Is poverty a choice? Of course, nobody directly chooses to be poor- if a magic genie came up to someone and asked them if they'd rather be rich or poor, very few people would choose poverty. But the American mentality, especially today, is that if you're poor, it's because you messed up. Somewhere along the way, you made a bad decision, or you were too lazy, or you weren't smart or strong enough, and you're suffering the consequences. You chose to be lazy, you made your own decisions- you can reap the rewards or endure the losses.
The problem is that this is a false mentality. Those who are poor each have their own story and personality, and labeling them before you know them is no different than sexism or racism. If you go and see who the poor are, you'll see minimum wage workers, hardworking and dedicated but facing higher living costs and lower pay checks. You'll see parents trying to juggle a job, an aspiring college education, and children at the same time. You'll see people who were born into a tough situation and who can't seem to find a way out. And labeling any of these people as people who "choose" to live the way they are is wrong and offensive.
We live in a society where half the people are trying to go back to an era without a social safety net and relentless business domination- in short, an era where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. And over the last decade, it's succeeding- the rich now take a larger share of the income and the poor take a smaller share. See the chart below:
But the most frustrating thing for me is not the reality of our dire situation, but the unawareness by many Americans about it and the general acceptance- even the promotion- of this recent trend. Theres a huge movement and a wide belief that people can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and that government shouldn't help them. But guess what- these people don't own boots.
The idea that if you're poor or if you are struggling to get by, you somehow chose that lifestyle, is wrong and deeply offensive. Americans are living and working in a society with an "uneven playing field," as Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren put it. As a society, we must choose to change that.
We need to change the playing field. We need to restart the war on poverty and end the war on the poor. And we need to end that baseless, false idea and ignorant mentality that if you're poor, that was your choice.
