What Makes Poor People Poor? - Special Segment

if you didn't know what you believe about the world and how it works causes you to make decisions those decisions affect your life no kidding huh we kind of know that so what you believe about the world about money and about the economics matters because it either paralyzes you like a deer in the headlights or it causes you to push forward persevere fight and climb and scratch because you believe you control your own destiny these things matter these discussions of philosophy and theology matter because they affect whether or not you actually take the advice I give you every single day on the show and go use it so when someone comes against that I occasionally want to just stop and go let's apply a little critical thought to this so let me ask you this here's a here's a belief that you have and I want you to call in because we're going to talk about this the entire hour get ready it's going to be juicy yeah what causes poor people to be poor what do you believe about that because what you believe about that will cause you to take actions in your own life or not take actions in your own life what causes poor people to be poor it's a great question it'll challenge your theology it will challenge your doctrine it will challenge challenge your philosophy of life because the first thing that happens is if you have a fairly narrow view of life meaning you haven't gotten out much or don't read much you have just one opinion and it's usually wrong because it's only a partial observation let me give you an example that okay this article was just published in the Washington Post the headline reads Christians are more than twice as likely to blame a person's poverty on lack of effort more than twice as likely to blame a person's poverty on lack of effort Washington Post and Kaiser Family Foundation asks 16 hundred and eighty-six American adults to answer the question what causes poverty and I'm not going to go through the whole article but I'll pull out the statistics for you because they bounce around and do some weird theological stuff that's not even cream know how to end up in the article it's like dealing with post millennialism and all this other stuff that has nothing to do with the discussion if they really got convoluted but the bottom line of the article is this the poll shows that 46% of all Christians said that a lack of effort is generally to blame for a person's poverty compared with 29 percent of all non-christians now what you believe about this affects your behaviors let me show you how it takes your behaviors The Washington Post is well renowned for being anti-christian and being very liberal and their conservative beliefs okay you don't believe that you read the post all right it's pretty simple so let me help you with this 46% of all Christians said that a lack of effort is generally to blame for a person's poverty compared with 29 percent of all non-christians so let me show you how your belief affects your behavior the headline was Christians are more more than twice as likely to blame a person's property on lack of effort let me help you with this twenty nine percent forty six percent that is not more than twice it's not even half so you messed up your math because of your skewed bias on your belief system see how it affects your behaviors you could have that if it were written by the right-wing they all right it could have said the exact same statistics could have said less than half of Christians believe less than half Christian's blame a person's poverty on lack of ever because it's 46 percent believe that according to this survey you see how how it gets skewed how they reword stuff to make a point cuz they obviously have a point 53 percent of white evangelical protestant protestants blamed a lack of effort while 41 percent blame circumstances 50 percent of catholics blamed lack of effort on poverty while 45 percent blame circumstances in contrast by more than two to one the bright people in america the atheists the agnostics who have no particular affiliation said circumstances are more to blame when a person is poor rather than a lack of effort 65 percent of them said the circumstances only 31 percent said a lack of effort now listen to this line this is fabulous if you don't think that our media on both sides of the equation right and left are completely screwed in the head this will tell you right here the question is of course not just an ethical one ethical if they got a dictionary in that place ethical is this an ethical question but it's a political one and the partisan divide is sharp well no kidding that's why you wrote the article among democrats 26 percent blamed a lack of effort 72% said circumstances liberals among republicans 63 percent blamed a lack of effort and 32 percent blamed circumstances conservatives and race mattered to 32 percent of black christians blamed lack of effort compared to 64 percent who blamed circumstances so if you are a white evangelical christian you hate the poor you are cold-hearted unethical you do nothing but sit in your McMansion with your nose in the air collecting your unequal wealth you're greedy and you can't be trusted to walk around on the face of the planet because you blame effort on poverty poverty on effort or lack of effort now you want to talk about this this is going to be a great discussion today the phone numbers triple 8 8 2 5 5 2 2 5 see the implication of this is only the liberal elite only people with skinny jeans and really cool beards that let that have an I love Bernie 2016 and a coexist bumper sticker on their Subaru I have the right to properly assess the poor now let me help you with this if you are in skinny jeans and you have a really cool beard and you drive a Subaru with a coexist sticker I'm your friend I'll be your friend I am your polar