In our naturalistic world, we tend to consider things in terms of their materiality. If we can’t see it, we won’t believe it. This naturalism pervades how we think about poverty. When we analyze poverty, we are quick to measure it in terms of materiality—or rather, in terms of material lack.
In The Economics of Poverty: History, Measurement, and Policy, Australian economist Martin Ravallion makes an interesting remark. When people think about economics more generally, Ravallion writes, they think of it as “the study of national income, such as measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP).” [1]
For poverty in particular, social scientists have also traditionally tried to measure and assess poverty by the things people do not have.
A Brief History of Poverty Measurements
The first empirical attempt to assess poverty was Sir Frederick Eden’s 1797 The State of the Poor. In this three volume study, Eden examined poor families in England, Scotland, and Wales. He measured their expenses, their income, and prices. As Ravallion notes, Eden’s study was not conducted for purely intellectual reasons. Eden sought to inform the debates surrounding the developing Poor Laws of England. [2]
Until the late nineteenth century, other attempts were made to describe and assess poverty. Mathew Carey in the 1830s described the destitution of the poor to persuade others to give more generously. Friedrich Engels in 1845 raised the harsh working conditions in 1840s Manchester. Ernst Engel in 1857 discovered an economic law that says that the lower a family’s income is, the higher share of that income they spend on food. (This law is creatively called Engel’s Law.) [3]
Poverty Lines
In the late nineteenth century, Charles Booth and Seebohm Rowntree set what are now enduring trends in economics. Rowntree and Booth utilized what we call “poverty lines.” Today, economists debate whether to use absolute or relative poverty lines. Absolute poverty lines set “poverty” below a line that does not change over time and place. Relative poverty lines evaluate poverty according to context (inflation, geography, historical moment).
Rowntree’s studies are particularly interesting. His poverty line was set at the minimum income to cover a variety of costs that he deemed essential for life:
- Fuel
- Light
- Rent/housing
- Food
- Clothing
- Necessary household/personal items
To determine the cost of food, for example, Rowntree asked local stores what it would cost customers to buy a minimally substantive diet. His poverty line was pretty much set at the bare minimum of living. This minimal approach is still used by many today.
Income-Based Measurement Today
In the US, for example, we continue to live under the shadow of poverty-as-low-income. Federal assistance and government programs, as well as general societal attitudes, typically conceive of poverty in terms of income.
Mollie Orshansky (1915-2006) is in large part to thank for this. In 1963, under the Social Security Administration, Orshansky consulted the Department of Agriculture to establish poverty thresholds. The lowest of these was based on the Department’s economy plan.
The Department had formulated four plans, and the economy plan was nutritionally desolate. This plan was “designed for temporary or emergency use when funds are low.” Taking this, Orshansky set the poverty line at three times the amount of money to afford the economy plan. (It is interesting that the thresholds Orshansky based off of the more livable plans did not see as much use as the absolute lowest poverty line in US policy.)
To put this into perspective, today people recommend spending no more than 30% of one’s income on rent. The Orshansky poverty line, which determined whether the poor received aid, was horrifyingly low.
A Step Away From Materialism
This brief history of poverty measurement awakens some questions. How do we measure poverty? What impact does our measurement process have on policy? If we define poverty the wrong way, how many people who really are poor get excluded?
We cannot radically and critically consider these questions until we acknowledge the elephant in the room: materialism. Materialism, mentioned at the start, is the valuing of only that which presents itself visibly and tangibly. Because we want what can be seen and held, we focus solely on that.
It is no wonder, then, that in a materialistic West, we restrict our study of poverty to incomes that can be charted and graphed.
People will rightly recognize how materialism impacts our views of the good life. If we want happiness, we simply need to make more, buy more, produce more, consume more. But materialism also impacts our views of the bad life. The bad life is one of material lack, and this is all that needs be said.
Poverty is Spiritual
On the contrary, poverty is not just about having not enough. It is also about feeling not enough. It kills the imagination and beats down the human spirit.
This is no mere rhetoric. There is data to back this up. More secular minds might prefer to say that poverty is psychological. But spiritual minds will be quick to recognize that poverty does not just affect the mind, but the heart and soul as well.
