I’m increasingly frustrated by the way we talk about poverty.

While I’m not an expert on poverty, I’ve worked with organizations who deal with the intersection of poverty, homelessness, and under-employment. And I’m familiar with the creeping cynical morass at the edges when we begin to talk about poverty.

It is almost unbearable.

But let us begin with a common understanding.

What is the definition of poverty?

Wiktionary defines poverty as

The quality or state of being poor; lack of money

But the dictionary definition isn’t what we’re really talking about, is it?

When we talk about poverty, we’re really talking about the seemingly abstract collection of people who are both hyper-local and generically-dispersed around the country.

So really, we aren’t speaking only about the one person we know or the anecdotal representative of all. We’re talking about a diverse group numbering in the millions.

Looking not at the dictionary, but how the government defines poverty is more important.

Here is where we have to realize something.

Poverty is a measurement.

It isn’t a status or a group. We don’t fall into it like a hole or jump into it on purpose.

We don’t talk about a mythical poor person based on our own ideas unless we’re only ever talking to ourselves. Talking with other people means we deal with agreed upon terms.

So in reality, we have to find a common understanding that describes the state of poverty, not merely manufacture motive for how a person comes to it.

And we’ve already done this.

Researchers measure poverty and compare it to the norm. We figure out what the average family needs to not only survive but also thrive in our community. And we measure all of our people against that.

Since 1959, the US Census Bureau has measured the rate of poverty in the United States. According to the Center for Poverty Research:

The measure is used to create income thresholds that determine how many people are in poverty. Income thresholds by the official poverty measure are established by tripling the inflation-adjusted cost of a minimum food diet in 1963 and adjusting for family size, composition and the age of the householder.

Notice this only talks about food. What about the other stuff?

Everything Else:

housing, healthcare, transportation, and entertainment

Here’s where people get caught up.

The common understanding of what a person can afford to spend on housing is 30% of their income.

What this means in reality, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, is that the average hourly wage in the United States which allows a person to afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment is $20.30 an hour. This is nearly three times the federal minimum wage.

Even in relatively poor states like Indiana, a person needs a rate of nearly $15 per hour, which is nearly twice the minimum wage, and far above the rates offered by many of the more generous employers where I live.

In fact, it is housing and healthcare that have swallowed up the economic gains of the last half-century. As a portion of their income, the average family is spending far less on food than fifty years ago. And generally less on entertainment.

It isn’t wasteful spending that is driving poverty. The dramatic rise in housing, healthcare, education, and transportation costs have eaten into ever greater portions of our income. The average family is spending pennies on the total dollar for entertainment, and often less than their parents and grandparents did as a portion of their income.

Which means, that we are all spending less on this stuff than ever.

It may be hard to wrap our minds around, but we’re spending less on cell phones, TV, books, movies, and clothes than we did 50 years ago. It’s everything else that is costing so much.

So the average person has been pinched greatly by the rapid rise in these other areas. Now think back to that poverty measurement based on 1963 food expectations.

Doesn’t cover it, does it?

The creeping cynicism around poverty

This is what we’re talking about when we talk about poverty. People who are struggling to survive and thrive in our community, measured by average expectations.

This is the starting place. Not whether or not someone has a cell phone or a TV. Go back to the measurements and how we define poverty as a country and remember that this isn’t a competition, just a comparison.

When I worked for Habitat for Humanity, I would often have to remind our volunteers to not judge our homeowners. To not walk into their house and judge them.

Four reasons why:

1. How they choose to spend the small portion of their income devoted to entertainment is their business.
2. Our homeowners made enough to pay off a mortgage with us, but not enough to get one from a bank. This means they need help but also aren’t in extreme poverty.
3. This also means that what they save on not paying interest can go to that thriving part. We weren’t just helping build their homes, but giving them a chance to rise up.
4. Judging people is reckless and irresponsible.

But I’d hear this stuff anyway. About the computer on the desk or the TV. But this isn’t how poverty is defined! Nor is it how Christian service is defined!

Poverty doesn’t mean you should be stuck with a rotary phone.

This is why I hate the way we talk about poverty.

We ignore the definitions and skip to the judgements.

Judging people based on their spending habits isn’t a rational argument. It is an opinion. An opinion which is not backed by clear, researched evidence. And just as important, it is an opinion not based on the agreed upon baseline of what we mean by poverty.

In other words, it is a faux argument stemming from a knee-jerk reaction to our own out-dated sense of entitlement and relationship to wealth.

There is much more that can be said about what this sense of entitlement does to our relationships. It is morally depraved to expect the poor to prove their poverty to you. Nobody should have to don a sack cloth for you, let alone be subject to your evaluation of whether or not it is a luxury sack cloth.

I’d gladly make that argument, but that isn’t the only one you need to hear.

The casual way we judgmentally talk about the people who experience poverty today is intellectually lazy.

All are welcome to their opinions. But often they aren’t related to the subject as we’ve defined it. They aren’t talking about what we all mean by poverty.

This is poverty. The millions of people in our communities who are struggling to survive and to thrive.

Their struggle isn’t just about having food but being healthy; not only having shelter but also being safe; not merely being alive but also finding joy in everything.

A thoughtful response to the dynamic reality of poverty factors in both how we measure poverty and the ethical demand to treat all of God’s people with dignity.

That is literally where we start. I’m willing to move on in our discussions from there.