Comment 40025

By Kiely (registered) | Posted April 21, 2010 at 16:15:20

But when people who have never made a welfare budget work or made a disability budget work or made an OSAP budget work or made a minimum-wage budget work want to find solutions for "the poor" perhaps they should be asking those who DO succeed on those limited budgets what their strategies are - and how to transfer them to others. - Meredith

Excellent point Meredith

So, that leaves me suspicious and cynical. Because the people on welfare, who are nowhere near as competent and I am, seem to be able to afford satellite and cigarettes - D. Knox

Besides the elitist viewpoint and obvious generalization about the poor, you also seem to be assuming all the income available is coming from welfare... or did you just not want to say what you were really thinking?

The unfortunate thing for the poor as well as our society is there are secondary and illegal revenue streams available, (e.g., prostitution, drug dealing, petty theft, B and E, etc…). Not that all welfare recipients do this, just as all welfare recipients aren't wasting their money on smokes and satellite TV. But often these activities are a function of poverty. This is why, as others here have said, poverty sometimes has nothing to do with money and can often have more to do with a marginalized subculture that is hard to break away from.

Poverty is a complex issue and we need to avoid generalization and assumption while remaining frank and honest in order to solve it.

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