What Causes Poverty?

It is undeniable that welfare programs create, for their recipients, various disincentives to be financially and socially responsible. A perfect example of this is the fact that public housing requests for single mothers are often expedited as compared to requests from non-parents. This clearly creates an incentive to have children. This incentive is not a sufficient cause, by any means, I am sure, but the knowledge of this fact among young girls residing in public housing is surely considered by young girls in their decision making process.

As a source, I cite Desire, an independent documentary by Julie Gustafson. http://www.state.sc.us/arts/circuit/current.htm#gustafson

(I think that Gustafson is a fine filmmaker, and a wretched economist/sociologist, by the way.)

While Gustafson herself makes the case in her narration/dialogue in the film that her subjects--young, poor girls such as those discussed above--were inevitably going to get
pregnant and remain poor, the girls themselves were adamant that they had many options available to them and could have chosen differently.

In the movie, which follows the lives of several girls over five years, we meet a girl named Cassandra who dreams of going into the military, going to college, and leading a financially comfortable life. She becomes pregnant, and, despite his overtures, refuses to allow her child's father joint custody of their daughter. Because of her sole custody of the baby girl, the military will not allow her to contract (for the obvious reason that she would be unable to care for her child while in basic training, while deployed, etc.).

Gustafson's interpretation of this is that Cassandra was doomed by her poverty, and never really had a choice. When I saw this movie last night, Gustafson was in attendance, and held a short question and answer time afterwards. When questioned as to why the girls ended up as they did, she stated that they were trapped, and that the "illusion" of a choice is what gave them hope and their pride. Gustafson then repeated, "They were very proud... too proud." It was this last part that I find most revealing.

Cassandra was too proud to allow her child's father to share custody, and too proud to depend on him for support, even though, by the end of the movie, he is working as a barber making better than the usual (for the individuals in the movie) minimum wage. Her unwillingness to depend on others who were voluntarily offering support, and to instead rely on the government housing and other welfare made available to her effectively kept her in poverty.

After viewing this, I must conclude that it is this government's welfare programs, which create this sense of entitlement in the first place, which ultimately made this girl too proud to accept a hand up. Had she allowed her former lover joint custody, she could have achived her dreams, insofar as they were portrayed in this documentary.

Likewise, when people feel as though they are entitled to something that they did not earn, there is little incentive to be responsible, to control spending, to save, to plan ahead, and to lift yourself from a life that seems to be close to mere subsistence.