opposite but I will be your friend I Drive a large pickup that will eat your Prius um 6.0 I carry a 1911 with a hollow point in the chamber wilson combat night on my yep most days 99% of time you see me I'm armed I almost always vote conservative I hate the government intervention in my life so I'm the opposite of you and I am a white evangelical I am the devil incarnate which automatically means I'm racist although I'm not half of the Ramzi personalities are black if you hadn't noticed and some of my best friends on the planet by the way oh it must be sexist too up you got a problem there half the ramsey personalities are women hmm see this is a hateful premise is what it is and the Conservatives are not right on this issue and the Liberals are not right on this issue but to write trash like this in a major newspaper is not only unfair and divisive it's also a lie it's untrue and I'm going to give you some data and walk you through this to show you what I'm talking about not to defend the white evangelical Christian but to discuss our worldview of what causes someone to be poor so the washington post poll and article says 46% of all Christians said a lack of effort is generally to blame for a person's poverty compared with 29% of all Christians and that includes Catholics Protestants and they give the different breakdowns I covered that in the first segment so here's the problem this is a hateful premise and we have to stop dividing everyone down these lines of liberal conservative black white this polarizations got to stop if you are driving a Subaru with a coexist sticker on it I'll be your friend I'm not mad at you I don't have to go along with your political beliefs or ideologies to like you or to be your friend or help you if you call in if you need some help with your money I'll help you I'll show you how to fix it I'm I'll help you and I don't agree on anything politically or religiously or whatever that's fine that's cool I mean I when I go to Atlanta the guy that I've used for 10 years the drives a car for me down there he owns a car service is a wonderful guy's name's Elijah he owns about 10 cars and desert has a big car service I help him and talk to him about business and he's Muslim and he in our friends hello he's not trying to convert me to Islam I'm trying to convert him Christian we're just two guys running businesses and we like each other oh by way he's a black guy on a white guy just by the way ok you know I mean why do we have to always be so dadgum hateful I don't get it so I'm not mad at you I'm opposite of you and if you don't like that that just means you're intolerant so here's the thing let's first look at some data now if Christians truly believe that poor people exclusively are poor because they're lazy they have a funny way of showing it because of the amount of money that is given to poor people ABC News had this article out just a little while back who is doing the giving let's look at charitable giving as the data because you wouldn't give to something you don't believe in 3/4 of American families donate to charity eighteen hundred dollars each on average of course if three-quarters give that means one-quarter don't so we assume that the rich give more than the middle class the middle class more than the poor I've heard liberals that care more than less fortunate so we assume they give more than the Conservatives do are these assumptions truth or myth to test what types of people give more twenty twenty went on to to two very different parts of the country with contrasting populations Sioux Falls South Dakota in San Francisco California the Salvation Army set up buckets at the busiest locations in each city Macy's in San Francisco Walmart in Sioux Falls which buckets collected more money Sioux Falls is rural and religious half of the population goes to church every week people in San Francisco make much more money or predominantly liberal and just fourteen percent of people in San Francisco attend church every week liberals are said to care more about helping the poor so did the people in San Francisco who are wealthier and liberal give more turns out the idea that liberals give more is a myth of the top 25 states where people give an above-average percent of their income twenty four of them were red states in the last presidential election Arthur Brooks the author of who really cares says that when you look at the data it turns out the Conservatives give 30 percent more and incidentally conservative headed families make slightly less on average and he says the difference in giving goes beyond money porting out that conservatives are 18 percent more likely to donate blood he says this difference is not about politics it's about a different way of viewing the world and our view of government so here's the deal if Christians white Christians in particular believe that the poor are slackers overwhelmingly the number one group that gives the poor are Christians evangelical white Christians black Christians Catholic Christians Hispanic Christians are the number one giving group in the United States and for that matter worldwide of those who attend a weekly worship service 91% give something to someone 66 percent of people do not attend the weekly worship service give something to someone a 30% drop off by the way almost 25% drop off now I've been in church for 35 years attended a couple of different churches I met God as an adult that Jesus is an adult the churches I go to our suburban white churches they're mixed they have some rates some of every race in them but they would legitimately be called white evangelical churches not that somebody was ruled out not that somebody was told they couldn't come but it's the demographic of the area the neighborhood the preaching style all of that that tends to cause that so there's always some Hispanic folks and