Giving and the Poor

I was listening to NPR the other day and they had a story about the percentage of income people give to charities. I was very surprised to find out that people with a lower income give a higher percentage of there annual salary than people with a higher income. The reason behind this is people who don’t make as much understand what its like to be poor so they tend to want to help more often.

This is a very interesting fact and one that I never realized. I had always thought the Bill Gates of the world (not to single him out) were very giving and donated a lot of money to charities and I just assumed they gave more of a percentage of their income than most.

Imagine if the richest in this country gave as much of a percent as the lower income. Im not going to figure out the numbers because I’m just too lazy, but I’m guessing the amount of money would be significant, probably enough that the U.S government would no longer need to worry about spending our tax dollars on welfare and more than likely enough to help the mentally ill who are out wondering the streets everyday with no one to help them.

I bring this topic up because of what I’ve been hearing a lot lately about the homeless and people on welfare mostly from the right wing republicans out there. Mostly the same old “get a job” quotes or the idea I’ve been hearing a lot from the right about drug testing for people on welfare which is totally ridiculous if you really put some thought into it. You have to realize that people on welfare also have children, so if you stop helping the adults you end up hurting there kids as well.

I’ve been homeless now for about 7 months and have really changed my attitude toward the homeless. I guess the “travel a mile in my shoes” analogy is really true, you just don’t know how difficult it is to pull yourself up from the gutter. Everything seems to be against you.  Weather its trying to get a job without an address or being hassled by the cops for just trying to get a good nights sleep your life is a constant uphill battle and you just don’t know what that is like until you are forced into that situation. I grew up in a very conservative blue-collar environment where its believed if you are work hard you will succeed and everything will be just great. Well let me tell you that’s not always the case. I busted my ass and put my heart and sole into my business and still failed.