4 ms·

The cash assistance programs being cited were carried out in poor countries, from what I can tell. Maybe that works in a country where you never have enough. I'

by jostmey 11y ago

The cash assistance programs being cited were carried out in poor countries, from what I can tell. Maybe that works in a country where you never have enough. I'm not sure the results apply here to the United States. I could not disagree more with the title, based on my own observations. I mean, aren't most of the people in this country poor because of mental illness or addiction?

rayiner 11y ago
What? No. 15% of the population is at or below the poverty line. Very few of them have ment illness or addiction. Most are simply born into circumstances with little opportunity (urban or rural), and don't have the exceptional qualities needed to break out of those trajectories.
- michaelbuddy 11y ago
  People who aren't exceptional work and save money all the time. Working jobs doesn't require exceptional people. Also do you know the 'poverty' line isn't exactly the line where you're happy or sad. Many people are there and afford all necessities.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    Working jobs doesn't require exceptional people. Lifting yourself out of poverty by working jobs often does.
chongli 11y ago
I mean, aren't most of the people in this country poor because of mental illness or addiction? No! They're poor because their parents were poor or because they grew up in a poor neighbourhood and lacked access to a proper education. This article highlights one egregious myth but far more pernicious is the one you just highlighted: that poverty is a personal or moral failing rather than a lack of opportunity. It's really simple: people are poor because they don't have enough money. Don't let yourself fall into the Just-World Fallacy.
- merpnderp 11y ago
  "lacked access to a proper education". How does that explain Washington DC with the highest levels of funding per child in the country? Every kid has access to a well funded school with well paid teachers. I think it's easier to defend the claim that the kids lacked guidance and support to take advantage of the education provided for them. In the US a single mom who homeschools, with only a high school education, will have her child place in the top 70% of public school kids. Parental involvement is so important, it's the only factor that matters.
  - JupiterMoon 11y ago
    Difficult to be involved if you both work 40+ hours a week doing physically demanding jobs.
    - merpnderp 11y ago
      And yet tens of millions of people do it every year in the US. It's all about priorities.
  - msbarnett 11y ago
    > lacked access to a proper education". How does that explain Washington DC with the highest levels of funding per child in the country? Every kid has access to a well funded school with well paid teachers. Education funding in the US is wildly uneven. Spend some time visiting inner-city schools. They are not even remotely "well-funded". Property-tax driven school funding formulas ensure that richer areas have much, much better funded schools than poor areas.
    - rayiner 11y ago
      Inner city public schools are some of the most well-funded in the county. Washington DC is almost entirely "inner city" public schools (I.e. Almost all the student population is low income) and has the highest per student spending. The wealthy suburb of DC where I grew up spends $13,500 per student per year. That's a lot less than DC or Baltimore or Chicago, all of which have 70-85% low-income students, and only moderately more than Philadelphia, which is also almost all "inner city" schools.
IkmoIkmo 11y ago
Tons of studies have been done for the last few decades and they show a pretty solid consensus (not completely unanimous but it's pretty strong) that wealth and success in this country are very largely hereditary, that socioeconomic mobility is pretty flat (and very flat relative to other developed economies except maybe the UK) and that the American dream (rags to riches for anyone who works hard, i.e. social mobility based on merit and effort) is a myth. So no, if you're poor in the US it's not just because you've got a mental illness, that's a very wrong view of the world. Poverty is a big issue in the US and it is distinct from many (not all) developed economies for having a lot of working poverty, i.e. people who are not ill, do not suffer substance abuse, who aren't homeless and who have a job (often multiple) and yet are poor. That is very much an American phenomenon, no other developed country has so many normal people who have jobs and yet are poor and who struggle to leave their children a better life than they enjoyed.

by jostmey 11y ago

rayiner 11y ago

What? No. 15% of the population is at or below the poverty line. Very few of them have ment illness or addiction. Most are simply born into circumstances with little opportunity (urban or rural), and don't have the exceptional qualities needed to break out of those trajectories.

michaelbuddy 11y ago
People who aren't exceptional work and save money all the time. Working jobs doesn't require exceptional people. Also do you know the 'poverty' line isn't exactly the line where you're happy or sad. Many people are there and afford all necessities.
- mikeash 11y ago
  Working jobs doesn't require exceptional people. Lifting yourself out of poverty by working jobs often does.

chongli 11y ago

I mean, aren't most of the people in this country poor because of mental illness or addiction? No! They're poor because their parents were poor or because they grew up in a poor neighbourhood and lacked access to a proper education. This article highlights one egregious myth but far more pernicious is the one you just highlighted: that poverty is a personal or moral failing rather than a lack of opportunity. It's really simple: people are poor because they don't have enough money. Don't let yourself fall into the Just-World Fallacy.

merpnderp 11y ago
"lacked access to a proper education". How does that explain Washington DC with the highest levels of funding per child in the country? Every kid has access to a well funded school with well paid teachers. I think it's easier to defend the claim that the kids lacked guidance and support to take advantage of the education provided for them. In the US a single mom who homeschools, with only a high school education, will have her child place in the top 70% of public school kids. Parental involvement is so important, it's the only factor that matters.
- JupiterMoon 11y ago
  Difficult to be involved if you both work 40+ hours a week doing physically demanding jobs.
  - merpnderp 11y ago
    And yet tens of millions of people do it every year in the US. It's all about priorities.
- msbarnett 11y ago
  > lacked access to a proper education". How does that explain Washington DC with the highest levels of funding per child in the country? Every kid has access to a well funded school with well paid teachers. Education funding in the US is wildly uneven. Spend some time visiting inner-city schools. They are not even remotely "well-funded". Property-tax driven school funding formulas ensure that richer areas have much, much better funded schools than poor areas.
  - rayiner 11y ago
    Inner city public schools are some of the most well-funded in the county. Washington DC is almost entirely "inner city" public schools (I.e. Almost all the student population is low income) and has the highest per student spending. The wealthy suburb of DC where I grew up spends $13,500 per student per year. That's a lot less than DC or Baltimore or Chicago, all of which have 70-85% low-income students, and only moderately more than Philadelphia, which is also almost all "inner city" schools.

IkmoIkmo 11y ago

Tons of studies have been done for the last few decades and they show a pretty solid consensus (not completely unanimous but it's pretty strong) that wealth and success in this country are very largely hereditary, that socioeconomic mobility is pretty flat (and very flat relative to other developed economies except maybe the UK) and that the American dream (rags to riches for anyone who works hard, i.e. social mobility based on merit and effort) is a myth. So no, if you're poor in the US it's not just because you've got a mental illness, that's a very wrong view of the world. Poverty is a big issue in the US and it is distinct from many (not all) developed economies for having a lot of working poverty, i.e. people who are not ill, do not suffer substance abuse, who aren't homeless and who have a job (often multiple) and yet are poor. That is very much an American phenomenon, no other developed country has so many normal people who have jobs and yet are poor and who struggle to leave their children a better life than they enjoyed.