Does Poverty Cause Dumb? Or Does Dumb Cause Poverty?

I came across a New York Times article entitled Welfare Limits Left Poor Adrift as Recession Hit that means to expose the cruelty of not giving people welfare but actually exposes the cruelty of the welfare promoting mindset. It talks about how a group of women dealt with losing benefits in Arizona.

The poor people who were dropped from cash assistance here, mostly single mothers, talk with surprising openness about the desperate, and sometimes illegal, ways they make ends meet. They have sold food stamps, sold blood, skipped meals, shoplifted, doubled up with friends, scavenged trash bins for bottles and cans and returned to relationships with violent partners — all with children in tow.

Esmeralda Murillo, a 21-year-old mother of two, lost her welfare check, landed in a shelter and then returned to a boyfriend whose violent temper had driven her away. “You don’t know who to turn to,” she said.

Maria Thomas, 29, with four daughters, helps friends sell piles of brand-name clothes, taking pains not to ask if they are stolen. “I don’t know where they come from,” she said. “I’m just helping get rid of them.”

To keep her lights on, Rosa Pena, 24, sold the groceries she bought with food stamps and then kept her children fed with school lunches and help from neighbors. Her post-welfare credo is widely shared: “I’ll do what I have to do.”

Some would argue that these woman are making desperate choices because they are poor.

I would argue the opposite — these women are poor because they make stupid, short sighted choices.

Every example given shows a dumb choice and is clearly not the only option the women have. The idea that they couldn’t learn computer skills instead reselling stolen clothes or start a microbusiness instead of going back to a violent boyfriend or any one of a thousand better choices isn’t anywhere in the article. Nope, the liberal worldview is that these woman have no free will, no other options, no ability to make better decisions. It’s actually deeply insulting to everyone involved. It’s especially insulting to women and minorities, the subjects of the article. The implication is that they can’t possibly do any better. I disagree.

The solution to people repeatedly making dumb or criminal choices isn’t to write them endless checks. I know - it’s supposed to be cruel to not just hand over people’s money to these women but apparently getting those benefits didn’t do much to better their decision making skills.