Why I Am Fortunate to Have Been Raised in Poverty

 

A short time ago, I became eligible for my Covid vaccine. I embraced the chance. I was never worried about catching Covid, or dying from it. I am old enough to know death is always around the corner. I am also fortunate to have had such a wealth of experiences in life that I probably have used up other people’s quotas of pleasure, as well.

The Covid vaccine works by injecting a small quantity of dead Covid-19 virus into your body. Your immune system rushes to repel the intruders and, over the course of attacking these invaders, builds up antibodies. For me, that is the way life works. You deal with welcome visitors and events every day, but you also deal with unwelcome experiences. Those unwelcome ones teach you more and prepare you more thoroughly for life than the pleasurable events.

If I wanted to approach life pessimistically, I could complain about how inequitable life had been to me as a child. Extreme poverty, social isolation, lack of opportunity, prejudice … all the common complaints of those people who view themselves as poor and as victims. But none of that is true. I was blessed to have been raised in a radically impoverished environment. I believe that I have been more fortunate than most people raised in a middle-class or upper-class community.

My claims likely will arouse the ire of those who believe that everyone who is poor is there due to circumstances beyond their control, that everyone who lives in poverty wants to remove himself from that experience or that everyone even views poverty as an undesirable condition. Let them be upset! Sanctimony does not bring a person closer to understanding and paternal attitudes about others do very little to heal any chasms that exist.

In truth, I am one of the lucky hundreds of millions in the western world who are defined by our income, rather than who we are. If we have a lack of material wealth, relative to an arbitrary standard of poverty, we are not just branded as “poor,” but we are branded as being part of a lower socio-economic class. In other words, lack of money has also relegated us to a lower social echelon, by virtue of that economic paucity.  It is a condescending phrase borne of a condescending attitude.

Live the life before you critique!

My parents struggled to earn the money they needed to raise their family, but they never failed to keep us in clothes, living under a roof, eating a meal. That made us richer, in money, than many others in this world. However, we had advantages that many other children desperately need. Our parents instilled – no, drilled – in us the belief that a lack of knowledge, a lack of morality and a lack of curiosity were far more insidious symptoms of true poverty than a lack of cash could ever represent. That made us richer than the wealthiest children raised without intellectual and ethical curiosity and conviction to act on those values.

Still, I was raised in a two hundred sixty square foot house, built from recovered lumber from an old garage, without heat. Six of us lived in that tiny space. Our family’s income never exceeded $1,500 in a year (slightly over $9,000 in today’s dollars) and averaged under $900. One room of the house had no floor. We had no television for the first eleven years of my life. Most times, we had no car, but lived in the country. Not one of us ever had a single piece of new clothing. We had no indoor plumbing and no source of running water. If we got sick, we recovered or we did not: there was absolutely no commercial medication; just the natural remedies that grew around us. The list of supposed markers of poverty were everywhere, but, still, I was not poor in social status or in the wealth of experiences.

My life was a Huck Finn/Tom Sawyer existence. Because we had nothing, we found excitement and joy in the smallest of things: spring runoff water, playing cricket with tin cans and sticks or building a helicopter with old pieces of metal, car seats, wood and branches. Because we had nothing we needed to improvise and create and, from that, I have learned extensive lessons in all the trades and crafts.

Not having wealth and living in a community that had only a modestly higher standard of living than we did, we learned to rely, not on money, but on knowledge and ability. A lowly farmer can fix any piece of equipment or create a tool where none exists, yet he is regarded as of a lower class when his ability actually is superior to most.

While the stress of living hand-to-mouth can be immense and lead to family conflict, it also strengthens bonds by compelling people to work together to achieve a goal. From that joint effort arises camaraderie and from that camaraderie grows real friendships and the willingness to overlook differences and find commonality.

How many of the wealthy could survive a week of pure income hardship; not relative, but pure? Go without even one meal. Do without a vehicle or the money to pay for gas. Have to scavenge for wild plants for your vegetable part of the meal? Wear clothes worn by strangers until they were threadbare then handed off to the unfortunates? Even do without telephone, Internet or television for only a day or so? Walk to work in the snow, slush and rain because he or she could not afford the luxury of public transportation?