black folks and whatever in there some white folk there's a little bit all kind of folk in theirs what amounts to but it's mainly white admittedly for 35 years I do not ever recall one single sermon in any of the churches I've attended anywhere where someone trashed the poor and said you're poor because of a lack of effort get up off your lazy butt however I will tell you that almost every Sunday that church is raising money to feed the hungry in some city state or neighborhood around us gathering up clothes to give to people that are poor building houses and buildings for people that are poor in other countries and in our own neighborhood we spent an awful lot of time energy and money giving money to the poor considering we think they ought to get up off their lazy butts according to this liberal supposition it's just inconsistent it's just actually not true and if you look at it politically this comes out conservatives give 30% more than liberals several pieces of research show that and in a bunch of articles on stuff out there this this is in the New York Times editorial are we cheap yes Americans are cheap says the former President Jimmy Carter recently said the rich states don't give a damn about people in poor countries and when it comes to helping the needy in poor countries YouTube singer Bono says it's the crumbs of our table that we offer these countries crumbs because many other countries such as Norway Portugal and Japan give a larger share of their wealth to needy countries the United States gave 28 billion dollars in foreign aid last year but as a percentage of our wealth we ranked 20th out of 22 major donor countries actress Angelina Jolie is horrified by this it's disgusting it's really disgusting she said I think most American people you know really do think we give more and I know they would if they could understand how little they give and how much more we can afford to give absolutely without even noticing it but wait a second when you're talking about giving you can't just talk about government giving see Angelina Jolie would could look at herself as an example of an a generous American she gives her time her money to charities around the world not counted in those figures we were just talking about and so do millions of other Americans America is not just our government it's 300 million individuals and their contributions are far exceed what the government gives America is anything but cheap Americans give a lot in last year they gave over 300 billion dollars to charity so let's put that in perspective and help you with this Bono he's worried about Portugal and Norway and Sweden we give the people of America gave 300 billion to other countries to help them as individuals last year which is more than the entire national income of Sweden I'll help you with your ratios okay 50 percent volunteer their time Americans are the most generous per capita in the world the data says President Carter is wrong if we look at how much money Americans get per capita compared to citizens in other country of the world we find that the average of American citizen gives away three and a half times as much as the average French citizen 7 times as much as the average German citizen and 14 times more than the average Italian citizen that's a per capita number so the data shows that Americans are generous that Christians are generous and reaching out to help poor people so why all the hate why are we hating on the Christians who are giving all this money to poor people yes maybe it's all about dividing the country for a because if you if you look at the government and you think government is the sole source of charity then you would run an agenda with ran articles like this that shows that we need to give more to the government because they're where charity comes from and yet the data shows otherwise so how do we help the poor what causes for people to be poor I'll deal with that one come back and then we'll take some of your calls I want to know what you think why you think poor people are poor [Music] okay so we're actually using our brain and not our emotions we're actually thinking it's called critical thought and we say a Washington Post article comes out that says more than half of Christians believe more than twice as many Christians believe which the math was wrong on by the way more than twice as many Christians believe that effort lack of effort on the part of the person has causes their poverty more than anything else of course we've defeated that it's just a liberal slant on something they're just trying to stir it up we've defeated it by understanding a that the data all shows that Americans and conservatives and Christians as three different groups but also intermingled groups give more by category than anyone else in the world to the poor so why would you give to the poor if you think they're lazy and shiftless like that you wouldn't you're trying to help them because we that are in that category or in some of those categories understand some things so you just can't believe the liberal Washington Post when they're trying to say that white evangelicals that elected Trump are primarily politically conservative or greedy two-faced and their motives can't be trusted that's the essence of this it's hating it's it's you know it's intolerance on the part of the left so instead of dividing this country between liberal and conservative or black or white or Christian and non-christian why don't we just talk about the real problem which is poor people how can we help them what causes them to be there for real well let me it is not just lack of effort it's also circumstances that they're born into and it's also oppression from the outside holding them there it's all three things and it's all three things in different ratios depending on the situation let me give you a couple