what advantages we received, and to always, always be kind in the way that we think, the words that we choose, and the actions we take.
Kindness Matters!