The peculiar result of living every moment without the supposed security of money accomplishes several things. First, it forces independence and self-reliance on an individual. It fosters creativity as we struggle to survive. And, oddly, it develops a perverse pride in many of us, as we recognize that it is not we who are poor in many ways: it is the wealthy who lack the breadth and depth of experience that our lives cultivate. Indeed, more than a few of us actually look down on the rich, because they are, in our eyes, weakened by their lavish lifestyles.

We can survive in the harshest of conditions but that also means that we can embrace the meagre pleasures that come our way. Yes, most of us would welcome the money, but we do not need it. We have intelligence that comes from living life day-to-day.

Most of us have learned to understand others and see their plight sympathetically. That holds true for how we view the rich. We can see that they, too, have to struggle. But we also see that it is a choice for them and not a choice for us.  We have learned the value of the moment. We have learned the value of other people. We have learned to lend a helping hand, instead of a boot to the face of people near us, who are attempting to keep themselves from drowning in economic hardship. We understand, because we have been through it.

It is true that poverty is not a disease or a virus, but it is a threat, and my dose of poverty has helped immunize me against the risk it poses. I have gained. I have learned to respect others and treat them fairly. I have learned that no person is inferior because of income or social status. I have learned generosity of spirit. I have learned self-reliance. I have learned the value of every moment in the world around me. I have learned that, had I been raised in an economically affluent lifestyle, I likely would not have had the advantage of experiencing these lessons so deeply. So, yes, I am one of the fortunate people who was raised in poverty, and for that, I am richer.

The Not-So_Subtle Connection Between Stress and Poverty

 People are poor because they are less intelligent that others, right? People who are poor are less educated than the wealthy because they are less intelligent, right? People are poor because they lack confidence and drive, right? Poor people perform more poorly at most tasks because they are unwilling to devote their energy to the task, right? WRONG, on all counts!

Stress obviously goes hand in hand with poverty, but rich people also worry about money. The difference is that the poor don't worry simply about money. Ongoing, continual poverty creates an environment of stress in which conflict, food insecurity, violence and housing worries, among many others arises because of the stress, but also feeds the stress even more. Thus, the entire milieu of poverty perpetuates the stress, which gives rise to other issues, which makes climbing out of poverty more difficult.

This study, out of UNICEF Research Office, June, 2016, when on to report that providing short-term relief in the form of cash payouts did not reduce perceived stress, even though it improved economic security. Thus, it is clear that it is the environment of poverty that perpetuates the stress and exacerbates related issues and that the solution is not as simple as quick cash, if the long-term outlook for the subject is still one of poverty.

But then, is the root of the problem that people are poor firstly because they are less able and intelligent than others? Actually, the opposite may be true.

According to Alice Walton, writing in the University of Chicago Business School's journal, The Chicago Booth Review, being poor may lower your IQ by as much as thirteen points.

A young man, a few decades ago, from a very impoverished background, was scheduled to write his Mensa qualifying tests. In the weeks prior to the test, in addition to having lived a life of deprivation, his mother and father both suffered what would be life-ending illnesses, he was forced to leave the house in which he had been raised, he was called on to assist a neighbour battling a fire that threatened his home and the young man had used up the very last of his finances for the month to pay for short-term accommodation. To say the least, he was under stress. He scored 138 on the Mensa test, high enough to qualify for membership.

Two years later, he wrote an IQ test again. He scored 165. That is a huge difference, seldom seen in intelligence testing. Yet, the only factor that had changed was that now, his income was stable and reasonable and the other stressors in his life had dissipated.

Poverty lowers one's IQ, not the other way around.

There can be little doubt that not having a decent education correlates very highly to making less money in the workplace. But being poor also makes it extremely difficult to realize one's potential academically.

There are myriad stories about people forced to leave school prematurely to support the family. Others cite lack of enough money for tuition as the reason why they did not proceed to post-secondary studies. It is not that these people don't want an education. It is that they cannot find the economic means to get one, and, in turn, remain mired in poverty.

