A constant state of dread

[Dexter Sinister]

I have no idea how much credibility I have on this subject. I've never been poor, never even been close to being poor, and the major reason, as far as I can tell, is that my parents weren't poor either, which meant they could afford to subsidize a university education for me, and we happened to live in a city with a good university, so I lived at home. Dad was always pretty clear about that: you can stay here as long as you're going to school and we'll help in whatever ways are necessary, but once you're out of school, you're out of here as soon as you find work. And you better be looking... But that was a long time ago and times were different, so Dad's position wasn't as harsh as it would appear these days. It seemed perfectly reasonable to me, and was fully in accord with what I wanted as well. I got a good job almost as soon as I started looking. My first house cost $18,900, at a time when I was earning about $12,000 a year. Paid it off in 5 years, and by then it was worth $35,000. The house I live in now I could probably sell for around $180,000, and if it were in Calgary or Vancouver or Toronto it'd be worth at least $500,000.

I'm not poor because my parents gave me a boost, same as I've done for my children. They're not poor either. I think that's one of the keys. Many of the poor people in the city where I live are 4th and 5th generation in poverty, and with some few exceptions it's not because they're stupid or lazy. It's because they have no marketable skills, they cannot afford post-secondary education and many of them are so poorly educated they don't even grasp the value of education, so the cycle repeats. And in many cases--about 20,000 at last estimate--it's also partly because they're aboriginal. There is a subtle but vicious prejudice at work in this town. It's public knowledge, for instance, how much Social Services will pay for housing, and any rental property worth living in is consistently priced just above that.

Education is the only reliable ticket out that I know of, but the poverty subculture doesn't value education very highly. Those few who do make it out are often besieged by family and friends looking for support, and they can't give it without beggaring themselves again, they don't have the resources, so they have to either cut themselves off or sink back down. It's a vicious cycle that sickens and saddens me. I volunteer with Habitat for Humanity to try to help out, and I've taught basic computer knowledge to people enrolled in various skill improvement programs targetted at the underemployed and unemployed urban poor in my town. But it's just a drop in the ocean.

I think "constant state of dread" overstates it a bit. "Constant state of low level anxiety" seems closer to the mark to me. But most of the poor I've encountered personally seem remarkably cheerful and happy-go-lucky most of the time (except when I sit down with them at their kitchen table to figure out their income tax return)... maybe that's part of the problem? I can't pretend I really understand it, because it's a situation I've never personally faced.

 

[Kreskin]

Having grown up in a low income neighbourhood and once faced with many of the issues in that article I'm a firm believer that poverty is also a paradigm. Teenagers who come from chronic poverty tend to set low standards and goals for themselves. Yes they can dream but for the most part they lack the belief that they can make something better of themselves. Being well to-do is on the other side of the fence when you're a follower. When I was growing up my mom never asked me to work hard in school so I could go to university and become a doctor. I'm sure that was beyond her paradigm. She encouraged me to graduate so I could get a good union job at the airport. Grade 12 was the minimum education level for those jobs so I was encouraged to achieve that minimum standard. Lofty goals. It wasn't until I got very lucky in getting a good entry level job handed to me in a good corporation in the mid-80's that I started to see how the real world worked, and when I saw people moving up that looked, acted, and worked similar to me that I realized I could do the same. Once I entered my new paradigm I put my mind to courses, programs and elbow grease to make something of myself. For the first time in my life I accepted and pursued responsibility.

Many of my friends from "the hood" never escaped their acceptance of mediocrity. It's sad. They never bought a house because it was perpetually too expensive and they didn't believe they could be homeowners. In their minds low income families didn't leverage thousands of dollars to get ahead - living from payday to payday is the standard. Unlike how #juan pointed out, that inflation is often your friend in the mortgage business (debt is linear) they have allowed inflation to perpetually erode their ability to get going in life. They still have nothing, except the empty beer bottles and rented basement suites. Now they have kids and the learned, or unlearned, cycles continue.

We need to instill something in those kids that they won't get 99.99% of their growing years. An understanding that something better is waiting for them and they need to go out and get it. That they too can be leaders in life. That they can be a success.

