Lisa Jacuzzi

M. Williams

English 1A

21 December 2013

Poverty Stereotypes

All it takes is just the first glance. People will make judgments about others after just one look at someone. Many times it is just simply stereotypes, and often untrue. Stereotypes are a simplified image or idea of a particular type of person. They are generalized and often inapplicable. An easily stereotyped group of people are those in poverty, people who are living paycheck to paycheck even before the economic downturn. Travis Smiley and Cornel West went around America to find different locations where the amount of poverty is increasing, and documented their travels in the book The Rich and the Rest of Us. Their book provokes the general public to think about and talk about what it would be like to live in poverty. Hopefully this book will put a stop to the spread of stereotypes. Poverty stereotypes need to be stopped because they reinforce a negative image and are more often than not untrue.

Many of those in poverty will not admit that they hold the status of “poor”. When Smiley and West traveled around America visiting some of the poorest cities in the country, they were welcomed in several but were asked to leave and not come back in others.  In one Mississippi city, Brenda Caradine protested the fact that they were coming to her town. “To many, poverty is regarded as a personal declaration of failure, a measure of fundamental unworthiness, or, as in Caradine’s case, a blight on an upstanding community” (Smiley 72). Caradine did not want to believe that her community was poor. She could not see the truth that people in her town are struggling to survive. The word poverty has some terrible stereotypes that accompany it.

The stereotypes are predominately enforced by those in the 1%. The 1% are the wealthiest people in America, which is only made up of forty people, yet they control over forty-two percent of the nation’s wealth. Often they buy out government officials who then try to pass laws that make 1% lives easier which in turn makes the middle to lower classes lives harder. One example is Newt Gingrich. He, like so many other wealthy people, does not understand what it is like to live in poverty so he stereotypes them. “Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich invoked the familiar specter of negative racial stereotypes when he labeled President Barack Obama the ‘best food stamp President in American history’ and called on African Americans in particular to ‘demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps’” (Smiley 21). Gingrich does not know nor understand how difficult it is to get out of poverty. Being poor is not a choice, the poor cannot just ask for paychecks. Some people work hard and after they get their paycheck all the money would have to go to paying their bills. Since all their money is now gone food stamps is their only option.

A possible solution is the method known as “walking a mile in another’s shoes”. Not every person living in poverty is African American. Ronnie McHugh who is Caucasian and lives in Pennsylvania has lived in poverty ever since she and her husband lost their jobs at about the same time. “The debate audience should walk in her shoes, McHugh told a reporter from Equal Voice. If so, perhaps they’d appreciate government programs - any program – that helped hard-working people impacted by the recession” (Smiley 22). Perhaps if the politicians lived like McHugh they would stop trying to take away the programs that help them. They would learn what it is like living paycheck to paycheck and trying to feed their family. However there is fallacy in this plan. The wealthy who experience poverty, for say a month, know that they will be able to escape the living conditions the poor endure. Therefore their experience is not as harsh as the reality for those who live through poverty daily.

Overall, the stereotypes placed on the poor are an imperfect description of the people living in poverty. There are some who fit the stereotypes, such being an African American or being lazy and irresponsible, but there are many more who do not adhere to those specifications, therefore not fitting the stereotype at all. Many of those people who do not fit the poverty stereotypes deny that they are part of the poverty class. These stereotypes are reinforced by the wealthiest Americans who have no idea what it is really like being poor. If these wealthy Americans learned first-hand what it is like in poverty then maybe some of these stereotypes would go away. For them to learn first-hand the wealthy Americans should live like the poor so they understand how hard it really is being in poverty. Poverty stereotypes are often untrue and should be stopped.

Works Cited

Smiley, Travis, and Cornel West. The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto.

New York: Smiley, 2012. Print.