situations and we'll look at the ratios for a second okay let's take a person who is in Haiti been through an earthquake has a corrupt government poverty like no other on the planet hardly Haiti so are they poor because of a lack of effort you have to universally say no their poverty is not caused by lack of effort the islands a pile of rocks to start with it's almost impossible to grow something they're drilling a well is a major undertaking the banana republics that have been in and out of there the corrupt governments are just ridiculous and a lot of the charity money that goes down there just goes down a black hole sadly so those people are not poor because they're unwilling to work that is an absurd statement it's circumstances by and large and oppression secondly in lack of effort third but to a much lesser degree lack of effort what everybody agree with that say yes I mean so to my conservative friends who say lack of effort is why someone's poor you can hold the Haiti example up and go well you're wrong it's not the only reason people are poor in that situation it illustrates the circumstances sometimes another example is I've got a friend of mine in college he got a master's degree in accounting and then he took up drinking ended up homeless now I grew up white middle-class like me went to the same school I went to University of Tennessee got a white middle-class education just like me master's degree in accounting shut up I mean that's a marketable skill okay but not if you're in the bottle ends up two broken marriages and homeless so what's his poverty caused by circumstances do maybe a little bit but to a very very small degree agree was he oppressed by someone did the man put him down no not hardly not hardly his choices are would put him down right he's poor because of his choices he's poor because of a lack of effort and because he got addicted that's why he's poor completely different than the person Haiti agreed say yes everybody really we understand how this works I think about a buddy of mine good friend I was talking to him the other day we had a long discussion but this was kind of fun before this article came out oddly enough black guy african-american guy whatever you wanna call him he calls himself black so I'll call him black that's okay I'm not all worried about this these labels you people are all get twisted up about he's good friend of mine he grew up in the hood and you know he told me coming out of hood in America in North America as a black guy he said it's easier to get out of the hood then just get the hood out of you whoo he said you didn't have that disadvantage and I said you're exactly right I didn't we can label that white privilege and try to call me a racist but that wouldn't work because we've already established I'm not shut up okay so but it's easier to get out of the hood than it is get the hood out of you how many of you have experienced that you when you had kids you opened your mouth and your parents came out it's easier to get out of there than it is to get it out of you right and change is hard for people so what's his deal I mean is he successful he success you know he had to overcome circumstances some oppression because the racism is still real out there and he had to make good choices himself and he's by the way ultra successful makes a lot of money does very well really brilliant guy and married up considerable by the way his wife is brilliant too and so you know I'm talking about but he had to get the neighborhood out of him and he had to get out of the neighborhood circumstances and he fought racism along the way he fought all three I don't know if his equal parts but maybe closer to equal parts in any of the three we've talked about so far or how about just poor white trash Appalachia I was driving through rural Tennessee this weekend drive by a place it looked like if the porch fell down and kill three dogs I mean you might be a redneck if you know I mean just trashy four cars sitting up on blocks and the weeds coming around and oh it's a little bit of circumstances there you got to overcome a poverty mentality you ever heard somebody from your old neighborhood say the little man can't get ahead you know what that is that's a defeatist fatalistic attitude that says that you don't control your own destiny that somehow there's a boogeyman out there controlling your destiny you have to get the hood out of you after you get out of the hood white black Hispanic and circumstances affect your mindset your belief system therefore your ideas so it's more complicated than just anybody can do it it's more complicated than that and um you know but truthfully in America in North America you got a better shot than anywhere else so this idea that the government should take over because other people don't love the poor is ludicrous and it's sometimes loving someone to say hey you're making decisions that are keeping you poor you're taking actions or lack of action that's keeping you poor and sometimes it's helping them get the hood out of them as my friend who came from the hood said so that's the deal so what we're talking about here is healing the brokenhearted I'm talking about hopelessness and we're talking about tools and belief systems so the danger of something like this wopo article the danger of the left wing nut job saying that everything's fixed you can't get ahead unless the government does it is it's actually a Marxist agenda to march towards communism because that's the belief system that says the government is the only thing that can fix things that individuals can't fix themselves now the truth is that individuals can fix themselves with help in the community that's the truth and the truth is that circumstances can be shifted and the truth is that money does those things and sometimes there's a government thing that