What’s the best way to help poor people escape poverty?

[Lepanto]

What’s the best way to help poor people escape poverty?

Progressives and conservatives have very different answers to this question...

Many progressives offer a straightforward solution: more funding for poverty programs. They believe that we need to transfer more wealth – through government taxation -- from people who have money to people who don’t. This is the income inequality argument. Conservatives have a different answer: more opportunity.

Conservatives define success by how few people need help from the government, not by how many people we can enroll in government programs. When they see sixty percent more people on food stamps after the recession than we had before it started, conservatives say, “That’s not success. That’s failure!”

You see, conservatives believe that simply giving people money doesn’t help them escape poverty; on the contrary, it can keep them locked into it. Getting things without working for them is a very hard habit to break – so much so, that it can become a way of life.

According to my research, earning your way out of poverty is much more empowering and enduring than being supported by a variety of government programs, which do little more than maintain people in their poverty.

(excerpted from "There's only one way out of poverty" by Arthur Brooks for Prager University)

 

[timewerx]

According to my research, earning your way out of poverty is much more empowering and enduring than being supported by a variety of government programs, which do little more than maintain people in their poverty.

(excerpted from "There's only one way out of poverty" by Arthur Brooks for Prager University)

It's not that simple. Before you can start earning, you must first find a job.

I've been working for over 12 years now. But not entirely, it's been punctuated by long periods of unemployment. Factors I've come to realize include very tight competition, possessing marketable set of skills, having the right, marketable experience/expertise, extensive industry experience, luck, etc.

I know how it is to work very hard, things being well, and how it is to be at the rock bottom of your life.

So I know what goes on with people in misery. I can't just blame them because there really is a factor in their poverty and problems other than their fault. It isn't always their fault. Often it is the fault of the system.

My opinion what would help get people out of poverty out of my long experience with struggles at getting jobs and finally getting a chance is give free training/education/certification on useful/marketable skills to these people. And then give them job referrals...If they still fail these then it's now their problem. But if no one tried, to give them chance, then it's our fault.

 

[JackRT]

From my liberal/progressive point of view there are two linked answers --- education and opportunity. Government support might be needed while the education or training takes place. But that effort would be futile if no jobs exist to fit the skill sets acquired.

 

[section9+1]

Escaping poverty isn't very hard. The hard part is escaping poverty and maintaining your integrity and your Christianity. If you can honestly love the lord and look at yourself in the mirror every day and like what you see, you are already rich.

 

[bhayes]

The bible makes it clear that we should give to the needy.

 

[FenderTL5]

Conservatives have a different answer: more opportunity.

Conservatives define success by how few people need help from the government, not by how many people we can enroll in government programs. When they see sixty percent more people on food stamps after the recession than we had before it started, conservatives say, “That’s not success. That’s failure!”

You see, conservatives believe that simply giving people money doesn’t help them escape poverty; on the contrary, it can keep them locked into it. Getting things without working for them is a very hard habit to break – so much so, that it can become a way of life.

According to my research, earning your way out of poverty is much more empowering and enduring than being supported by a variety of government programs, which do little more than maintain people in their poverty.

(excerpted from "There's only one way out of poverty" by Arthur Brooks for Prager University)

If conservatives actually believed this they would work to ensure policies that provided for an educated workforce making a living wage. Neoliberal conservatives oppose both education and living wages.

 

[timewerx]

From my liberal/progressive point of view there are two linked answers --- education and opportunity. Government support might be needed while the education or training takes place. But that effort would be futile if no jobs exist to fit the skill sets acquired.

We share the same opinion.

I guess they'll have to do a very good research of what skill sets needed to be taught to increase the chances of having a job. Of course those skills must be those highly demanded, highly marketable skills at present and in the foreseeable future.

They would also have to account for jobs that will be replaced by automation in the near future.

But imagine if automation ramps up dramatically, the only jobs would be left are those tech-oriented jobs and they tend to be few---so we can't all be working tech jobs, a lot of people will lose jobs whether we like it or not and it will be no one's fault.

 

[JackRT]

If conservatives actually believed this they would work to ensure policies that provided for an educated workforce making a living wage. Neoliberal conservatives oppose both education and living wages.

What in the world is a "neoliberal conservative"? You would be hard put to find a liberal of any sort that would oppose education or a living wage.

 

[FenderTL5]

What in the world is a "neoliberal conservative"? You would be hard put to find a liberal of any sort that would oppose education or a living wage.

Neoliberalism - Wikipedia

 

[Sketcher]

If conservatives actually believed this they would work to ensure policies that provided for an educated workforce making a living wage. Neoliberal conservatives oppose both education and living wages.

If they opposed education, they wouldn't be trying to improve it by making school choice more accessible to all families. The way the Democrats have it, only the rich can afford school choice, and public schools are geared towards teaching dependency on the government, not making it in life. Budgeting, investment, insurance - every adult has to deal with these realities, but schools don't teach much about them at all.

 

[JackRT]

If they opposed education, they wouldn't be trying to improve it by making school choice more accessible to all families. The way the Democrats have it, only the rich can afford school choice, and public schools are geared towards teaching dependency on the government, not making it in life. Budgeting, investment, insurance - every adult has to deal with these realities, but schools don't teach much about them at all.

Those were realities in the high school math courses that I taught.

 

[Sketcher]

Those were realities in the high school math courses that I taught.

The story problems I encountered in math class touched on compound interest, but they didn't teach me what a deductible was, what diversification meant, what the difference is between stocks, bonds, and mutual funds is, or how the government taxes your earnings and savings. This is information every adult needs, and most graduating seniors have very little concept of any of these.

 

[SolomonVII]

The bible makes it clear that we should give to the needy.

Conservatives tend to give more.
But it also needs to be understood that charity is not an escape from poverty, but more along with making poverty sustainable.