As I begin writing, COVID-19 is running through the world and just yesterday my state closed all restaurants, bars and other entertainment. I've done remote work and practiced strict germ control for years because of my medical condition, so COVID-19 is proving to have relatively minor impact on my life.
Because I already work remotely, I'm not being laid off or fired or scrambling to adjust to working from home for the first time. Because I already practice strict germ control, I'm not making big adjustments in my lifestyle. I'm making really small adjustments compared to a lot of other people.
I don't make a lot of money -- in fact, I'm very seriously poor. But I'm usually able to find some way to get the really important stuff done in a timely enough manner that it doesn't turn into a real big problem.
I certainly need more money, but I don't really need tons of money. I'm talented at finding lightweight solutions.
This is me trying to be funny and basically bombing at it:
What I am trying to say is something like "I'm poor and the worst part of being poor is that I'm not as pretty as I would like to be." Which is both true and meets the test of being petty because it seems to in no way interfere with anything that actually matters in my life.
It isn't preventing me from earning an income. It doesn't appear to prevent men from finding me attractive, which just honestly boggles my mind.
I was very pretty in my youth and clothes was a big thing in my life for a lot of years. I have schlepped around in t-shirts and sweatpants in recent years -- and now I'm "The bearded lady" to boot -- and I feel like how I look ought to be slamming doors shut in my face, but it doesn't seem to be.
Given how much I was convinced that my looks mattered tremendously, I'm quite surprised by that fact. It doesn't mesh with my mental models for how life works.
As the world burns, my life seems to finally be coming together. I still don't have tons of money, but my life isn't being suddenly and viciously derailed by the pandemic. So far, it is an aggravation and an inconvenience for me, not a disaster.
So that begs the question: What is poverty, really? I have had far too little money for years, but all the really important stuff seems to get done, sooner or later, usually before it turns into "a real problem."
I'm often stressed that it wasn't done yesterday. It should have been done yesterday. Yet it doesn't turn into a terrible train wreck.
I've spent a lot of years trying to figure out some way to talk about "just what is REAL poverty?" and failing to figure that out. Because, to me, real poverty is about not getting important needs met and that doesn't really correlate one-for-one to a lack of funds per se.
A recent conversation sort of turned my problem on its head. Someone pointed out to me that monks take a vow of poverty, but that doesn't mean they are miserable. They keep things spartan, but their important needs are met.
They are housed. They are fed. They are healthy. They have a job and it's meaningful work and they have important social connections. They have hopes and dreams and a purpose.
If you talk about any other population -- any population other than monks -- and you talk about poverty, you really mean they have miserable lives. You don't just mean that they don't have a lot of material stuff.
You mean the lack of money and material wealth seriously negatively impacts their health, their social life, their career prospects and every important detail bearing on actual quality of life. You mean they are sick and they have social problems and they have little or no hope and their dreams are dying on the vine, if they even have any dreams at all.
We mostly don't have good language for making clear distinctions between someone who is poor and miserable versus someone who doesn't have much money, but still has a full life, even though it's a full life with a smaller carbon footprint. We don't really know how to clearly communicate that "This person has a low income, but all of their important needs are met. And this other person is simply not getting important needs met and it's a real problem."
Years ago, I read about an international study where they didn't look at cash income to measure poverty. They looked at things like how many meals per day do you get and do you have a home. The study concluded that by the standards of people in India, less than one half of one percent of Americans were "poor."
I have read a lot about poverty over the years. Most years, the American Federal Poverty Line puts between 8 percent and 14 percent of the population below the poverty line.
But only two percent of the American population is "chronically poor." If I recall correctly, this is typically defined as falling below the poverty line at least five years out of ten.
Additionally, there is a school of thought that suggests that the bottom third of all Americans suffer from relative poverty. In other words, they have less than other Americans and this is a de facto hardship, even if they aren't suffering from absolute poverty.