Yet, even in grade school, through high school, performance levels among those of a lower socio-economic class are lower than classmates from more affluent backgrounds. It defies the belief of many outside the low SEC that poverty implies a moral failure. Performance suffers because the person is preoccupied with more immediate concerns. Try mental math when you are being chased down the street by an angry dog! Your thoughts are hardly on anything other than that immediate moment.

Like any achievement, rising out of poverty requires confidence. in the belief that, first, you can do it and second, that it is sustainable. Living in poverty tends to steal from people the ability to plan for a better future. The day-to-day nature of existence at the low end of the SEC denies people the ability to take a long-term perspective. Oxford University and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report that, when facing poverty, people have a much more difficult time making decisions, doubt their choices and have lowered attention spans. That is, the moment intrudes on the future.

Most governments in the western world have introduced tax-free investment plans and retirement savings plan options to allow poorer people to set aside for their future, but the plans are entirely unrealistic Saving anything for tomorrow is unreasonable when today's needs are far from met. Consequently, a very small fragment of those in the lowest socio-economic group even consider retirement and contingent saving.

This forces them even further behind their more affluent counterparts, which, in turn, impacts on their confidence, their ability to focus on development and growth and forces them into the primary survival channel for the poorest of the poor: day-to-day existence.

It is not that the poor don't want better opportunity, or hope to succeed and grow. IT is more that they are trapped in an environment that saps the ability to stay afloat, much less thrive. They may have had the ability, the intelligence and the confidence to move ahead, but poverty, daily, robs them of those skills and we, in turn, lose out because hordes of people that, given the right opportunity, could contribute in very significant ways, to the world around them.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10427976

Remote Communities Suffer Poverty Differently Than in Urban Centers

 Four years ago, I was on a flight to a remote Manitoba First Nations reservation. In the space where there used to be a passenger seat next to the pilot was stacked 432 boxes of potato chips. In the rear cargo space were hundreds more. They were being flown to this reserve, a mere two-hour flight north of Winnipeg on Lake Winnipeg, for the community store, owned by a large national company. The regular passenger fare on that flight was approximately $350.00. It was more profitable for the airline to ship the snacks than carry a person!

But the real point is the cost to the consumer of these snacks. Because of the light weight, the grocery store felt that it could justify shipping junk food to the reserve by air. In 1986, Berens River and Poplar River reservations were served, in the summer, by a barge that ferried goods and vehicles in along Lake Winnipeg. That helped to reduce shipping costs of fuel (diesel for generators, gas for trucks). However, that barge discontinued operation some years later. That only left winter road supply lines and air cargo. Both were exceptionally costly. In 2018, most of the East Road was completed, connecting those two first nations communities to the outside world. Still, even on these accessible reservations, food cost remains exceptionally high.

One of the false claims made by many people unfamiliar with the high cost of food in remote First nations communities is that “we” are giving them too much, and that the money they get is more than they need. Those people often point, as well, to the high incidence of obesity and diabetes as proof that First Nations people in these communities are choosing to live an unhealthy, indolent and indulgent lifestyle. Yet, the reality is the polar (no pun intended) opposite for northern communities such as Berens River.

Some of the cheapest food products in the Berens River stores are snacks such as chips and candy bars. These also are the cheapest to ship into the community and represent some of the cheapest foods. Then, there is relative cost. A four-liter container of milk costs four times as much as a two-liter container of pop. The soda provides instant energy and a feeling of fullness. Same with the chips and chocolate bars. And, the snacks don’t require refrigeration in homes that often do not have a refrigerator that works.

As a consequence, the diet of many of the residents consists of junk food, leading to obesity and illness.

While a typical food basket may cost $146 in Winnipeg in 2018, for instance, it was $366 in Berens River. All other costs of living are similarly disproportionate. So, if a typical family of six, living at the poverty line in Winnipeg, needs $53,000 per year to survive, that same family in Berens River would need $133,000 per year!

It is this disconnect that many of us have between our world and our perception of how we compare to others that limits our ability to empathize with those in dire circumstances, such as those in our First Nations communities. Poverty is not solely a phenomenon of underdeveloped countries. It exists here, in our own back yard, and we don’t have to fly far to experience it.

 

The Micro-decisions that Define Poverty

Understanding the intricacies of a life lived in poverty without actually living that life is much like trying to understand the workings of a computer without knowing what the inside of a computer looks like – theoretically possible, but highly improbable. Drawing comparisons to a middle-class life is equally ineffective. Yet, well-meaning (and mean-spirited) politicians and public figures try to do just that. They attempt to rationalize and explain the improbable, then suggest that it is a straighforward matter for one to rise out of a life of poverty.

Life in poverty is not a macro-issue. It is a life of minute details that comprise an existence. This blog will attempt to reveal how a life of poverty feels, from the inside. It is interesting, though, that many of us who live or have lived in extreme North American-style poverty seldom think of ourselves in terms of our poverty. It does not define us. It merely is.

We are familiar with public service information pieces that show a person choosing between heat and food, between shelter and water. That actually is a macro decision for many. It still does not define us and is simply a choice, albeit difficult and impactful, that could equate to a middle-income earner choosing between investing in his future retirement through a retirement savings vehicle or buying a new, 4-wheeled vehicle.

But imagine that your choice hits a little closer. You are looking for a job. You need to look your best, feel that you are in control, know you have an equal chance at the position with the well-heeled candidate also vying for the opening. You have the same education. You actually have a higher GPA to present and your work experience shows two past jobs, both of which come with very high recommendations from the former employers. The other candidate has not worked while going to school but attended his studies full time. You should have the edge on competency, right?

The morning of the interview, the second candidate slides into his tailored suit (it is an office job!), after having groomed himself impeccably. His manner, borne of years of relative comfort, is confident.

You, a week before the interview, chose to buy a dress shirt and pants from the second-hand store instead of paying your insurance. Your shoes are well scuffed, but since you only own one pair, they will have to suffice with a layer of polish that you borrowed from your grandfather (a little old and hard, but it worked, sort of.) The haircut that your mother gave you last week is still fresh, if not professional. You are clean and tidy. You are ready. But when you come face to face with your competition and the others, similarly attired, that confidence fades.

The interviewer relies on first impressions, in spite of her attempt to be objective. You also are not as confident as you were two days earlier, and it shows. You don’t get the job. That is an effect of poverty. Think it doesn’t happen? Wrong.

Several  years ago, I interviewed for my dream job. I could not afford new shoes, or even a spring jacket, let alone a suit. That morning, it rained. I had no comb or brush with me, as we only owned one brush for the entire family. The soles of my shoes were separating. My appearance cost me the job, because I had far superior qualifications to the other candidates. How do I know? I was referred to the opening by a neighbor who worked at the building. He was told directly by the HR interviewer that she didn’t think I would fit in. The opinion was based on my “unkempt” appearance and the fact that I did not think enough of the job to wear decent clothes.

It was my good fortune that my career took a different path, and I overcame, for the most part, the impediment of poverty. But most do not. That is why statistics show that, over the past forty years, the percentage of people living in poverty has remained relatively flat or increased, with nearly 13-14% of the population living below the poverty line. Those that are poor most often remain poor, sometimes sliding into drugs and crime as a way out. Even increased education opportunities have not eliminated the curse of poverty.

Little things impact. Daily incidents. Micro-moments, yet few spend even an hour bemoaning their income situation. They just carry on living, even though they are being denied the chance to advance and more importantly, to contribute to the world around them as effectively as they could. Ironically, the western world loses much of its greatest potential because the very capable people trapped in poverty are never given the opportunity to show what they can achieve. And the cause is the numerous micro-decisions made in the trade-off between survival and success.

Two Aspirins Is Not A Remedy For Poverty

Today’s poverty reduction programs are nothing more than the “take two aspirins” solution from the 1960s. The idea that we can “fix” poverty by putting more money in the hands of the poor, while increasing their access to government services treats only the symptoms, without knowing the cause. It also assumes that government knows best – the same assumption that fostered First Nations residential schools. It wrongly assumes, as well, that all poverty is the same, all needs similar. Their assumptions are backed with statistics.

