Income inequality exists in literally every society and culture.....and has throughout the history of the world.
An individual can let it get them down or take responsibility for at least trying to better their situation.
This just...isn't helpful. It removes all nuance from the complicated reality, and it turns it into a binary situation rather than a spectrum. Income inequality exists
to some degree in literally every society and culture. It is actually inevitable (human beings need hierarchies in order to live in society with one another, and hierarchies produce inequality), but it is significantly more unequal in some places compared to others. And when it gets bad enough, throughout history, revolution happens.
Secondly, an individual can let it get them down
AND take responsibility for trying to better their situation. Both of those things can happen in the same person, at the same time, and often do. I know so many poor people, and I imagine you do too, who are so frustrated and angry because of their lot, but also work their damn asses off trying to get ahead. Poverty is generally not caused by bad attitudes or faulty lifestyles or lazy work ethic - it's generally caused by things like low wages, lack of jobs, and poor education.
The thing is though...it's too damn expensive to be poor. It's a compounding disadvantage. You make less money which makes it harder to save which makes it more difficult to transition into a better job. It makes things like first and last month's rent way more difficult, which makes people have to rely on overpriced motel rates day to day. It often comes with unpredictable or inconsistent work schedules, which makes planning things like child care or additional jobs harder. If you need a loan you'll get way worse interest rates and have to pay way more. If you don't have something like a kitchen or a fridge (which does happen), then you rely on poor nutritional convenience store or fast food, which is way more expensive and gives you way more of a chance of developing health problems. If you can't afford as reliable of a car you've got way more of a chance of it breaking down which leads to lost wages and sudden expenses, a higher chance of being fined financially with a ticket. So on and so forth. It's a crazy, sad high wire act.
You don't have to subscribe to a victim mentality or world view to still have empathy and outrage for how difficult of a life poor people face, whether they contributed to it or not.
Defeatism is indeed not easy to overcome.
This seems just a little ironic considering the previous post with the essential message of, "This exists everywhere, so obviously we can't do about it"