I'm not close to being wealthy but I'm a long way from the hood. Paradigms are fragile. Sometimes I still feel that I don't deserve what I have, even though it's a lot less than a great many. It's like a little guy stands on my shoulder reminding me that the evil money demons will appear someday to take back what is not rightfully mine. I have to remind myself not to be afraid of success. When I hear the term - being afraid of success - I know exactly what it means. When you grow up not believing in yourself there's always a fear that success will bring out the failure-demons.

 

[I think not]

In 1966 when we bought our first house, my Dad was shocked that we had a twenty thousand dollar mortgage. He said, " That's like a prison sentence". I guess inflation eventually becomes your friend. Wages/salaries go up and the mortgage becomes less and less of a mill stone.

To give you an idea, I recently bought a home 3 years ago for $425,000, I had it appraised 2 months ago at $675,000.

I really don't know where this real estate market is going. It has slowed down and prices have dropped, but very mildly, tops 10%.

Of course the further away you get from NYC, prices drop sharply.

 

[#juan]

To give you an idea, I recently bought a home 3 years ago for $425,000, I had it appraised 2 months ago at $675,000.

I really don't know where this real estate market is going. It has slowed down and prices have dropped, but very mildly, tops 10%.

Of course the further away you get from NYC, prices drop sharply.

Yeah, that sounds familiar. That first house I mentioned was in Delta, which is a bedroom community just outside of Vancouver, is on the market right now for over $600,000.

I enjoyed Dexter's post about his life, education, etc and I got to thinking about being "poor". I've quoted this before and I think it applies here. "Being broke is a temporary shortage of cash, while being poor is a state of mind". I've been broke lots of times, but I've never been poor.

 

[jimmoyer]

Excellent observations in this thread by ITN, Dexter Sinister, #Juan...

Great thread.

 

[MikeyDB]

Poverty has the same genealogy/lineage as wealth.

Poverty begets poverty.

There are of course some dramatic exceptions…we hear about those, but we seldom hear the stories of how “poverty” became entrenched in societies.

I was an adopted child, adopted by my biological uncle, who along with his bothers and sisters were born and lived on the reserve as children. Like many natives, several members (great grandfather, grandfather, father….) white society would give you a job OK….the dirtiest lowest paying serfdom you’d settle for…

And of course if you weren’t prepared to provide all the nice white people a mat to clean their boots off on….you joined the military and went all over this planet killing people and being killed to preserve the status quo….

To maintain the exclusivity of the wealthy.

My father went as far as grade six…there were brothers and sisters to feed and an ailing father and mother to care for….

In the Canadian army, you were paid to die for your country…but you were paid a barely subsistence income for this privilege.

I graduated from high school in Ontario ( I only mention this because as an Army-Brat….you live all over the place and never remain in one place very long…this has significant repercussions on “normal” development….)

I was granted scholarships from several multi-national corporations, but because I graduated high school when I was fifteen, I needed my parents authorization on the forms to take advantage of these offerings…

My father refused to give permission for me to attend several different universities who were at the time interested in having me attend…

He refused because he felt it wasn’t fair that he had experienced the life he had as a youngster…dirt poor….early end to his own education through the necessities that surrounded him…etc…

He was a handsome skilled energetic young man turned into a frail and ailing old man far younger than “normal” due for the most part to the conditions and experiences he had…out there in the world protecting the same system and people who made snide remarks and mean-spirited jokes about life with “Indians” as the butt of their racist humour.

I had to leave home early to work to make enough money to attend university…

I won’t bore you with any more details but suffice it to say that “poverty” exists, whether you need some “poverty-line” to define it or not….

 

[#juan]

MikeyDB

That post was very depressing. Poverty is not something experienced only by native people. Poverty is something everybody can have a crack at, if they're not careful. My family were not rich by any means, but I managed to get an education. Judging by your excellent command of the language, so did you. As Dexter said, "Education is the only reliable ticket out of poverty." Education is at least as available to natives as it is to the rest of Canadians.