It is, however, not a poverty problem but a people issue, and while statistics are an excellent objective source for evaluating situations, people issues are subjective and individual, and are better served by an emphasis on anecdotal evidence rather than clinical, remote observation. Classifying all people living in poverty into one homogenous group misses the diversity of those in poverty, in the same way as describing all middle class people as living in suburbia, or every ache as being treatable with Aspirin. Poverty may be nothing more than a symptom, or even a buzzword without real meaning.

My wife and I, for example, live in poverty, given that the low-income before-tax cut-off for a family of two is approximately $30,000, according to Statistics Canada. Yet, we are far from poor, and choose to live a minimalist lifestyle. We still manage to drive a relatively new hybrid car, own our own home with mortgage and vacation out-of-country at least six weeks each year. We are well-educated and healthy.

A single mother from Winnipeg, “Donna,” supports three children on an income of $27,500, plus the federal child tax benefit. She, too, meets the statistical definition of living in poverty (even with the CTC), but she owns her own house, has all the household amenities that she wants, her children are well-fed, well-clothed and well-supplied and she manages to set aside a few dollars in savings each year. 

Ten provinces and territories have adopted some form of poverty reduction strategy, each developed through consultation with reams of data. With government programs emphasizing such things as increasing tax credits to the poor, providing access to social programs and ensuring living wage jobs, the provincial efforts have little relevance to the two situations cited. Ontario’s child poverty reduction program, launched in 2008, met with modest results in the first three years. Its two-pronged concept focused on income support mechanisms (from tax credits to day care support) and a youth job strategy. By 2011, child poverty rates had dropped 9%, but rose again to pre-2008 levels shortly after.

Similarly, two aspirin may alleviate a headache, back ache or muscle pain, but if the cause is a brain tumour, slipped disc or torn muscle the problems inevitably will reoccur. There are so many causes, contributors and explanations for living a life on low income that there is no bureaucratic aspirin that can even alleviate the symptom in every case.

Every major city has pockets of older housing, in which you will find seniors living “in poverty,” many there because they do not want to leave. Every part of Canada has rural communities that almost entirely exist at the low-income part of the economy, but they often do not view themselves as poor or in need. A few of us choose to live simply, frugally, including Hutterites and other religious groups with vows of poverty. Some choose occupations that have little prospect for high income but offer personal satisfaction. Then there those who do have financial need and want, but who “fall through the cracks,” such as homeless, immigrants, people with mental issues, people with temporary health issues, the poorly educated and so on.

Poverty, too, is far more than about money. Poverty is neither a class nor a definition of a lifestyle. It is a condition that is part of a complex dynamic. Persons labelled as “poor” people often have a richness that defies their circumstance. People may live in poverty, or be of low-income, but they are not of a “lower socio-economic class.” On the other hand, income poverty is only part of a web of poverties: emotional, cultural, social, psychological, physical, and so on.

I was raised in a poor rural community where very few of us felt that we were poverty-stricken. My parents taught us the value of learning and knowledge, the value of compassion, the value of diversity. Yet, there was an extreme dearth of social interaction for us, because of my mother’s psychological impairments. We grew up knowing how little money actually meant, but not knowing the value of the community around us, and how to interact on a social scale. That social poverty limited each of us. Even if social services had been available to us, my parents would have resisted. 

In our travels, I have visited with extremely poor families in central America and even the deep South USA. Many of these people are extremely happy, and extremely destitute. Their pockets are empty, their social lives full.

Some feel that the solution to the “poverty problem” is to make being poor more affordable. The Danish co-housing concept focuses on voluntary participation in a multi-housing community that shares costs, services and benefits. In Saskatoon, the long-running Quint project provides affordable housing, creates jobs, assists with money management and helps repair credit issues for aboriginal homeowners. Neither “solves” poverty, but both find ways to encourage and enable those who choose to do so to improve their social and economic condition.

Canada, we often say, is built on diversity. There is no better place to demonstrate that than to adopt an anecdotal approach to understanding that it is not a poverty problem that we face, but a people issue. And most of us poor folks would prefer that you recognize that we are financially limited, not impoverished. The two are worlds apart. Perhaps approaching low-income issues with that in mind will alleviate the headache that is poverty.