works but you're hard-pressed to find a government program that's all poverty you've shown me one anywhere a government program to solve poverty it's just ludicrous it's just almost impossible to find one so that's what you're looking for so you want to know how to help the poor you got to work on all three of these things and on different ratios for different situations for poor people it's not situational ethics or situational truth it's that different people are poor for different reasons primarily is it their circumstances is it their decisions beliefs effort or are they oppressed oppressed would be like about the lotto almost all lotto tickets are purchased by poor people in four zip codes guess whose kids go to school using the lotto money white middle-class people that's a government oppression of the poor how about payday lenders are they oppressing the poor yeah so do we need to stand up against things like that because it hurts the poor yeah we do we do we need to give money and help the poor yeah we do we need to call them out on their decisions they're making sometimes you bet we'll do all of the above around here they don't make some of you unbelievably uncomfortable and it's one of my natural gifts back with your calls on the Dave Ramsey show [Music] so we're talking about this subject of what causes property and I gave you my opinion on what causes it I think it's three things biblically I think I can back that up and it's not ever just one is my opinion so I'm going to talk to you guys what do you think Adrienne is with us in Baltimore Maryland hi Adrian how are you hi Dave it's good to talk to you you too so tell me what your thoughts are on the subject so uh my thoughts are I completely agree with you that most of the time they don't know that they have better choices I'm currently and helping teach a group of homeless men who are actually coming out of homelessness using your principles and finding that they are thriving we never knew that things could be done differently they just didn't understand that life could be done different and I'd also like to say that what put them in there will put them there in the first place in your opinion was it circumstances oppression or a lack of effort on their part or a mix of them in some mixer which was the major one um I would say I'm a lack of education for sure they had no role models to show them how to do things correctly for more than a technical education you mean by role models you mean belief that you know hard work does pay off kind of thing yes oh these guys work hard they work really hard what do they believe but no huge okay go ahead I'm sorry I'm sorry most of them especially in the area I live in I live in a pretty affluent area most of them are just living too close to the margin okay and I got clipped by that all right how long you been doing this I've been doing this two years I also hope recovering at it cool how many in your group currently I have a group of three white men okay cool all right hold on I'm gonna have Kelly send you out books for all of them from me okay oh thank you so much all right hey thanks for calling in appreciate your opinion Chris is with us in Los Angeles hi Chris you're caught your question hey days are you run comments on this I guess is a proper word ya can hear me fine yes sir oh cool well it's pleasure to talk to you um I guess I have an opinion on this where you know I grew up in Long Beach California my grandparents are from like South Central Los Angeles and most of the world knows it's not the most affluent place in the world but my grandfather was a landlord he came here from New Orleans dhinam 1930s 40s had a family here he you know created a he had bought like apartment buildings and he never really had anything growing up but you know I grew up with my grandparents so I learned from them so I guess from my perspective it's more about mentorships you know and it starts young I think a lot of kids need to see people who are actually doing it they need it they need it you know get the influence young someone to like teach them phone to look up to you know they could tell them you know is that a I'm trying to up and put words in your mouth but I want to make sure I'm grasping what you're saying is that kind of a combination of effort and changing circumstances that's the mentorship right no it's both you know it encompasses a lot of different things because you need to be taught you know a discipline of strong work ethic young and it also you know you have to do it ethically to I mean no one who makes money unethically will last you have you know if you're gonna have a business that's going to last a long time you have to make sure customers are happy and you're taking care of people and you were taught that from a young age even though it was in a tougher part of town oh absolutely I mean my grandmother would take me to church you know almost every day so I got it you know so this is not even evangelical thing this is just straight epics you know like and work ethic and discipline um but I you know I I went from you know having no money at all to you know I'm a millionaire now so I would say that you know it's just discipline and I encourage anyone you know who wants to have a successful business to look online because all you need is an internet connection at a post office you could ship products anywhere in the world right man hey thanks for the call interesting book input matt is with us in New York Matt your comments on the subject Matt hey Dave can hear me yes sir okay Dave up I just like to say I love the show I'm a student out here and basically I think the main reason why there's so many poor people in America is just because they they're not educated on it they don't have tools like that you preach on this show and stuff like that if you look at people we see