By: Stacy Mergenthal

Stacy Mergenthal — Tue, 16 Jan 2018 23:18:00 +0000

What frustrates me most is people’s failure to correctly identify the causes of poverty, which is a huge obstacle to actually doing anything meaningful to address it. I think many, maybe even most, people see poverty as a character flaw or failure on the part of the poor. Whether from intellectual sophistry, selfishness, or something else, the idea that poverty is something easily overcome seems to be accepted by people of many demographics quite handily.

It is hard to look at poverty objectively when you have even a modicum of empathy. But as you well know, morality and ethics aside, poverty is everyone’s problem whether or not a person makes it their priority. Crime, violence, and disease can strike anyone–even those in gated communities. To speak nothing of homelessness, substance abuse, and suicide rates. An exponentially increasing rate of poverty is unsustainable. There will come a reckoning, as we have seen time and again.

Not just your hang-up at all. It frustrates and saddens me too.

Comments on: Is it my hang-up, or society’s, that we are so tolerant of poverty?

By: Stacy Mergenthal