Another manifestation is the sixties “hippies” counterculture. The hippies’ dissatisfaction, their dissociation from the old stereotypes, has resulted in their fabrication and adoption of new ones. They “rejected traditional bourgeois culture as sick, repressive and destructive” (Magnet 125). The idea of hard work and delayed gratification --building savings, marrying first then having kids, and obeying the law – were all thrown out of the window. In his article, Magnet states that it was all about “expressing yourself, acting upon what you really feel” (210). Yes, it is true that all these constitute genuine, healthy and life-affirming experience. However, people religiously living under these conditions need some reality check, as its consequences can root all poverty. “Instead of telling them to take whole-hearted advantage of opportunities that were rapidly opening, the new culture told the Have-Nots [the poor] that they were victims of unjust society and… that they were entitled to restitution” (Magnet 216). Their belief of not being able to relate to the traditional standards of the mainstream society triggers their minds to rebel against it, mostly through living a different lifestyle. However, this lifestyle typically ends up insufficient to prevent the Have-Nots (the poor) from poverty.
“Everyone is born financially dependent,” says William Raspberry (217). Robert Woodson tested his college-bound prep students and found that “their financial dependency [at college] doesn’t bother them” (218), knowing that they have their parents’ investment for their education. It’s interesting to see that middle-class people look at people on welfare (the poor) as if the poor actually desires to be at that low status level requirement in order to receive benefits. Woodson explains these students, “If you don’t desire dependency, given the level of comfort your parents can afford to give you, why would you imagine that poor people desire to live at the subsistence?” (qtd. in Raspberry 218). Well-to-do people are also dependent but they have faith or hope of getting out of it and being independent one day. On the other hand, the poor lose their faith in uplifting their lifestyle from the problem, having the lack of opportunities available. This proves that it isn’t dependency that traps poor people in poverty, but it’s their belief of certainty that they can do nothing about their condition anymore. They subjectively construct a reality that they are meant to be “poor”, which can result to a self fulfilling prophecy - a false belief or prediction that makes the originally false belief come true (Kendall 163). “It’s not about financial independence but about a belief in one’s own efficacy” (Raspberry 129).
Sklar, on the other hand, claims that there has been a sharp decline in real wages. The hourly wage has decreased in the duration of one and half years (1975-1990) from $10.80 to $10.00; the weekly wage has decreased from $390 to $350 (A Sharp Decline in Real Wages qtd. in Sklar 108). As a result, individual action is not the only factor to blame for poverty. According to a 1991 U.S. House of Committee on Ways and Means report, the government doesn’t give enough aides to help people that are buried in poverty. From 1972 to 1991, they claim that Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) benefits “steadily declined” from $8,178 to $4,823 (109). This suggests that “instead of higher wages and supports, single mothers get the blame, stigmatization, and more cutbacks” (Sklar 109). Female-headed families wouldn’t be able to afford health insurance. Eventually, they would need to cut back on basics, resulting to greater chances of sinking in poverty and giving into illegal activities to gain sufficient funds for survival.
Indeed, Sklar has a point in his idea of the economy playing a part in poverty. Nevertheless, Murray Weidenbaum argues from his article that it is the poor people’s lack of commitment for a better life that keeps them unable to get out of poverty. Over the past 25 years, the public funds of the government for those in need actually has increased more than the general price levels for all goods and services (222). This leaves the country’s funding system clean, and turns our focus on to the individuals’ attitudes. The government’s responsibility and spending on poverty has expanded, yet there has been no improvement with the poor. It seems that welfare recipients become too dependent to the government, that they don’t even make any efforts to enhance themselves from poverty. By maintaining their status on “low or no income,” they receive the rights to qualify for welfare. They would mostly have the notion that if they go on welfare, why aim higher when right now they can get benefits without even working hard? It seems as if they are looking for an easy, yet a temporary way out. This attitude also corresponds to the theory of learned helplessness. When people don’t believe that they cannot control their lives anymore, they lose all of those hope and confidence for a better life, disallowing themselves to develop.
Are wealthy people smarter and internally stronger than others then? According to conflict theorists, this is maybe the case in certain stereotypes. They are “’smarter’ than others only in the sense of having “chosen” to be born to wealthy parents” whom they can gain inheritance of resources (Kendall 312). This makes them so much easier to be above the poverty line, compared to the poor, further widening the gap between the two classes. Moreover, most of the wealthy people out there have really worked hard for where they are now. I can say they are truly stronger and dedicated than others to have overcome the great barriers of poverty.
The war against poverty doesn’t just involve vital funds from the public, but also that sense of individual responsibility. According to Mitchell Pearlstein (qtd. in Weidenbaum 223), for a person to gain immunity from this epidemic takes only three simple steps:
- graduating high school and college
- getting married and staying married
- staying employed
High school diploma or college diploma helps the individual get a job. When the amount of income has become stable, this allows the person to get married and nurture a family. The presence of family, in turn, prompts the person to look for a job and be employed as much as possible.
Furthermore, Weidenbaum’s article, “there is much that government can and should do to reduce poverty” (224). Education is a very important factor to help ease poverty. Strengthening educational system and increasing the supply of jobs would help. People who see themselves as helpless need to be persuaded “that they aren’t really helpless at all – that their efforts matter” (Raspberry 219). Poverty can not only be solved by altering the welfare system, but also by eliminating the lingering fear within the minds of the poor shouting out how they can’t do anything about their condition (Raspberry 217, 218).
