(This is chapter 20 of "Up and Out," a book condensing my long experience about how to best help poor people. I pledged earlier to get it up online as soon as possible, so it would be available for free to everyone trying to cope with helping the Katrina evacuees.)
(These are not things that need to be done during the first part of this emergency. Rather, this is for the time after that, when Katrina evacuees will be moving from getting immediate emergency assistance to trying to normalize their lives. That is when good programs to help them "up and out" of their situation need to kick in. The following is for that time.)
(For other chapters, look under "Categories" and click on the chapter you want.)
UP AND OUT: A GUIDE TO TRUE COMPASSION FOR THE POOR"
PART II: MOVING UP AND BREAKING OUT OF POVERTY
Section 2: Attitude Adjustments for Helpers
Chapter 20: The Human Need For Independence
One of the signs that adulthood has arrived is the need, even the drive, to be independent. Without such a drive, most of us would never leave home. Our distraught parents would have to find ways to get their fledgling out of the nest. We would be considered infantile, weak, dependent in a way that is unnatural for an adult.
Wanting to be independent is not only a mark of the adult, but it can also be seen in those who are in the midst of dependence. Even small children show many signs of wanting to be independent. They want to do as they wish, not to be told what to do by others, and to think for themselves. Elderly people who need help still usually want to be as independent as possible. Physically handicapped people delight in having as much independence as they can manage.
A wish to be dependent is usually regarded as a problem. It is considered unhealthy.
People usually want to take care of themselves. In addition, they want to help others. They feel a need to carry their part of the load, to do their fair share of the work. They also want to do what they can for their community as well as for themselves and their families.
Some people do not feel this way. But they are usually considered problems for society. In fact, they are problems.
One important part of independence is supporting ourselves financially by our own efforts. This may go against the idea that financial independence means having a guaranteed income without working. That is, that it means being “independently wealthy.” But being independently wealthy through inheriting money does not lead to the same true personal independence that supporting ourselves and contributing to society by our own work does.
Sometimes we may long to have an income without working for it. Winning the lottery is a dream shared by millions. Winning, however, can be a very mixed blessing. It has been well documented that lottery winners seem to have more problems after winning than they did before.
Some wealthy parents do provide for their offspring so well that they do not have to work. Many such parents, however, come to regret having done so when they see the effects on their children.
Most of the wealthy, of course, do work. They are typically good citizens, hard-working, married without divorce, frugal and prudent.
But studies have shown that if they help their adult children very much financially, those children do not turn out as well as their parents.1 In fact, they turn out to be quite dependent on their parents.
If they do not help their adult children very much financially, however, those children tend to become prosperous on their own. They show great initiative and industriousness. And they tend to become responsible citizens like their parents.
The dependent, over-helped adult children of the wealthy tend to lack confidence in their own abilities. Never having made it on their own, they doubt they could. They are haunted by fears of financial disaster. They also show a lack of the discipline that was learned by their independent brothers and sisters who made it without help.
The independent adult children of the wealthy tend to live without much fear of failure. Having become successful entirely on their own, they are confident that they could do it again if things went wrong.
This study sheds light on what happens when any of us receives an income, as adults, without working for it. It tends to weaken us. Strangely, it saps our confidence. We fear we could not support ourselves on our own. We live with fear of losing the income. We also lack the discipline and capability that having to work brings.
Financial dependence may seem good in theory. In practice, however, it works out badly. Whether the unearned income comes from a wealthy parent or from a government subsidy, the effects are surprisingly similar.
People do better when they are financially independent, earning their own way and supporting themselves and their families.
But how about those who retire, living on income that comes without their working for it? The answer seems to be that, if they worked all their lives before retiring, these effects do not apply to them. Their characters were formed, in great part by their work lives, long before their retirement. It does not affect their confidence or industriousness. In fact, many of them continue to seek out work of various kinds, looking for ways to keep contributing to their families and communities.
All this gives rise to an important question. Having an income without working for it, during what should be their most productive years, is very bad for the children of the wealthy. Why, then, should we think it would be any different for the poor? Or for any of the rest of us, for that matter?
The poor already have so many problems. Why would we want them to have the additional problems that come from financial dependence? In trying to help them by supporting them, without their working, by giving them unearned income, we added to their problems. The Welfare system was well intentioned. But it needed to be abandoned, for the sake of the poor themselves.
Does that mean that the poor should not be helped? Or that they never should have financial assistance? By no means! But the assistance they get needs to be very different from simply an unearned income.
One of the destructive things that happen to people who get unearned incomes is the mental gymnastics many go through to justify that in their own minds. There is almost always a “story” about why the unearned income is only right and fair.
These mental stories have many forms. If it is a wealthy parent who gives the income, the story may be that they would never miss the money anyhow. If it is the government, it also may be that the government has so much money that it would never be missed. Or it may be that most of the money comes from taxes on the rich, and that makes it fair, because the rich should not have so much more than others.
The story may be that society owes them for having victimized them. Or because they never had a break. Or because they had a bad education. Or because society has no right to expect them to live by its stupid rules. Or because there is a plot to keep their group down.
Whatever the story, it may well have some element of truth in it. But it also has so much added fiction that it can keep them from understanding the world around them. It handicaps their ability to function in that world. It warps their thinking about their situation. It increases resistance to making major changes in their lives. It may also make them angry and resentful, which can make them less successful when they do become employees.
The negative effects of living on unearned income that we do know about are very costly. There may be still other effects. But we know enough to realize that giving unearned income to the poor is not good for them.
Being truly financially independent, supporting themselves by their own work, is one of the healthiest things that human beings can do. It gives us qualities of confidence, lack of fearfulness, resourcefulness, industriousness and realistic thinking that we do not seem to get in other ways. Apparently, it tops financial dependence in every way.
1 Stanley and Danko, The Millionaire Next Door, Pocket Star Books, 1996, pp. 177, 188.
