By fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly
for the rights of the workers, of the poor, of the destitute–the rights of the
worthy and the unworthy poor in other words, we can to a certain extent change
the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a
harried world.
- Dorothy Day
So, who would you classify as unworthy?
- The working poor? Despite increases in the minimum wage, millions in this country cannot make ends meet.
- The single mother living on food stamps because her paycheck won't stretch beyond day care and diapers.
- The man begging on the street who lost his family, leading to an avalanche of depression that he could not afford to treat.
- The immigrant working the fields or the meatpacking plant? Immigrants were on the front line during the pandemic.
- Women?
- People of color? According to Oxfam, Millions of people today work in jobs that pay shockingly low wages, provide scant benefits, impose irregular schedules, offer unsafe conditions, and abuse their rights to stand up and speak out. In essence, these workers are denied the basic right to “decent work."
When we undervalue people, we undervalue ourselves.
Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by
fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the
Lord of hosts.
- James 5:4
Discrimination is holding us back
According to an article in Forbes, race-based discrimination is estimated to have set America back over $50 trillion since 1990 alone. Other estimates forecast that eliminating race-based discrimination would generate 6 million jobs and $5 trillion in American economic power in just five years. -Jan 15, 2024
CNBC reports the wage gap costs women in the U.S. about $1.6 trillion a year, a new report finds. Women earned 78 cents for every dollar that men made in 2022, according to the National Partnership for Women and Families.
Immigrants increase the supply of labor, which increases the supply of goods and services that people need; their consumption, entrepreneurship, and investment also increases the demand for labor, creating better‐paying jobs for Americans elsewhere in the economy. -CATO Institute
12.4% of Americans now live in poverty according to new 2022 data from the U.S. census, an increase from 7.4% in 2021.
Changing the Way We Think
Together, we should be looking for solutions. We should focus on the problems. Instead of demonizing the poor, immigrants, hunger, the homeless, women, and people of color, we should be working for ways to allow them to grow and prosper. We should be listening to them. We should make sure we treat people with respect and make sure they are allowed their dignity. The United Nations agrees that poverty is not only deprivation of economic or material resources but a violation of human dignity too. The concept of human dignity is based on a particular pattern of perception: of perceiving humans as beings rather than things. -church-poverty.org
