Old Poverty in the New Economy

Last updated on: October 23, 2015 at 6:20 pm by Jennifer Fitz

Old Poverty in the New Economy 2015-10-23T18:20:47-05:00 Jennifer Fitz

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Kat Fernandez recently shared her perennial post on poverty-nagging. What caught my attention was the blouse incident:

He didn’t have to say yes, he’d help me, but he did.

He also didn’t have to comment that I needed to learn to save money or note that I was wearing a new blouse, but he did.

Never mind the “new” blouse was actually a hand me down or the idea of a savings was laughable making barely over minimum wage. He was in a position to help me, which entitled him to lecture me for being poor.

And so what if I was wearing a new blouse? Would he have appreciated it more if I showed up to work looking homeless?

What people overlook is that our society is now so wealthy, in the aggregate, that we’re swimming in clothes. That a person could be both poor and well-dressed is a stroke of good luck — not everyone has the hand-me-downs flowing in just the right mix — but it’s not a sign of lavish living.

Televisions are another hot topic. Look at those poor people with their shiny big TV’s. Try to give your old television away. Everyone already has one as good as yours, and is only interested in a space- and electricity-hogging machine if it counts as an upgrade. Hitting the hand-me-down TV lottery isn’t all that difficult.

If you were to try to sell any of these gifts to fund your rent or health insurance habit, you might be able to net a few dollars, but not enough to make a dent in your actual bills. The hand-me-downs are far more valuable for the benefits they supply directly (work clothes, free news and entertainment) than they are for their cash value.

These realities reflect structural changes in our economy. For millennia, clothing was hard to come by. It was valuable even second-hand. Fifty years ago, electronics were luxuries, not mass-merchandise. The world has changed, and the outer shell of poverty has changed with it. What is impossibly out of reach for many Americans today is not food or clothing, but a frugal home in a safe neighborhood with a decent school. These things simply cannot be had. They are not on offer.

Meanwhile: Smart phones. Poor people have smart phones for good reason. If you own one, you don’t have to have a landline or internet or a computer. You can use it to apply for jobs and check your kids’ grades, and if you can’t afford a data plan you can walk down to the public library and use their free wifi. A decent recent-vintage but not cutting-edge smart phone can be had off the shelf for a fraction of the cost of the freshly-minted iDevice that outrage-porn rhetoric imagines are issued with WIC cards.

***

This doesn’t make poor people saints, and it doesn’t make poor people masters of frugal living. Some are, some aren’t. If we look closely, we can find faults in all our friends and most of our enemies, so the poor are just as easy a target for criticism as anyone else. If not their bad budgeting than their lousy taste in classical music. We can be confident the poor must surely be doing something wrong, because everybody’s doing something wrong.

Furthermore, by the very nature of the problem, we know that some of the people who struggle to make ends meet have that problem because they really, really stink at making money decisions. It’s true of the U.S. Congress, it’s true of corporate executives, and it’s true of poor people. Financial disaster is sometimes not your fault, but sometimes it is.

***

There is, therefore, a place for both old-fashioned financial advice and old-fashioned almsgiving. Knowing which are needed and in what proportions is a delicate art. But we can say with certainty that if your poverty-shaming demonstrates that you have no working knowledge of the economic changes that have taken place in your own lifetime in your own neighborhood, you should hush up and just listen for a bit.

Aleksander Kotsis (1836–1877), The Last Belongings, 1870 [Public Domain], via Wikimedia.

Economics

It's All Catholic

Rant-o-Rama

Previous Post

October 17, 2015

Teaching Teenagers Logic is Practically Cheating

Next Post

October 24, 2015 Poverty in the Time After Cell Phones

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Books Catechesis Catholic Q&A Chastity Church Craziness Come See Me Talk Disability & Chronic Illness Economics Evangelization Facepalm Forgiveness Good Things History Homeschooling Human Rights It's All Catholic Listen to Me Survey Series Liturgical Living Marriage Modesty Not Satire. But almost. Rant-o-Rama Sacred Art & Music Satire South Carolina Spark Clutter Stick that Corner Suffering Thinking Topics Writing Stuff

Select a Month September 2026 July 2026 June 2026 January 2026 December 2025 September 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 November 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 May 2019 April 2019 February 2019 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

True or False: Ruth was from Moab and chose to stay with her mother-in-law Naomi.

Select your answer to see how you score.

FALSE TRUE