I Don’t Like the Way America Treats Poor People
If you know me, it won’t come as much of a surprise that I don’t like the way America treats poor people. Not you? You’re not rude to poor people. Well, before you demand an apology from me, let me explain. We — WE — are cruel to the poor.
Maybe you’re poor. If you are, you might feel overtaxed. That’s because you are. You may be too poor to pay income tax, but you pay sales tax and gasoline tax. If you smoke or drink you pay sin tax. (Those are the added expenses put on your vices by puritanical folks in power). Sure, rich smokers pay the cigarette tax too, but as a part of their income it’s miniscule. Not for the poor person though.
And don’t get me started on the withholding for Social Security. Poor folks all pay it. Rich people only pay it on the first 147,000. That’s right, there’s a maximum taxable income in our country. The guy making $500,000 a year pays not a lick of social security on $353,000 of it. Yup — free and clear. And if you earn a million? Well, $853,000 free and clear. Imagine how much better folks at the bottom of the economic pyramid would fare if instead of a maximum taxable income there was a minimum: no withholding for Social Security on the — let’s say — first $100,000 and then the high earners pay Social Security on all income above that 100 grand threshold. Struggling individuals and families would have so much more to work with and the big guys could do a little more of the heavy lifting for the seniors that made the country work so well for them.
You know what else we do to the poor, besides expect them to pay more of their share in taxes? When they can’t afford to keep a roof over their heads — even though their paying into social security to keep one over an elder’s head; even though they’re paying gas tax to improve the roads WalMart and Amazon trucks drive on; even though they’re paying sin taxes to offset medical costs — we make them grovel to get help.
Wait, I’m ahead of myself. That’s not the first thing we do. The first thing we do is make them feel inferior for needing help. We pound into their heads that their inability to make six figures is their own damned fault. Then, when it’s all so awful and they’ve succumbed to privation and humiliation, we demand that they beg.
And lastly, after they’ve groveled, waited in shelters or on the street and jumped through the hoops of filing paperwork, paying application fees and selling their belongings; after we’ve taught them to lie to us — to parrot gratitude for simple basic necessities everyone in the richest country on earth should already have; after they’ve eaten in soup kitchens; after they’ve been dragged through their shame or convinced to leave their partner or their pet behind; then we hold them to a standard that we don’t have to meet.
All across the nation right now, housing inspectors are going into houses — semi-randomly — to inspect the way the poor are living. Mind you, section 8 and public housing don’t provide free dwellings. We — under the guise of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development contribute to the finances of the household but don’t pick up the whole tab. People in publicly subsidized housing pay a percentage of their modest incomes. They also pay their utilities.
But because we paid some of the rent, we act like we should have unlimited access — poke our noses in their fridge, look through the cupboards, peek under the kids’ beds, invade any privacy we want, whenever we want. It’s appalling and it’s rude. We demand access to their homes because we paid some of their housing expense. We act like giving a person a hand up makes us their roommate. But even roommates respect privacy.
Somewhere along the way, we got in our heads, that we could be as cruel and as patriarchal and as punishing as we want just because people needed our help.
Help they wouldn’t have needed if the rich just paid their share.