people that win the lottery all the time they go broke because just by definition they're not good with money you know what I mean a lot of times they choose not to embrace the market and are left without many options as far as where to go and how to get money several people have said education and I wonder what they're I mean I think you guys are all saying the same thing I'm thinking when you're saying that but I don't know if you are something to ask to me education can be just learning how to do something but the kind of education I think we're talking about in this setting is not only how to do it but why to do it and and the character around doing it I mean you can know how to execute a task from from going to a class agree but the way you go about that is a reflection of your character and I think that's woven into this situation too hmm is that what you're is that in there or is that are you just saying our education like going to class absolutely so I recently graduated high school and I'm a student in college right now and basically in high school the things that they're teaching as far as finances go they don't really teach you that well how to manage your finances when coming to adulthood so I've had to go to external resources such as your show and other various websites and YouTube videos to sort of teach myself how to manage our finances and we're just not teaching out in the schools in America which is a really great tool that you should use in building your wealth and just furthering your a financial knowledge gotcha cool hey thanks for calling in man appreciate your opinion so up next is Randy in Cincinnati hey Randy how are you doing well how are you doing better than I deserve what's up so I had a quick comment and question I'm new to your whole program and my wife and I are just getting started so um you know your initial comment I agree with that the article was very divisive but right after you said that you said a few comments like my truck would eat your Prius and that you walk around with holiday bullets and don't you think that's a little bit divisive in itself if you're trying to have an open discussion you can definitely thing to say well no it was two things one it was to show the gun comment was it to show a juxtaposition that I can disagree with people who are polar opposites and still be friends with them and still help them the truck comment was called humor I get that specific I'm messing with your Andy come on I kind of said but don't you think that you just kind of have an open discussion you're kind of like alienating the Liberals if they want to call in and give it a you point girl yeah I don't really feel comfortable calling Scottie you might have you might make a comment like that you know they might not that's true that that part that that critique would be fair my purpose was not to do that my purpose was to say we help everybody and the guy with a coexist sticker is polar opposite of me I still help him he's still in my classes she's still in my classes they got great beard some of them in I mean it's you know just laughing about skinny jeans and all that stuff that's all just cut not because I'm an old bald white guy right you know so with no style with no style sense whatsoever so you know it's just a juxtaposition and it's just like for some reason we've decided that we pull up beside someone in traffic and we hate them and we've never met them basically based on their what they're driving in their bumper sticker art and I you know I get that all the time in the seat that I sit in and I watch people do it and it's like Pam you just have to go about this for a political agenda and you're right it's just kind of sickening so if I if I if I got a little bit off base I was trying to have fun I'm part of and part of it I was trying to show a juxtaposition if I missed the mark I apologized all good thank your time day Thank You Randy appreciate you joining us it's a good discussion Christians are more than twice as likely to blame a person's poverty on lack of efforts is the Washington Post my contention is that 29% is not twice as over 46% is not twice as likely it's not even half so you're probably going to work on your map number one my contention number two is that that's not a Christian position at all and the Washington Post once again just like a lot of the other news outlets on the left and on the right are more about driving an agenda than they are having a reasonable discussion poverty is caused by circumstances oppression from the outside by government and marketplace predators and by bad decisions / lack of effort it's caused by altering things in different ratios in different settings and we covered some examples of that this our fun discussion I'm sure it'll scare some of you folks up but it's more the things I'm here for to make you actually think instead of just following along when you're head so far up your politics you don't have an original thought this is the Dave Ramsey show hey guys thanks for watching if you enjoyed this video click the subscribe button to get the latest content and check out these other great clips from the show [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: The Ramsey Show Highlights

Views: 2,075,196

Keywords: dave ramsey why are people poor, what makes poor people poor, dave ramsey poor, why are people poor, what makes people poor, dave ramsey poor people, dave ramsey why are poor people poor, dave ramsey what makes poor people poor, what makes poor people poor dave ramsey, dave ramsey poverty, What Makes Poor People Poor? - Special Segment, why poor people stay poor, why are poor people poor, poor people, special, poor, dave ramsay, dave ramsey, dave ramsey rant, washington post

Id: Zs8x9t7Zc9E

Length: 37min 8sec (2228 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 08 2017