Why Poor People Stay Poor

[kevinbgoode1]

17. I have increasingly noticed that in the rest of society as well. . . . .

As much as the GOP screams about tax cuts putting "money back into your pocket" it is seriously nothing but a bad joke. The same people who scream about the big government and poor people picking their pockets don't seem to utter a single word when large corporations fleece them right and left - often before they even get that con-artist Republican "money back into your pocket" crap.

Every single time I get a little raise (and I do mean little), it is immediately (if not before) absorbed (and often moreso) by a double-digit hike in insurance premiums (either auto or medical, take your pick), a double-digit raise in utility rates (either water, electricity, or phone/internet - in any combination) and increased bogus fees (like the power company's "customer service charge&quot . The little income raise presents this illusion that you are getting ahead, but the reality is that you are still falling behind. . .I don't know anyone who doesn't constantly look for more to cut back on, whether their choice of food purchases, delayed medical/dental attention, hanging onto a car longer, etc. I think the reality is that the working "poor" should really be counted in the number of Americans who are one paycheck away from destitution, because I think that is a huge percentage of our population and the GOP will be more than happy to make it larger.

At some point, people are going to have to realize that being "poor" isn't the exclusive fault of the person, but always a combination of factors. The Republican illusion that everyone could be well-off (if they just work harder) is one of the biggest lies ever perpetrated on our society. Poor people work hard all of their lives and never see a reasonable gain, and it isn't always because they make poor choices or have no ambition. They often just don't have any access to opportunity for a number of reasons. . .one being they spend their lives playing "catch-up" as they deal with double-digit interest rates on credit or can finally afford the one set of decent "work clothes" required for an upwardly mobile job. Another reason is that everyone knows (and no one talks about) that opportunities are afforded first (and sometimes exclusively) to people who are already in the proper socio-economic class. Any human resources or employment professional will tell you that, first and foremost, people hire other people whom they KNOW (that godawful 80's networking stuff) and that usually means someone who already feels entitled to live a certain kind of way. While this doesn't completely shut out the poor from gaining opportunities, it severely limits their ability to know the right people, mingle in the right situations, or make significant gains without putting themselves into more debt (education costs, for example, or "free" internships). Getting into the door is much more difficult now than at any time I've noticed in my life, and our failure as a society to address this inequity is a more realistic problem than the bulls*it Republican line of simply working hard.

It is just as delusional to me to listen to conservatives go on and on about how hard they worked to get rich - not that a few haven't actually done that, but so many are well-off NOT because they've worked hard at producing anything, but because they live off of the labor of poorer people, who the rich "invest in" for a nice, entitled profit that can only exist if the poor remain that way and don't make any demands to increase their share.

I listen to the ones screaming about how every public employee, for example, is "overpaid" but the executive who lunches at the country club and makes business deals over a round of golf is "working hard and entitled to make a profit." It is the existence of these parallel worlds that keep the poor from achieving or realizing dreams - it becomes difficult for them to understand how that rich world functions. And those same people who whine about public employee salaries don't like to admit that they gave their own perks in the private sector away during the Reagan administration. Back then, the mantra was that businesses just couldn't afford to locate in American towns unless they got taxpayer funded infrastructure provided free, that business couldn't afford health insurance that, for most workers, was about a single $100 annual deductible and then almost all of the needed health care was paid, that the businesses couldn't afford pension plans, but will help create gambling accounts in the stock market. Private sector workers gave all of that crap away in return for longer hours, fewer benefits, etc. . . . .