Poverty Vs. Poor
The Oxford dictionary gives the definition of poverty as “the state of being extremely poor” and the definition for poor as “lacking sufficient money to live at a standard considered comfortable or normal in a society”. I have created my own definitions with the definition for poor as not having sufficient money to live comfortably and poverty as being poor without hope.
I was poor growing up, but I did not live in poverty. The heat from the furnace in our mud floored basement struggled to reach the second story through the grated holes in the floor. The little warmth that drifted up could not prevent the beautiful scrolled etchings of ice on the inside of the window panes. Mildew that was created by drippings from sun melted ice was refrozen on the wooden window frames. I covered myself with my outdoor coat to supplement the thinning blankets on my bed.
The cold air that created the ice sculptures on my bedroom window blew through the toilet area of our bathroom, which was located on the back porch of our house. I suspect an area designated for the toilet was an architectural afterthought and may have replaced an outhouse. We were thankful when the plumbing was functional, which was a rare occurrence.
There were no rats or cock roaches, just their country cousins of mice and spiders. My mother tried valiantly to keep a house of 10 occupants clean, although only her step daughter and four older birth children remember the doilies she insisted be kept on what she called the davenport. The task must have become too daunting when the last four children arrived. There’s a misconception among people with money that all poor people are dirty or lazy, but sometimes they’re just exhausted and have given up trying.
I am embarrassed to admit that despite God’s gentle nudging and revelations, it took me too long to realize that I was poor, but I did not live in poverty. I am only now understanding that it wasn’t only my self-determination and drive to never be poor again that made it possible for me to never live in poverty. I understand now the difference between those who live in poverty and those who are simply poor with hope of a chance to move outside the poverty circle. Some of this hope comes advantages that others do not have.
There are several critical items in the poverty circle that keep people there. The first is not understanding the level of society they are trying to reach. The environment into which a person is born has hidden rules. Hidden rules exist in all levels of the social class, including poverty, middle class, wealth and ethnic. These are unspoken understandings that alert the members that someone does not belong. [2]. For a person born into poverty, they learn the rules of their neighborhood and if their area is segregated from more affluent areas, they will learn only their own rules. This will cause them to be awkward in any social system outside of their own.
I had an advantage over my fellow poor because the neighborhood I was raised in had prime real estate that was purchased by wealthy business owners. I lived among and attended school with their children and so was able to watch and learn the rules of their social class. I was not limited by the environment of poverty. But perhaps more importantly, my mother was not born into a poor environment. She graduated from high school and had a job in a payroll department of a wealthy company before marrying. She had a vast vocabulary of words that most people in poverty circles only read in books. She understood the underlying hidden rules and we learned them from her so that we were able to somewhat fit into our middle-class environment that was quickly morphing to upper middle class.
A second disadvantage is that many are member live in a single parent household with an income below the poverty level. In the United States, 30% of people living in single parent homes live in poverty. Even where there are two incomes, areas of extreme poverty do not always offer the opportunity for employment or with employment, the pay scale is often below a livable wage.
My life was different in that my father steadily worked one and half jobs most of my childhood. My mother’s monetary contribution was limited by having four babies in six years and four more in the 10 years that followed. In this situation there isn’t much opportunity to have a career. But my father’s presence and wage stability gave us an advantage over our poverty counterparts.
A third hindrance in breaking the poverty cycle is malnutrition. Many children and adults living in poverty do not have adequate diets. A box of macaroni is cheaper and works better to make a meal than a bag of nutritious apples. Not eating healthy affects cognitive abilities. Being hungry from not having enough food not only causes long term cognitive issues but also the ability to focus within the classroom setting. Even as a person is able to financially make healthier choices, they may not have the knowledge needed to understand what is necessary for good nutrition. While my family was somewhat malnourished from our diet in the winter of mostly potatoes, we ate healthy fruits and vegetables from our summer garden until they ran out at the end of autumn.
A fourth stumbling block to a financially better life is an inadequate formal education. In the state of Pennsylvania schools are funded by tax payer dollars thus, even if a child has sufficient cognitive abilities, the education within a district of poverty does not have the same quality as wealthier districts. While not all foster care youth live in poverty, many do. Recently, a local agency preparing to age an 18-year-old foster care youth out of the system, was unable to locate records of the child having attended third grade. Without a proper education, his chances of exiting poverty are lessened.
Another case occurred in what is considered the most impoverished area of the city of Philadelphia. A young student was being assisted by a local ministry leader in preparing for the SAT test for entry into college. During the preparation they discovered that what the school district was calling Algebra was instead a basic math class. Despite her high intelligence, this young woman did not have the skills needed to get an acceptable grade on the SAT test.