NPR recorded a brilliant podcast about what is called “the scarcity trap.” Throughout the episode, a woman named Brandy Drew shares her story. Drew worked at a senior facility in Detroit, Michigan to support her husband and children. One day, she accidentally used the company card to purchase diapers. In a rush, she didn’t think much about it until her supervisor called her about the charge.
Though it was an honest mistake, it was company policy to fire Drew immediately. When she returned home, her husband was furious. Though she had supported him when he got laid off in the past, he accused her fiercely for making such a mistake. He blew up on her again when she forgot to get toilet paper at the store. That was the last straw for Drew.
Focusing on the Short Term
In the episode, Harvard’s Sendhil Mullainathan and Princeton’s Eldar Shafir talk about how material scarcity impacts people’s decisions. Drew’s family was poor and in debt. Drew was constantly forced to make calculated short-term decisions to keep her kids fed and clothed.
The overlap of credit and money lenders drove this pressure home. With such little money left, Drew had to max out a credit card to put food on the table. She describes the months that followed:
The first two months, I paid the minimum payment. And then I just stopped paying because I couldn’t afford to pay. I didn’t pay that card off until I got my tax refund the following year. By the time I paid it off, it was over $800 for a $500 card.
As Mullainathan and Shafir have found, poverty impacts people’s decision-making. In his article, “Why Poverty Is Like a Disease,” Christian H. Cooper writes,
To those outsiders who, by fortune of birth, have never known the calculus of, the poor seem to make sub-optimal decisions time and time again. But the choices made by the poor are supremely rational choices under the circumstances. Pondering optimal, long-term decisions is a liability when you have 48 hours of food left. Stress takes on a whole new meaning—and try as you might, it’s hard to shake.
Impulse, or Calculation?
As Cooper says, it’s not that people in poverty are worse at decision making. A two-party study conducted in 2016 confirms this. Melissa Sturge-Apple and colleagues conducted an experiment with 4 year olds from low-income families. In the first part, they gave the kids two options as the experimenter left the room: eat two M&Ms now, or eat five M&Ms once the experimenter comes back.
We would expect that the more impulsive children would choose instant gratification, while the more calculated ones would choose the bigger reward even if it meant an indefinite wait. But this was the other way around. The children who thought most calmly under stress selected the instant reward.
The second part of the study sampled from children with college-educated and wealthy mothers, and with poor mothers who did not receive a college education. This time, they could choose between three M&Ms right away, or eight M&Ms eventually.
The wealthier children who thought best under stress chose delayed gratification. The poorer children who thought best under stress chose instant gratification. What we see here is not a difference between impulse and calculation. Rather, we see two types of calculation and rationality. [4]
Conclusions
The spiritual-psychological dimensions of poverty require so many more words (and works) to be done justice. Poverty and its fruits are generationally transmitted in families and communities. It is linked to higher rates of poor mental health and mental illness. Scarce conditions affect individuals’ self-perception, and as we have seen, the very way that bright minds fixate on meeting immediate needs in the absence of security.
We must move past materialistic understandings of poverty. It is not just the result of laziness or impulsiveness. Neither is poverty simply having a low income. Poverty reaches into the very depths of the soul, reworking how one thinks and acts.
One cannot talk about morality or choice without also thinking about society, politics, and economics. It is true that we are all sinful by nature, but the sinful world we live in structures how we sin (and experience sin) differently. Materialism completely eradicates these nuances and allows class differences to generate falsehoods and conflict between classes.
This isn’t about how poor people think or act. This is about how humans think and act when they are poor. In that way, poverty itself (just like riches) becomes a spiritual entity that shapes and forms those it grasps.
References
1. Martin Ravallion, The Economics of Poverty: History, Measurement, and Policy (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2015), xxiii.
2. Ravallion, The Economics of Poverty, 46-47.
3. Ravallion, The Economics of Poverty, 65.
4. Melissa L. Sturge-Apple, Jennifer H. Suor, Patrick T. Davies, Dante Cicchetti, Michael A. Skibo, and Fred A. Rogosch, “Vagal Tone and Children’s Delay of Gratification: Differential Sensitivity in Resource-Poor and Resource-Rich Environments,” Psychological Science 27, no. 6 (2016): 885-893.
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