Bill Gardner says there are two theories:
The stupid people theory:
[M]any poo
r people have poor cognitive skills — that’s a reason why they are poor — and people with poor cognitive skills smoke, drink too much, eat bad food, and so on. These behaviors lead to poor health…SES is strongly associated with health and with many health behaviors. David Cutler has data showing that intellectual abilities are associated with health behaviors. Linda Gottfredson reports data showing that intelligence predicts both health and longevity.
The scarcity theory:
Sendihl Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir present extensive experimental data showing that the experience of scarcity deeply affects our ability to think:
Poverty itself taxes the mind… poverty reduces fluid intelligence and executive control… this suggests a major twist in the debate over the cognitive capacity of the poor. We would argue that the poor have lower effective cognitive capacity than those who are well off. This is not because they are less capable, but rather because part of their mind is captured by scarcity.
My theory: The welfare state encourages people to be poor and subsidizes all of the unhealthy behaviors associated with being poor.
I think Goodman hits it right on with his theory
very interesting….
On the flip side, poor health can lead to poverty.
I realize it’s far too simplistic to generalize. After all, there are Mensa members who are janitors and ones who are rocket scientists. However, I’ve often wonder if the stupid people theory isn’t a function of genetics. Maybe poor health function has a genetic basis similar to poor cognitive function. Basically, neither your brain nor body below the neckline functions as well as it should. That, and people lacking in cognitive ability probably discount the negative effects of unhealthy behaviors.
Experience shows that people are very good at responding to financial incentives and disincentives. For example, the 1996 federal welfare reform law (TANF) cut state welfare rolls by half, on average. Because of its limited requirement that recipients work (some), or look for work or be willing to be trained for work, people left the rolls, or did not sign up, because they valued their leisure more highly, or accepted employment that previously was below their reserve wage demand. As a result, those who left the rolls were employed and earned higher wages than welfare stayers.
See my evaluation of the program at http://www.ncpathinktank.org/pub/st255
I think it’s time to put a limit on welfare assistance. It could be possible that people who have received it for some time have become complacent and no longer strive to make a means for themselves. I think at some point they have forgotten, and some may have never known, that taxpayers have been footing their bills and expenses. It’s like the kid who drops out of school and sits at home, what inspiration do they have to leave or better their life when the parent okays that decision and makes life comfortable for them? I think setting a limit on welfare assistance forces the person to plan ahead knowing one day the check will stop coming. Yes, there are unfortunate events that place us in need of assistance but with no end there is no new beginning.
Great points! The poor not only has poor access to care due to a lack of resources, but they also lack the knowledge to know how to care for themselves in case they can’t go see a physician for a specific condition. However, at the rate these welfare programs are going, the poor will never have incentives to not be poor and to make something of themselves.
This government keeps giving them basic resources that they need to stay alive and “comfortable” without much, and this only encourages these people to stay poor.
At the end of the day, if you’re not helping them help themselves…you are not helping them at all.
There is certain truth that poor people are poor for a reason.
Poor people make poor decision, and poor health decisions are part of the equation.
There have been extensive studies done that poverty impact the brain and health. So it is not always the other way around.
I’ve known a number of people from the lower socioeconomic strata who shared this mistaken belief that what separated them from “rich people” was that rich people had more money. That’s not my experience though. Most of the affluent people I know have made positive long term decisions.
I listened to a recent Freakonomics podcast that explored research from the Georgia land lottery of 1835. About one-quarter of the white male population was essentially given a 160-acre parcel of “free” land (stolen from the Cherokee Indians, evicted and resettled to Oklahoma). Research looked at how this land grant boosted literacy, and improved the socioeconomic status of recipients for several generations. They found it had no discernible effect. By contrast, people who became wealthy on their own had higher literacy — as did their children and grand children.
Speaking of Indians, look what happened, they got put on reservations, now they have high rates of illiteracy, alcoholism and drug abuse, not to mention poor health with diabetes, hypertension and heart disease.
It is probably a bunch of issues, and there will always be exceptions to each explanation.
I can think of two explanations not mentioned above.
1. Ambition. Not necessarily the same as intelligence. Drive, work ethic, will to succeed. Wealthier people tend to possess this, but poor people do too. It is natural that people who are ambitious about their job or business would also be ambitious in other areas of self betterment. Another way to explain it, rich people don’t settle.
2. Quality of life. If you have a poor quality of life full of struggle and hardship and disappointment, you might not care as much that smoking will kill you. Maybe in general you’re depressed that your life didn’t turn out how you had hoped, and while you’re not precisely suicidal, you certainly don’t care that much about your cholesterol. Why prolong misery?
A fatalistic worldview influences both scenarios, as does general apathy.
So all of these people who are concerned about the “cognitive abilities” of the poor decide to do what on health care reform? Send them a complicated health insurance policy! That’s the ticket!
Why Do Poor People Have Poor Health?
Mostly for the same reasons that they are poor though there is feedback also.
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