Our good intentions are useless

Ideas from the middle class often fail to address the real needs of poor families

Some musings about poverty in New Mexico:

New Mexico is 50th in poverty at 21.3 percent (thank God for Mississippi at 21.5 percent); 51st in child poverty at 29.1 percent (Mississippi came in at 29.0 percent); 44th in income inequality; 48th in high school graduation; and 49th in higher education attainment (Center for American Progress 2105 report).

“How” we talk about this may be part of the problem.

“Who” is doing the talking may be a larger part of the problem.

Here’s an analogy: You are trying to describe how to screw two pieces of wood together to someone who has never seen a screw or a screwdriver.

And because you are busy working to pay for your house, car, groceries, kids’ dental braces and tutoring, you obviously don’t have time to take a screw and screwdriver to them, and show them how they work. And, anyway, you really avoid going near their part of town for anything.

Blaming the poor for our lack of understanding or appreciation of what they live in and don’t have experience with lets us off the hook for any of their problems. I mean, it’s their life; it’s their responsibility to figure these things out for themselves, right?

So we get to be right because they’re obviously unmotivated, unwilling and uncaring. And they get to be frustrated and belittled by their unwitting lack of knowledge. Again. Here, from “A Framework for Understanding Poverty” by Ruby H. Kane, are some select differences between us as business owners, homeowners, legislators, savers, investors — and the poor.

62 percent of U.S. poverty individuals are white (non-Hispanic whites are about 62 percent of the U.S. population).

We worry about civic groups, clubs and volunteering; the poor worry about jobs.

We worry about retirement; the poor worry about housing.

We ask, “How did you like your dinner?”; the poor ask, “Did you get enough?”

We know the best names in brand clothing; the poor know how to keep clothes from being stolen at the Laundromat.

We know how to decorate for different holidays; the poor know dumpsters where they get discarded food.

We plan for vacation six months in advance; the poor know at least one person in jail or on probation.

And we wonder for decades now why our “good intentions and ideas” haven’t made much difference in our poverty rates, and complain about the socio-economic results and costs.

Maybe our “good intentions and ideas” simply don’t match well with the ground-truth needs and realities of our poor population of families and kids?

So New Mexico gets to continue being around 50th in poverty, 51st in child poverty, 44th in income inequality, 48th in high school graduation and 49th in higher education attainment.

What’s that again about the definition of insanity?