While I did not have the money or opportunity to go to college, I did not experience any of these other educational disadvantages. Following in the footsteps of my alcoholic grandfather, my brothers’ drug and alcohol addictions made it difficult for me to focus on high school assignments. My focus was more on surviving my brother’s drunken rages. But I had the advantage of attending school in the same district for my whole life and at least one parent attended teacher conferences. The school was in a middle to upper middle-class district so that the curriculum met all the criteria for success of the students.
There are other disadvantages based on such things are ethnicity, race or gender. I’m female and 5’ nothing, both of which are disadvantages. The Journal says that someone with equal skills and six inches taller will receive a pay difference of $5,000 [6]. However, while I married horizontally and not up, I did marry a 6’2” Caucasian male with a German name. With our combined income and his advantages, we were able to raise our income above the poverty level.
A recent study shows that it takes only 10 resumes to get a call back if you have a white sounding name compared to 15 for someone with an African American name. One weakness of the study is that it simply measures call backs for interviews, not whether an applicant gets the job and what the wage for a successful applicant would be [4]. While the results cannot be translated into hiring rates or earnings, other studies show that African Americans have twice the unemployment rate of white employees [5].
Being born into the cycle of poverty may make it difficult, but not impossible to move into the next class level. Surgeon, Dr. Ben Carson and his brother Curtis Carson, an aeronautical engineer were raised in poverty by a single mother with a third-grade education. Dr. Carson credits his salvation in Jesus Christ for his success. He emphasizes that he could have been the most brilliant student, but without Christ, he would have still had his unconfessed sin issues, such as anger, that could have derailed his upward mobility [7].
There was discomfort and hunger when a box of rice would only stretch so far, but there was always hope and never despair in my childhood. There was always the dream of the possibility of something better in the future. We were poor, but we did not live in poverty. We lived with hope. The hope of greater opportunity, but more than that we had the hope of salvation in Jesus Christ. My father started the movement that broke his family’s poverty cycle. He was present in our home, steadily employed full time, chose not to drink despite having an alcoholic father, but more importantly he raised his children to love Jesus. He took his children to church every Sunday and each evening when he crawled into bed, he picked up his well-worn Bible. He lived his faith.
One of the difficulties I had when moving from poor to middle class was breaking myself away from poor talk. Poor talk is described as affluent people talking as if they are poor [1]. In Matthew 19:21 Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell his possession and give to the poor, but he was not willing to do so because he recognized his wealth. I needed to recognize that I am a Christian who is no longer poor, but that I do have wealth and have a responsibility to those who are poor. James 1:27a says, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress.” These were the some of the poorest people during New Testament times and still are today.
I never want to undervalue God’s grace in allowing my family to leave the cycle of poverty that my father grew up in. The blessings to my father’s grandchildren because of his decision for Christ, which resulted in occupations as doctors, physician’s assistants, nurses, behavioral specialists, executive apprentice, school teacher, etc. is not to be taken for granted. Nor do I want to give up functioning plumbing and heat at the push of a button. However, there are two important points that our society appears to want to avoid in scripture, concerning the poor.
First, the hope of Jesus Christ brings success but that does not imply that everyone who puts their trust is Christ will go from poor to middle class or higher. My father never made it to middle class, but after his transformation through Christ, he went from poverty to poor. In Mark 12:24, when Jesus praised the widow for giving all that she had, he did not say as a result that she would be blessed with riches. Being in poverty may be a disadvantage but being poor is not, when your treasures are in heaven and not on earth. Luke 6:20–21, Jesus says that the poor are blessed for the kingdom of God is theirs. Those who hunger will be satisfied and those who weep will laugh.
Also, in considering the poor, we miss a second very important point in scripture. While being rich is not a sin, according to Matthew 19:24, it is a disadvantage. We are told that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than to enter the kingdom of God. As Christians perhaps focusing on “Go[ing] into all the world and preach[ing]the gospel to all creation” as instructed in Mark 16:15 will improve our ministry to everyone no matter what their social status.
References:
[1] Grunlan, Stephen A., and Milton Reimer. Christian Perspectives on Sociology. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2001.
[2] Payne, Ruby K., et al. Bridges out of Poverty: Strategies for Professionals and Communities. Hawker Brownlow Education, 2010.
[3] NIV Thinline Reference Bible. Zondervan, 2011.
[4] Francis, David R. “Employers’ Replies to Racial Names.” Employers’ Replies to Racial Names, 2019, www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html.
[5] Cook Kelemwork et al. “The Future of Work in Black America.” McKinsey & Company, 2019, www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/the-future-of-work-in-black-america.
[6] McDermott, Eoghan. “Looks Shouldn’t Matter, but They Do. Especially When You’re Applying for a Job.” TheJournal.ie, 2019, www.thejournal.ie/readme/appearance-applying-for-a-job-2562008-Jan2016/.
[7] Carson, Ben, and Cecil B. Murphey. Gifted Hands. Zondervan, 2007
