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Morgan Bell

Professor Basham

English 101

7 October 2018

Poverty is not a Condition

Barbara Ehrenreich’s article, “How I Discovered the Truth about Poverty,” explores

some potential theories for why people experience poverty. Ehrenreich’s article is troublesome

as it tries to explain in a few pages why people live in poor conditions. The essay is not grounded

in research and hard statistics. Instead, the essay reflects how the well-off try to rationalize poor

people being poor so that they do not have to feel responsible for helping better the situation.

Ehrenreich’s assertions that attitude, culture, and being different are the main factors leading to

poverty are gross over generalizations that do not begin to encompass how and why people truly

experience poverty.

Ehrenreich first assertion, “Poverty was caused, not by low wages or a lack of jobs, but

by bad attitudes and faulty lifestyles,” is a faulty generalization that does address the root of the

problem. There are people that live in poverty because they have lost their jobs. Others live in

poverty because they cannot afford to go to college to get a better education. The cost of college

has been soaring out of control, and some people cannot afford to take on that kind of debt.

There are, of course, some poor people that have bad attitudes, but there are seemingly as many

rich people with bad attitudes. This statement would need some hard cause-effect data to prove

that it is even a major contributing factor to the problem. It seems more probable that the

poverty helps create some of the bad attitudes rather than the other way around.

Poverty is additionally not caused by culture. Poverty does not discriminate. While
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Ehrenreich stated that the “shaky structures of the ‘Negro family’” could be to blame, that

statement is over simplistic, racist, and unfounded. Poverty is not just based on the African-

American race; it includes all people from different races, cultures, and religions all around the

world. All races experience both prosperity and poverty. There may be some statistics that can

show that a greater majority of minorities experience poverty, but the classification of their

culture is not the causation of their poverty. One might even begin to consider the attitudes of

others towards minorities as a more plausible causation.

Ehrenreich also takes the position that, “The poor were different from everyone else,”

which is arguably the most offensive statement of all. People affected by poverty are not simply

different from everyone else. Just because someone is poor compared to others does not mean

they are different. A problem with this generalization is so many people become concerned with

material possessions and begin to think they are better people because of that they have and own.

Poor people want the same things that everyone else wants in life. They want to be loved, they

want to feel safe, and they want better for their children than they had. To state that poor people

are just different is grossly insensitive and naïve. Of course, a person that is extremely poor is

not going to be browsing for a fancy sports car; they are going to be preoccupied instead with

making sure the electricity stays on and that there is food on the table that night. That does not,

however, mean that they do not still dream of better days ahead.

Ehrenreich’s article provides valuable insights into the condescending attitudes of people

that have not experienced poverty attempting to rationalize poverty. Bad attitudes will not cause

poverty, and it takes more than a good attitude to cause prosperity. Culture alone does not

determine whether or not a person will live in poverty. Poverty stricken people are not merely

different from the rest of us. Poverty is an ongoing problem in today’s world. While these things
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might be factors in poverty, they do not cause poverty. The author’s time could be better spent

devising ways to assist the less fortunate rather than placing blame.
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Work Cited

Barbara Ehrenreich. “How I Discovered the Truth about Poverty.” From the Nation, March 15,

2012. Reprinted with the permission of the Nation.