A Crowd-Sourced Escape From Poverty?

[xchrom]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/177350/crowd-sourced-escape-poverty



Last month Linda Tirado, a 31-year-old from Cedar City, Utah, was reading Gawker comment threads when she came across some of her online friends grousing about poor people’s self-defeating behavior. “They didn’t understand why poor people just kept doing these things that were counterproductive over and over instead of tightening the belt,” she says. And so Tirado, a mother of two with two low-paying jobs and a full college course load, tried to explain, writing under her commenter handle, KillerMartinis.

“You have to understand that we know that we will never not feel tired,” she wrote in an essay titled “Why I Make Terrible Decisions, or, poverty thoughts.” “We will never feel hopeful. We will never get a vacation. Ever. We know that the very act of being poor guarantees that we will never not be poor. It doesn’t give us much reason to improve ourselves. We don’t apply for jobs because we know we can’t afford to look nice enough to hold them…. I have missing teeth and skin that looks like it will when you live on b12 and coffee and nicotine and no sleep. Beauty is a thing you get when you can afford it, and that’s how you get the job that you need in order to be beautiful. There isn’t much point trying.”

Tirado was trying to put flesh on the sort of ideas that Harvard economist Sendhil Mullainathan and Princeton psychologist Eldar Shafir popularized in their much-discussed new book Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much. Among other things, that book flipped the conventional wisdom about bad decisions leading to poverty, arguing instead that poverty impedes good decision-making. This was something Tirado understood intimately, and she wanted to communicate what it feels like to live that way.

Initially, her piece, like most Internet comments, floated echoless in the ether. But a week and a half ago, it started going viral. After a few thousand people had read it, Tirado e-mailed Jessica Coen, the editor of Gawker’s sister site Jezebel, and suggested that she highlight it on that site’s front page, which she did. Then the piece appeared on the front page of The Huffington Post. The Atlantic blogged about it. A literary agent got in touch, and after a few readers emailed offers to contribute to a book project, Tirado started a GoFundMe page. Her initial goal was $10,500. As of this writing, she’s raised more than $60,000, well over twice what she typically earns in a year.

[OneGrassRoot]

1. No, I don't think so.

We see a few of these stories a month, stories that go viral and people chip in. Remember the bus monitor who was bullied by the kids, and something like $600k was raised for her? She wasn't even in financial crisis, and while it was heartwarming, it drove me a little crazy thinking about how that money could have helped many, many, many people with food, shelter, etc. (Granted, I think she was going to use some of the funds to create yet another non-profit...yes, I am jaded about the sheer number of nonprofits and other admirable efforts which, because there are so many, seem to make the efforts fragmented and inefficient...they basically end up working against one another in our typical competition-based society.)

I see this piecemeal crowdfunding approach as not much different than the inequality around us every day systemically, which creates the poverty to begin with.

There's inequality to access, inconsistency in the stories that get noticed, etc.

These fundraising sites are inundated with requests -- one no more worthy than another. Who gets noticed is often like a popularity contest or, again, just the luck of the draw as far as what goes viral and what doesn't.

Granted, it's wonderful when even one person or family can be helped. We see it here on DU with the Help-a-DUer threads -- opportunities to help fellow members in times of crisis.

It's like the starfish story: each person helped in some way is worthy and it's a good thing, even though the sheer numbers can be overwhelming. We need to do what we can.

Still, it's a drop in the bucket of the millions and millions of people reflected in each of these individual stories that we DO hear about. And the average person has only so much they can give before it impacts their own ability to get by each day. How many fundraisers can a nation have for the myriad challenges facing the vast majority of us?

If we get more crowdfunding donations by the millionaires and billionaires -- to be dispersed amongst many people and communities -- then we're talking.

That's kind of what I'm working toward with the Six Degrees of Compassion idea.

[LuvNewcastle]

2. It seems like the story spoken of in the OP will have a happy ending,

but just think of how many others who are going through the same thing but can't express themselves so well in writing. Our way of helping the needy is woefully inadequate to meet the needs of so many others. We have a lot of good people in America. In fact, I'd say that most Americans are good people, but in the end, we're just a bunch of poor people giving each other money when one of is in a bad spot. We're not getting anywhere like this, and that has to change.

[LisaLynne]

3. That is so true (both posts).

The media focuses on these "exception" cases because it makes everybody feel good and also provides an excuse to ignore the real problem. We can look at these stories and be like, "Well, see, they could just do that and everything would be fine" but it won't/doesn't happen for everybody and those people that it doesn't happen for are just as worthy and just as human.

[seveneyes]

4. Maybe for the lucky few

It's a game of favorites and it's unlikely the millions of needy people will ever come close to this kind of jackpot. Some stories sell better than others, as expected.

[Laelth]

5. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[haele]

6. Good for her. Other people still have to hope for more living wage jobs, but honestly, good for her

Not everyone can be a successful artist or athlete, or a manager, or an officer, or an executive, or inherit a large amount of money or a profitable business. Not everyone can be that exceptional worker that gets that one promotion from the majority of floor workers into management that comes around every couple years. The defitition of exceptional itself is based on something outside the norm, not available in normal circumstances. Through extreme luck, or extreme talent, or enough charisma to convince people to take chances on you, you can succeed. Otherwise, you'll just have to take what's out there.