I guess the best way to explain that without simply ridiculing it is to say they may get enough to eat and what not, but they are barred from a lot of social stuff and this closes doors in their face. It limits their opportunities and kills their hopes and dreams.
In a country that conceived of itself as the land of opportunity and a place where class no longer mattered, it runs counter to our values to accept that poor people have fewer opportunities. We are constantly trying to find ways to break down those barriers and let anyone soar as high as their spirit will take them.
The problem is that we increasingly focus primarily on material wealth, not opportunity per se or other intangible values that ultimately strongly shape material outcomes.
We need new ideas and new words for those ideas. We need that so we can conceive of a world in which the lower classes -- the people with less money -- are merely poor in the way that monks are poor, but are not trapped in abject misery with no way out and no hopes or dreams.
I would like poverty in America to stop meaning that you have no health insurance or that your health care costs are a terrible burden. I would like it to stop meaning that you delay seeing a doctor because you can't afford to get checked.
I would like poverty in America to mean you live in a small space with no car, but you can get around because it's a walkable neighborhood with good transit options. Those small spaces mostly don't exist, something I kvetch about a lot on the internet.
We've torn down about a million SROs and new homes are twice the size that they were in the 1950s while holding one less person. Meanwhile, the poorest of the poor are often simply homeless.
But first we need language and concepts that help us distinguish poverty -- a lack of material wealth -- from abject misery. We don't know how to cleanly separate such things in our minds and I think it substantially harms our ability to make effective policies that serve the people well.
In the face of the pandemic, I think it is suddenly a rather urgent need. We need people to live lighter on the land while having a high quality of life. Shrinking our carbon footprint -- a kind of secular vow of poverty -- shouldn't mean harming our quality of life.
It should mean reducing our negative impacts on the world so we can all be healthier -- including those living on less. It needs to stop being a case of The Have Nots existing in abject misery so The Haves can have more than others and live A Lifestyles of the Rich and Shameless life.
Because I already work remotely, I'm not being laid off or fired or scrambling to adjust to working from home for the first time. Because I already practice strict germ control, I'm not making big adjustments in my lifestyle. I'm making really small adjustments compared to a lot of other people.
I don't make a lot of money -- in fact, I'm very seriously poor. But I'm usually able to find some way to get the really important stuff done in a timely enough manner that it doesn't turn into a real big problem.
I certainly need more money, but I don't really need tons of money. I'm talented at finding lightweight solutions.
This is me trying to be funny and basically bombing at it:
I suck at humor. But here's my try:
— Doreen Traylor (@doreen_michele) March 17, 2020
The worst part of living in a 100 year old tenement is the bad lighting. I can't properly tweeze my face, which is the worst, and I've turned into the bearded lady because of it, which I absolutely hate.#Priorities #povertyisugly pic.twitter.com/StaJTRXWUp
What I am trying to say is something like "I'm poor and the worst part of being poor is that I'm not as pretty as I would like to be." Which is both true and meets the test of being petty because it seems to in no way interfere with anything that actually matters in my life.
It isn't preventing me from earning an income. It doesn't appear to prevent men from finding me attractive, which just honestly boggles my mind.
I was very pretty in my youth and clothes was a big thing in my life for a lot of years. I have schlepped around in t-shirts and sweatpants in recent years -- and now I'm "The bearded lady" to boot -- and I feel like how I look ought to be slamming doors shut in my face, but it doesn't seem to be.
Given how much I was convinced that my looks mattered tremendously, I'm quite surprised by that fact. It doesn't mesh with my mental models for how life works.
As the world burns, my life seems to finally be coming together. I still don't have tons of money, but my life isn't being suddenly and viciously derailed by the pandemic. So far, it is an aggravation and an inconvenience for me, not a disaster.
So that begs the question: What is poverty, really? I have had far too little money for years, but all the really important stuff seems to get done, sooner or later, usually before it turns into "a real problem."