 

[Vicious]

The problem of poverty can never be addressed if we continue to measure poverty on relative terms. The canadian poverty line is often based on the Low Income Cut Off which is a relative measure of income.
http://http://www.statcan.ca/english/research/75F0002MIE/75F0002MIE1998013.pdf

This is the part the always confuses me (I've added the bolding):

"LICOs are popularly described as the income level where a family will tend to
spend a significantly higher proportion of its income on food, shelter and clothing
than the average family. When this measure was first developed using 1959
Family Expenditure Survey data, the average household spent 50% of its pre-tax
income on food, shelter and clothing. Twenty percentage points were added to
this figure, on the rationale that a family spending over 70% of its income on
essentials could be regarded as being in “straitened circumstances”. This 70%
threshold was then converted to a set of Low Income Cutoffs that vary by family
size and community size. They are used in conjunction the Survey of ConsumerFinances, Statistics Canada’s household income survey, to monitor trends in the
low income population.
Since the LICOs were first introduced, average household spending on food,
shelter and clothing has declined from 50% of before-tax income to about 35%.
Since 1969, the proportion underlying the LICO calculation has been updated four
times to reflect changes in average household spending on food, shelter and
clothing. The most recent “rebasing” occurred in 1992. In addition to this periodic
“rebasing”, LICOs are updated annually using the Consumer price Index.
LICOs are now calculated for use with after-tax as well as pre-tax income. Depending
on family size and community size, LICOs for 1996 ranged from $11,839 to $43,634
before tax and from $9,337 to $37,037 after tax (Tables 1 and 2)"

So before 1969 if you spent greater than 70% of the family income on the basics you were considered poor. And after you 1992 it's if you spent greater than 55% of the family income on the basics you were considered poor.

The change in the percentage manufactured a bunchn of poor families.

I would have though having enough income to cover the basics would be the poverty line. After all they are the basics for a reason. I wonder what the poverty rate would be if we went back to the 70% level of pre-1969.

 

[jimmoyer]

Hearing stories like these makes the liberal and conservative ideologies inadequate to explain
this issue of poverty.

The self help ideologies that exhort you to pull yourself up are overwhelmed by your
backround.

Which is why in another thread I can't help but think WILL POWER is a big myth.

 

[darkbeaver]

Excellent discussion on poverty. Personally I have experianced poverty only indirectly in others,I have frequently experianced cash shortfalls and temporary homelessness usually of my own choseing. I come from a large family of sucessful people so it's never been a problem to get shelter or food or cash I'm lucky to have the family for support so are every other member of the family none of us want for much.
I agree with education being central to success however you define success, in fact I think education is pivitol to humanity and so do the corporate elites who run the western world, public education is thier greatest enemy they'll stop at nothing to destroy it and perpetuate the cycle of poverty. Education should be paid for in full by the state, it's the greatest investment we could make to the country and humanity in general.
I'm not poor, I own my home, it's not much but I built it and it's paid for and costs next to nothing to maintain, I have no debt of any kind and I'v used my education to get it that way. I'm low income for sure but it still suprises me how little I actually need to be happy and secure.It pisses me off no end to know that if a fraction of what is wasted on corporate welfare in this country of ours were devoted to a war on poverty we could beat it and keep it at bay, but we wait year after year for the wealth to trickle down from our masters, education would solve that.
Adolph Harpercon ain't likely to change direction with regards to education or social programes in general, in fact he's working overtime to destroy them.:wave:

 

[jimmoyer]

Darkbeaver, that was a considerate post, mostly un-ideological, which is good for you.

LOL !


But your one paeon to ideology: "but we wait year after year for the wealth to trickle down from our masters, ...." points out simultaneously the inadequacy of both
liberal and conservative thinking about poverty.

First off, it is wrong psychologically for each one of us to wait for a handout. That's the liberal
co-dependency inadequacy.

Secondly, the conservatives' trickle down theory is inadequate to overcome the generational
cycle of poverty, where poor beget poor, both in material and spirit.

The answer appears to be education.

But what kind of education ?

Certainly not the kind we offer now.

 

[darkbeaver]

Darkbeaver, that was a considerate post, mostly un-ideological, which is good for you.

LOL !


But your one paeon to ideology: "but we wait year after year for the wealth to trickle down from our masters, ...." points out simultaneously the inadequacy of both
liberal and conservative thinking about poverty.

First off, it is wrong psychologically for each one of us to wait for a handout. That's the liberal
co-dependency inadequacy.

Secondly, the conservatives' trickle down theory is inadequate to overcome the generational
cycle of poverty, where poor beget poor, both in material and spirit.

The answer appears to be education.

But what kind of education ?

Certainly not the kind we offer now.

Readin, rightin, rithmatik, an religon.:wave: