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

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.

Housing Solutions For Those In Poverty Need to Be Individualized

One of the common elements in the efforts to resolve various aspects of poverty is the concern over appropriate housing. While there are myriad types of poverty, diverse impacts on those types and a truly inaccurate assumption that poverty reduction strategies can be applied universally in any country, there is a thread that binds those people who have been labelled as “poor:” the need for proper accommodation.

Some people, particularly those living voluntarily in financial deprivation, have found that communal living is the answer. In Canada, the Hutterites, a religious sect, individually do not own homes or property, yet their strong community bonds mean that they each devote maximum effort to providing for each other. Others, choosing voluntary simplicity, opt for basic housing.

Across the world, inadequate housing, though, often is the hallmark of economic poverty, regardless of the demographic into which each individual fits. There are many examples, however, of initiatives that have successfully addressed the housing shortfall.

In Saskatchewan, Canada, a long-running project provides housing for First Nations people who otherwise would not qualify for home ownership. The Quint Project, a joint undertaking involving financial institutions, government, private individuals and so on, has been operating successfully for two decades. See  http://www.quintsaskatoon.ca/. It has some elements in common with Jimmy Carter’s Habitat project.

 In Finland, a co-housing undertaking (See http://experimentcity.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Cohousing-the-Making.pdf) has proven hugely successful both economically and socially. It has been adopted and revised to suit United Kingdom needs. Visit the Guardian’s website at  

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/feb/24/co-housing-lifestyle-community to learn more.

These are only a few of the innovative housing solutions being developed and/or operating around the world. Their successes come from a recognition that not all poverty is the same, not all housing needs are the same and therefore, not all solutions should be the same.

To illustrate how others’ ideas can be adapted effectively, the following project links reveal two spinoffs of the Quint project, one for affordable housing and the other for vacation property ownership, can evolve. www.robertflee.com/Texas_on_the_Rio_Grande.ppt and www.robertflee.com/coophousing.ppt.   

We encourage you to submit your ideas and let others know about initiatives that you have observed.