There’s more to being poor than meets the eye

While standing in the grocery store, I overheard a conversation between two people. They were commenting on the laziness of people who are poor. The gist of the conversation was that if people would work harder they would not be poor and that people who are poor are not intelligent; otherwise, they would have a gotten a better education, a better job. After a little more bashing of people in poverty they walked out of the store and climbed into a $99,000 vehicle.

If I were a person who liked to kid myself, I would believe those ideas are isolated and out of the ordinary, and I had just witnessed something very rare.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case. The idea that people who have wealth, or even just a good income, are more intelligent and hardworking than people who are poor is an idea that is shared by at least 27% of the population according to a CBS news report. In America, 43% of people believe that anyone can find a job if they really want to work. If your income is greater than $50,000, you are more likely to believe that there are fewer people living in poverty. If you earn less than $25,000 you are more likely to actually have an understanding of how many Americans are poor.