Do people really blame poor people for being poor?

These folks obviously should've been more shrewd in picking their parents, amiright?

I think people who insist it is all a matter of personal responsibility, know better.

It is just so hard to pat yourself on the back, if you acknowledge that you're just a lucky bastard.
It's much easier to feel your superiority if you can pretend, others are just irresponsible.

It might also be a little frightening to think, your luck might run out.

well-intentioned if a little naive. At least we could agree that circumstance and personal effort are both important factors, though I would obviously prioritize the former over the latter, given we don't choose our parents or home environment.

Naive maybe, well-intentioned I'm not so sure.

It's a shorter trip to home plate when you're born on third base.

struggling.

they will claim it's because money is going for welfare and other shit.

They're starting to shake it off only because poverty is now pervasive. We have all experienced it, had family experiencing it, or have friends who have fallen into poverty.

People don't throw off the programming until a brick wall falls on them or someone close to them. That's when it gets real enough for them to ask hard questions and come up with different answers than they've been taught.

because they're so much smarter, better educated and more ambitious than the poor.

Then it does happen to them.

Well said.

-Laelth

Frightened because in the poor they see their own reflection staring back at them from the mirror.

In this society poverty is considered to be the result of failure -- either failure of intellect, of ambition, or even of morality. To be poor in this country is to be considered defeated and unworthy. Ergo, no one wants to identify with the "losers" in this society. People with money and power are the "winners", even though they could also be the most vile creatures who ever walked the earth. Wealth is worshipped; even from the pulpit the leaders of megachurches tell the poor that God wants truly wants them to be rich and if only they pray hard enough it will happen. That message only reinforces the notion that poverty is the fault of the poor themselves.

How freaking heartless do you have to be to piss and moan about that?

The Blaze, Thomas Sowell, you-name-it. They'll say poor people are poor "because they're lazy embracing ghetto culture and want Obamaphones and want money to vote Democrat."

and when government is corrupted by being held hostage to the almighty dollar, that role can only be negative for the general population.

Thanks for the thread, theHandpuppet.

PBS NewsHour
How the U.S. compares on income inequality and poverty
Elizabeth Shell
June 19, 2014

There’s new data on income inequality out from the OECD Thursday, so we thought we’d take a look to see how the U.S. compares against the group’s 33 other countries — and its upcoming World Cup matches (more on that in a bit).

When we look at income, the U.S. has had a wider gap — meaning less equal distribution of income — than the OECD average for at least the past 30 years...

...While the report doesn’t give much explanation as to why this is, high youth unemployment and more generous social services for those 65 and older are likely to have something to do with it.

In the U.S., poverty has averaged around 26.92 percent of the population with an income less than 50 percent of the country’s median income, after taxes and benefits are added (how the OECD defines “relative income poverty”). For years with data available since 1983, it maxed at just under 18 percent in 1989; the lowest was 16.5 percent in 2009. In fact, the U.S. poverty rate in 2011 was higher compared to all other OECD countries other than Israel, Mexico and Turkey....

MORE at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/u-s-compares-income-inequality-poverty/

All of which are bastions of social equality and economic justice, amiright?

The U.S., by many measures, is barely a First World country anymore. When we're down there with Mexico and Turkey, you know things are not going well for most of us.

Starting with who their parents are, or where they are born. Acknowledging how much of life is up to chance is too scary for many people.

I try to be grateful everyday for having clean running water.

But even here on DU we have people that believe people are poor because they are just stupid, lazy or irresponsible.

... I had posted an article in which it was stated that the number of poor and hungry in this country was on the rise. I was challenged to provide proof to this assertion, which I did but only in the face of some surprising animosity.

There's just a very brief video clip of Obama saying that chance shouldn't determine destiny.

The whole "if you're poor, it must be your fault" argument is wearing thin as more and more people know some highly-educated, hard-working people who, despite their best efforts, are still broke.

-Laelth

They are diehards on everything the rest of the country is reasonable about. How many times do we see that 20+ percent of Republicans stand their ground on most issues?

Incredible.