There is a big difference between being broke in the first world and poverty stricken in the 3rd world. Even in developed nations this article isn't talking about breaking the cycle of minimum wage retail, it's talking about breaking the cycle of poverty. Your friends aren't poverty stricken. They might be having a tough time and feeling regrets about over capitalising on an education they can't use but I sorely doubt that giving them an average year's wage would solve their problems because they already have all the opportunities that the years' wage buys the ugandan farmers.
I certainly don't mean to equivocate developed and developing poverty, but I also don't agree with the inverse. Yes, we are not starving or threatened, for the most part. But in both worlds, poverty means dependence. It means not having options, or not having the ability to take opportunities. It means being stuck in a bad situation because anywhere else is worse.
My friend who works at Macy's does have clean water coming out of her tap, and that's something to be very thankful for, but that by itself doesn't make her free.
I want to relate two experiences. Do with them what you will.
The first experience is of being rich. I'm not actually rich, mind you, but I've experienced what it's like to be rich because in early 2009 my good friend opened up an IT school in Ghana and I stayed there for a month to teach a database design course. There's a range of emotions and situations that arose that contribute to the fact that "I now know what it's like to be rich" but one situation really stands out and is, I think, pertinent to your post.
I had been hanging out with a guy and he showed me around a little. When I was leaving he wanted me to buy him a laptop. He thought that getting a laptop would somehow improve his situation. He had seen people with laptops achieve success (somehow) and wanted the same, so he asked me for one. Of course I had the means to provide it, but I knew for a fact it would change nothing. I didn't get him one.
Secondly I was in #startups a couple of years ago and some guy came in talking about his idea for a startup. It was a wikipedia for everything or something ridiculous and he was really excited about it. I've been through this before so I wanted to maybe talk some sense into him about the realities of business and the tech startup world that I wish someone had relayed to me when I was young and stupid.
In a private chat, he said that he just needed $800/month to build this thing, for 6 months. During our discussions I had mentioned I run a software consultancy and do some online marketing for folks and he said "I don't have a consultancy behind me" like as in "I don't have that luxury". I actually laughed out loud. As if I were the model of carefree success. Like I was so blessed to have this thing "behind" me (nevermind I'm in debt up to my eyeballs and only managed to actually start making some money after like 7 years of fumbling about failing left, right and centre).
It was preposterous to me, but seemed perfectly logical to him. I was somehow in a position of advantage, and all he needed was a big break. Again, I was perfectly capable of providing him with everything he thought he needed, but declined.
I appreciate your anecdotes, and I'll respond with one of my own.
I went to college with two people. (More, maybe!) Not people I knew that well, but it was a very small school. They were both written up ("infracted") for marijuana use-- I forget if as part of the same incident or just very close in time. One of these people was a girl from a wealthy family that paid cash in full; the other was a boy from some impoverished corner of the country who had earned a full-ride-plus scholarship. You know how this ends.
Now, marijuana use is not a crime in Massachusetts, so the institutional punishment was as draconian as it was mild. They had both used up their one warning on previous, unrelated infractions, so they both got the same deal: A hundred-dollar fine, a letter to the parents, and social probation.
Well, that's what the wealthy one got. The poor kid also had to deal with the fact that his scholarship had a clause indicating that being placed on probation, being cited for drug use, or some combination of the two (I don't recall preicsely) made him ineligible.
Yes, it was a very expensive school-- It was a very good school, and he had worked hard to prove he deserved to be there despite not being able to pay for it. But it wouldn't really have made a difference if it had been half or a quarter as much. And for all that we who could afford to be in debt were wealthy on paper, it gave us no ability to help him. In fact we were all servants of the same patron; he was just a little closer to going home.
So the slap on the wrist was de facto expulsion. This kid couldn't even afford to go home for the holidays-- somebody had to drive him to the airport. Somebody had to pay for his ticket home. And when he got home...
Well, to be honest, I don't know what happened. I haven't seen him on Facebook lately.
When I think of first-world poverty, I think about the difference between these two people. If one of them is free, the other must be something else.
What you're referring to is more about social injustice as a result of a fiercely meritocratic, free market capitalist society. Yes, I think that healthcare and education should be free (I come from Australia where they both are, and my family was "poor" and I had access to a University education - there's a debt there but it's not as bad as what you guys call student loans).
Incidentally I wonder how many of your college buddies would vote in favour of healthcare or education funding reform? (My guess is very very few but that's beside the point).
This is a completely different problem from what the original article is discussing. The original article is talking about the fact that in areas where the poverty is so absolute, giving people things like access to schools or social programs has virtually no impact, but giving them access to a tractor and a herd of cows generates a huge economic benefit, and creates a position from which they can later do things like build schools and run their own social programs. In other words the people have skills, are willing to work and have a plan to make money and feed themselves predictably and reliably. Giving them cash makes sense.
Now I agree that giving this guy free access to education and not having a double standard for students who pay versus those who don't (which has, incidentally, crept into the Australian system too since Howard fucked everything up) is a good idea. But giving him cash isn't.
First world poverty can and should be solved institutionally, because it is an institutional problem.
