The Myth Of A Poverty Mentality In America

Ronald Reagan once said “people who are sleeping on grates...the homeless...are homeless, you might say, by choice”. Attitudes like this have been pervasive in American society for centuries: the belief that the impoverished make a conscious choice to be in poverty, or are impoverished simply because they have the wrong mindset. This is commonly described as the “poverty mentality.” A belief in the “poverty mentality” entails a belief that impoverished people can pull themselves up by their bootstraps simply by changing their mindset, and that a bad mindset can cause someone to become impoverished. Poverty in the United States is not caused by a certain mentality, but a common perception rooted in tradition and psychology of this mentality only worsens poverty in the United States. In order to address this, increased government support programs could aid in eliminating poverty.

Many experts state that personal failings or a certain mindset do not directly lead to poverty. The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Ben Carson, recently said that “poverty to a large extent is also a state of mind”. Experts argue that this is not true. Mindy Fullilove, a New School professor of urban policy and health says that “‘One of the hallmarks of science is that we are taught not to overgeneralize from a single case … So the fact that he as an individual … could get out of poverty and go to medical school and have successful careers doesn’t mean anybody who’s in poverty could”. Statistical overgeneralizations cannot represent an entire demographic. A single case of successful “bootstrapping” does not mean it is possible for everyone. If a simple change of mindset could rise someone out of poverty, one would imagine many more people would pull themselves up. Yet, the United States has very low social mobility, only 43% of children born into poverty break out of it in adulthood (Rothstein). This statistic expresses that poverty is more complex than a simple mindset, and it is rather an effect of environmental and socioeconomic factors. The United States has one of the worst mobility rates of the developed world, and one cannot make the argument that everyone else in the developed world simply has a better mentality than Americans. A change of mind cannot alter the circumstances into which one is born, therefore, a change of mentality cannot pull one out of poverty, nor does a mindset cause poverty. But to fully understand the perception of a “poverty mentality” in the United States, one must address its roots.

The perception of this mentality in the United States is deeply rooted in tradition and psychology. Reagan to Carson, and many of those before have blamed the poor for their own plight. This “suggestion that poor people are lazy or somehow at fault is ‘an idea that through American history has been an excuse for really bad policy decisions’”. By blaming individuals for a systemic plight, responsibility is shifted away from the shortcomings of those in power. This individualization of responsibility allows those in power to ignore society’s problems in favor of following their own agendas. This attitude from those not living in poverty can easily be explained by psychology. Maia Szalavitz argues that this belief stems from what psychologists call the “fundamental attribution error” which “is a natural tendency to see the behavior of others as being determined by their character – while excusing our own behavior based on circumstances”. By this logic, one views an impoverished person as being of poor character or of poor mindset, while if one were to fall into poverty, it would be viewed as a matter of circumstances. This shows that a mentality does not cause poverty, and a perception of this mentality stems from one’s own psyche, not the attitudes of others. Further evidence of this psychological perception is also provided by Szalavitz. She also attributes the idea of a poverty mentality to the “actor-observer bias.” This states that “when we watch others, we tend to see them as being driven by intrinsic personality traits”. Ergo, if someone is impoverished outsiders view their circumstances as rooted within that person, not caused by uncontrollable outside forces. This expresses the roots of the idea of the “poverty mentality” in the United States, from a psychological standpoint. But, there is often a traditional, Christian view of the poverty mentality that is deeply rooted in the United States. When one searches for “poverty mentality” on the internet, one of the first results is from the Franciscan Friars. Furthermore, the United States was settled as a puritanical society, wherein a “Protestant Ethic” was deeply valued. This ideology states that hard work is the way to salvation, and that those who do not work hard are unworthy. This could also contribute to the American idea of a “poverty mentality,” wherein the poor are impoverished due to their own shortcomings. But, the continued use of a “poverty mentality” to explain poverty itself contributes to destitution in the United States.

Denial of true causes of poverty and scapegoating of the poor only worsen poverty in the United States. By blaming individuals for systemic issues (individualization of responsibility), governments and those in power can easily shrug off any responsibility they may hold. Maia Szalavitz further claims that “biases allow society’s winners to believe that they got where they are by hard work alone and so they deserve what they have – while seeing those who didn’t make it as having failed due to lack of grit and merit.” By blaming individuals, the powerful see no point or benefit in aiding those in poverty, instead balming personal shortcomings. This can only worsen poverty, as those living in it lack ways out. Richard Reeves, a British scholar, describes “how rising inequality increases physical and geographical segregation by class, which then reduces cross-class contact and decreases the ability to interact and empathize. Less empathy then fosters greater political polarization and justification of inequality, which in turn causes the cycle to repeat”. By scapegoating the poor, the issue of poverty is pushed off the table, making finding a solution much more difficult. If poverty is someone’s own fault, why try to fix it for them? This illustrates how ignoring or minimizing poverty as a person failing, or the result of a “mindset” only makes the stressors of poverty more harsh, as aid is no longer given. But, giving aid to those in poverty may be exactly what is needed to get on the way to eradicating poverty in the United States.

The best way to address this problem would be to increase government support for social programs. The executive director of the Center for Law and Social Policy, Olivia Golden, “argues that, rather than discourage work, government support — such a food aid and health care — can encourage people to seek and keep jobs by helping them to stabilize their lives”. Government aid therefore does not encourage people to stay poor, as often argued, but instead provides a necessary safety net for people to get back on their feet. Therefore, increased government support problems would provide a worthy solution to poverty. Richard Rothstein at the Economic Policy Institute urges that the “government should be concerned, perhaps mostly concerned, with trying to remedy the socio-economic conditions that cause and perpetuate poverty for the typical low-income child”. By starting at the beginning, childhood, government support problems could provide a necessary safety net needed to stabilize one’s life in order to begin to climb out of poverty. By alleviating conditions that contribute to poverty, instead of trying to remedy a nonexistent “poverty mentality,” the United States could perhaps finally begin to effectively address poverty.

In summary, the United States must dispel the myth of a “poverty mentality” and acknowledge its roots in traditional rhetoric and psychology, thereby ceasing the expansion of poverty in the United States. An increased government support net can also alleviate some of the stressors of poverty. The belief in a “poverty mentality” is a destructive force in American society that allows citizens to continue to live in squalor while the rest of the developed world at least attempts to adequately address the issue of poverty. By creating a support network sponsored by the government, similar many of those in Europe, the United States could begin to puts itself on level with its developed counterparts in the field of human rights and dignities.