I'm often stressed that it wasn't done yesterday. It should have been done yesterday. Yet it doesn't turn into a terrible train wreck.
I've spent a lot of years trying to figure out some way to talk about "just what is REAL poverty?" and failing to figure that out. Because, to me, real poverty is about not getting important needs met and that doesn't really correlate one-for-one to a lack of funds per se.
A recent conversation sort of turned my problem on its head. Someone pointed out to me that monks take a vow of poverty, but that doesn't mean they are miserable. They keep things spartan, but their important needs are met.
They are housed. They are fed. They are healthy. They have a job and it's meaningful work and they have important social connections. They have hopes and dreams and a purpose.
If you talk about any other population -- any population other than monks -- and you talk about poverty, you really mean they have miserable lives. You don't just mean that they don't have a lot of material stuff.
You mean the lack of money and material wealth seriously negatively impacts their health, their social life, their career prospects and every important detail bearing on actual quality of life. You mean they are sick and they have social problems and they have little or no hope and their dreams are dying on the vine, if they even have any dreams at all.
We mostly don't have good language for making clear distinctions between someone who is poor and miserable versus someone who doesn't have much money, but still has a full life, even though it's a full life with a smaller carbon footprint. We don't really know how to clearly communicate that "This person has a low income, but all of their important needs are met. And this other person is simply not getting important needs met and it's a real problem."
Years ago, I read about an international study where they didn't look at cash income to measure poverty. They looked at things like how many meals per day do you get and do you have a home. The study concluded that by the standards of people in India, less than one half of one percent of Americans were "poor."
I have read a lot about poverty over the years. Most years, the American Federal Poverty Line puts between 8 percent and 14 percent of the population below the poverty line.
But only two percent of the American population is "chronically poor." If I recall correctly, this is typically defined as falling below the poverty line at least five years out of ten.
Additionally, there is a school of thought that suggests that the bottom third of all Americans suffer from relative poverty. In other words, they have less than other Americans and this is a de facto hardship, even if they aren't suffering from absolute poverty.
I guess the best way to explain that without simply ridiculing it is to say they may get enough to eat and what not, but they are barred from a lot of social stuff and this closes doors in their face. It limits their opportunities and kills their hopes and dreams.
In a country that conceived of itself as the land of opportunity and a place where class no longer mattered, it runs counter to our values to accept that poor people have fewer opportunities. We are constantly trying to find ways to break down those barriers and let anyone soar as high as their spirit will take them.
The problem is that we increasingly focus primarily on material wealth, not opportunity per se or other intangible values that ultimately strongly shape material outcomes.
We need new ideas and new words for those ideas. We need that so we can conceive of a world in which the lower classes -- the people with less money -- are merely poor in the way that monks are poor, but are not trapped in abject misery with no way out and no hopes or dreams.
I would like poverty in America to stop meaning that you have no health insurance or that your health care costs are a terrible burden. I would like it to stop meaning that you delay seeing a doctor because you can't afford to get checked.
I would like poverty in America to mean you live in a small space with no car, but you can get around because it's a walkable neighborhood with good transit options. Those small spaces mostly don't exist, something I kvetch about a lot on the internet.
We've torn down about a million SROs and new homes are twice the size that they were in the 1950s while holding one less person. Meanwhile, the poorest of the poor are often simply homeless.
But first we need language and concepts that help us distinguish poverty -- a lack of material wealth -- from abject misery. We don't know how to cleanly separate such things in our minds and I think it substantially harms our ability to make effective policies that serve the people well.
In the face of the pandemic, I think it is suddenly a rather urgent need. We need people to live lighter on the land while having a high quality of life. Shrinking our carbon footprint -- a kind of secular vow of poverty -- shouldn't mean harming our quality of life.
It should mean reducing our negative impacts on the world so we can all be healthier -- including those living on less. It needs to stop being a case of The Have Nots existing in abject misery so The Haves can have more than others and live A Lifestyles of the Rich and Shameless life.