Is poverty truly preventable and to what extent is it a governments responsibility?

purplemonster

Argument Topic: Intriguing question

Let’s define poverty as the state in which a person financially struggles to afford a minimum standard of living (minimum amount of food, clothes, water, and shelter to survive). In the U.S., in 2023, that’s making less than $14,500 a year. 

Your first question was, “is poverty truly preventable?”. In my mind, absolutely. In simple math, if the U.S. government dedicated part of its annual military budget of $766b to — with no strings attached — lifting the 37 million qualifying Americans above the poverty line, it could do that. It’d be a heavy lift of $536b, but it’s mathematically possible. Sure, it would deplete other budgets. But the original question just asked whether it’s preventable, and technically, the answer is yes. 

The second question, “to what extent is it the government’s responsibility?” makes me think that a partnership relationship—not a donor relationship—between the government and any impoverished citizens could work. A partnership implies that there’s effort, responsibility, and work required from both parties. Successful partnerships are found in business, marriages, international relations, and many other contexts, and I believe they could be found in this case, too. If a person who’s struggling wants to get help, put in effort, and do whatever’s in their capability to improve their situation, then the government should offer support. Government-run programs to provide jobs, affordable housing, food stamps, and healthcare all do this today. Some programs are terribly executed, but that’s irrelevant to the question. The main idea is that a government should significantly share a responsibility to lift its citizens out of poverty. The original treaty of the U.S. government, after all, is support life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — none of which are possible when you’re struggling every week to survive. So a truly responsible government should step in to help people help themselves. 

Factfinder

@debater3000

The haves and the have nots have been with us since the beginning it seems. Innovators have looked at their circumstances and figured out ways to make survival doable. For instance hitting animals with rocks can feed us sometimes, but the innovators contemplated on different ways one can hit an animal with a rock. Other innovators figured out ways to test the vegetation to see what's edible and what isn't. Then there are those who watched what they were doing and began to emulate the innovators. Then there are those who couldn't for some physical reason. Then there are those who sponged off the innovators and refused to do for themselves. I would say it is these sponges who were one of the earliest causes of poverty. Simplified of course but on point.  

MayCaesar

I do not think that poverty is truly preventable due to its relativity: as long as the distribution of wealth, health, happiness and everything else is exactly equal, there will be people who have more and people who have less, and those who have less will be poor relative to those who have more. Nor is it a government's responsibility to do anything about it: its only responsibility is to protect human rights, not provide humans with wealth.

I will make another point: poverty is not a virtue. I do not think that someone deserves something just because they are poor. People can deserve preferential treatment by doing some service to others, but they cannot deserve it by merely being something.

There are many easy way to deserve my respect and preferential treatment. Make me smile and laugh, offer a good conversation, bring up an interesting point, tell me something that helps my life - you are already a cool person in my book. I have had 20 minute-long interactions with people that made me want to be their good friend and take care of them at the time of need.
But do not beg. Do not try to guilt-trip me. Do not tell me how I am "privileged", have more than you and should share something with you. The moment the exchange stops being reciprocal and becomes needy, I am gone. Do not tell me, "I want X". Tell me, "Hey, I would like to get X, but I won't burden you with this. Let's have a fun banter instead!" - and then I will see about giving you X. Offer value to me, and then I will be inclined to give back value to you.

TenohtlictlRodriguezLozano

Poverty is not preventable without regulations. You will always have those who are born with disabilities or mental illness in populations. This leads to a greater chance of homelessness or poor. A government who is involved regulating poverty could realistically end it right there and then without question but they choose not to. Instead they provide help by giving aid and offering programs for those who apply.

If you rent me a room in your home that is also rented by 10 other tenants and I show up with a shopping cart full of curb alert items and start assembling my camping tent would you be okay with it and ignore it?. I think you would do what is best for the well being of your home and tenants to remove me. So, its not a question of should the government be responsible for poverty. Its more of a priority that cannot be left ignored.

Some countries have excellent standards of living that poverty is very much non existent or limited. However, these are also small countries with a manageable  economy experiencing this luxury.


You have to understand that poverty not only accounts for people with disabilities or mental health issues. Alot of the poverty in areas of the United States, the reason for poverty can be traced back to corruption/fraud and mishandling of federal funds that never go towards  the programs that were originally meant to be designated.


The rest goes into depth of the foundation the government stands on and provides the living standards its population relies on. You cannot exclude government from this. Pretty simple to answer this question.

Bogan

Poverty and low IQ is linked.    10% of the US population has an IQ 83 or lower, which makes the unemployable.      There are many ways to reduce poverty, the best is to stop importing it.   The west is being flooded with people fr0m notoriously dysfunctional minorities, too many of which have lo IQ's, as well as a genetic propensity to extreme violence.    The evidence is all around you that validates that claim, all you need to do is to open your eyes and look.     Another way to reduce low IQ poverty is to pay low IQ people not to breed.     This should be easy as all of them are on welfare anyway.     At the moment, people with low IQ are breeding much faster than people with high IQ.     High IQ women today are hardly breeding at all.   This is not going to end well.        Another way is to allow high IQ males to have more than one wife.     Most alpha males do this anyway, and it is common for alpha males to get married and divorced multiple times, usually with females who get ever younger in relation to the alpha males age.    In addition, alpha males often have mistresses on the side.

Another way for the USA to reduce poverty is to stop being the world's policeman.    I am glad that somebody is, but it means that most other countries depend upon the USA to defend them, while spending their own money on everything but their own defense.     It would be okay if the USA got some respect from the people who they defend, but too many of them behave like adolescents who depend on their parents to provide them with everything, while sneering at their parents behind their backs.   

To get an idea of what REAL poverty looked like, here are some images of poverty in London around the year 1900.     Please note, thee people did not loot their local shops, burn down their own neighborhoods, or demand that the police be defunded.       At the same time, Britain had the lowest homicide rate (0.2 per 100,000) ever recorded in an industrialized society.     Much to the amazement of the rest of the world, British police alone had no need to carry firearms.   

   Two pennies a night might buy you a coffin like bed, or it might buy you are "sit up" where people had to sit up all night on benches because they were forbidden to lie down, even if they were sick.     Workers were usually paid by the hour because even though there was much manual work available, workers were often so weak from starvation that they could only work for an hour or two, before they had to get paid so that they could buy some food.     

Barnardot

@Bogan ;Poverty and low IQ is linked. 

Cripes. So you must be pretty poor then.

jack

debater3000 said:

Is poverty truly preventable and to what extent is it a governments responsibility?

Hello d:

I suppose it could be with massive interference in peoples lives.  But you'd have to give up your freedoms, and I like my freedoms, such as they are.

So, I'd have the government feed the starving, and heal the sick..  Other than that, you're on your own.

excon

Dreamer

We can greatly alleviate poverty. We might not be technologically advanced enough to completely eliminate poverty. As GDP rises we may even be able to eradicate poverty for severely disabled people.

As for now we can't let bad political actors and grifters steal our future. The extreme amount of damage done by a foreseeable and therefore preventable pandemic and climate change.

Factfinder

Dreamer said:

We can greatly alleviate poverty. We might not be technologically advanced enough to completely eliminate poverty. As GDP rises we may even be able to eradicate poverty for severely disabled people.

As for now we can't let bad political actors and grifters steal our future. The extreme amount of damage done by a foreseeable and therefore preventable pandemic and climate change.

We can greatly alleviate poverty if everyone who could help themselves, would. The disabled are not the problem. The self entitled are. It's a fallacy to think if something is foreseeable then it must be preventable. There is nothing to suggest that is true.