This is the problem I always had with my father in law, who couldn't seem to understand why the vast majority of people he grew up with in poor, rural Alabama remained in poor, rural Alabama while he went on to be a VP in a large insurance company after a 30 year stint as an officer in the military.
My late father in law was extremely lucky, even though he would always claim he did it on "his own" through his own hard work.
His mother worked three jobs to get him into the state university so he could concentrate on his grades without having to work; between a bachelor's degree and ROTC, he became an officer (living 30 years off taxpayer dollars), got merit promotions, housing, and food as part of his job, got a PhD paid for by the military, and manged to be personable enough in his work to get a star - which enabled him to know people in executive circles and got him his VP job when he retired. It was a great job. But he was never a "grunt" worker, and his hard work was only a requisite to stay on a career path already set out for him once he made the choice to get into ROTC and join the military. He didn't have to worry much about the economy, switching careers, outsourcing, or layoffs, and he had a defined career path where it was what his choices were that pretty much controlled his destiny, and a well-defined safety net to support him if or when "bad things" happened. If anything, his mother made the majority of the effort to get him started on a lucrative career.
To make it out of poverty was a good thing for him to do - but it wasn't because he worked harder than anyone else, and he certainly didn't do it on his own - the taxpayers of the United States had a lot to do with providing him with a butt-load of opportunities to succeed over a good three decades.

Most people have to work for others for their livelihood, and their ability to advance is defined by their employer. Most people don't have an employer who is willing to invest in bringing good workers into leadership roles - like the government does. Most people have to invest their own money to advance themselves, and hope that there is something out there for them to advance to. It's a gamble that many small businesspeople and artists make, and most fail and lose all the money they invested in their success.

So if there aren't sufficient living wage jobs available - if the majority of jobs are going to be low-paying "service" work, low-skilled labor or delivery work, then there's going to be a shit-load of people who will be stuck in poverty for the rest of their lives. Or they're going to have to work two or three of those available jobs, taking jobs away from other people desperate for work, just to live in some semblance of comfort and provide an opportunity for their children to get out of poverty.

This lady is very lucky - and it appears she know it. Good for her, and may her project succeed.

Haele

[Wounded Bear]

7. I agree overall with your post, but....

You are vastly overstating the amount of 'merit' involved in military advancement and pay, particularly in the officer class.

Aside from combat, there aren't that many ways to advance on 'merit.' Congress controls the commissioning of officers, and that means politics.



Otherwise, a decent example of how nobody really 'does it on their own.'

[haele]

9. I knew many military would question "merit" when it came to advancement - :)

But I was providing a comparison between civilian and military employment, benefits and ability to advance.

In general, officer advancement in the military, is far more available to the average officer than it is in the civilian world - even in government jobs. Advancement is very much a function of overcoming the general "wait for orders", attitude, putting up with bullshit duties and being quick to take up opportunities when they arise.
There is a specific "time in service, check the boxes" progression for accretion in position that (barring outside forces like conflicts or recession) is pretty fool-proof to a certain level, and the average active duty officer commission is still a minimum seven years (with advancement opportunities, full pay and benefits) in service.

Very few other organizations guarantee a paid job for seven years.

Yes, to get to the executive or Flag levels similar to what my FIL did still requires the same amount of politics that one sees in the civilian world, but frankly, the U.S. military is an example of one of the largest successful Socialist organizations in the World.

YMMV, but it is far easier even for line-level Marine Corps and Army officers to receive merit advance in service than it is for an equivalent civilian lower level manager, technician/engineer, or skilled worker to advance on their job in the same amount of time.
Specialists, Air Force and Navy Officers have an even better advancement advantage than the average line officer does.

The U.S. civilian workforce equivalent level does not have equivalent raises, bonuses, benefits (especially educational and training), and subsidies to advance that military officers have, even with Congressional commissioning and oversight of manning levels.

Ans for enlisted - well, from experience (myself and my husband, enlisted in two different services), if one chooses the right MOS/NEC, and is "a good team player", puts up with the kindergarten bullshit and keeps one's nose clean, one can have either use the average four to ten years of enlistment most service members are in to complete a degree and get a decent job when they get out, or might be guaranteed 20 years of employment so long as they can keep "checking the box" - the latter, again, if one can choose or get the training or into billets that aren't affected by draw-down or "peace dividend".

Haele

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. charity and human nature

It's hard to not become cynical.

Researchers have found that a group which is told that a single child needs lifesaving treatment that costs $300,000 will donate more than a group which is told that eight children could be saved with a similar treatment that cumulatively costs $300,000. They also found that the willingness of people to donate was inversely related to the number of people their donation would help.

I think that the $60,000 would be better spent giving broccoli cooking instructions and explaining to people how to cook without "attracting roaches".

Separating cause from effect is pointless. Shitty life skills such as the ones described by Ms Tirado, whether caused by being poor or being the cause of poverty will have the same effect - remaining in poverty.

Also, it is not at all likely that she has "escaped poverty". She will probably have the same fate as most lottery winners before her.