Beating Poverty with Income Support

Orwell (1945) was correct when he wrote that “All animals are created equal but some animals are more equal than others,” actually referring to human beings whom scientists refer to as animals. Throughout the history of humanity, people have generally known that they were created equal. And yet, there have been separations, discriminations, dissimilarities, and inequalities, for the reason that God, Nature or Evolution – depending on what we choose to believe in – did not grant equal abilities, talents, and gifts to all human beings.

Some men are richer and more intelligent than the others. Some are born deaf, dumb, and blind. And, some must rely on income support because they just cannot beat poverty on their own. Then there are the leaders of mankind who cannot think like the rest seeing as they are set apart from the others in the position of leadership. If leaders were to act as though they were the equals of their followers, the position of leadership would have to be abolished.

Hence, those that have special gifts or utilize their abilities in special ways would never be truly equal to the rest, despite the fact that they were essentially created the same way. According to the conservative view, poverty is mostly unintentional; that is, poor people are working hard enough to be able to support themselves but they remain poor nevertheless. The liberal view is that poverty is caused by discrimination; that is, those that are considered disadvantaged, e. g.
the single mothers and the African Americans, are believed to be at a loss because society would not grant them enough opportunities to raise their standards of living, which happens to be the reason for the affirmative action policy. The radical view, on the other hand, exclaims that it is the culture of corporatism that has failed to raise the standard of living of the entire population. This is the reason why the rich keep getting richer, while the poor keep becoming poorer, as proved by the statistics.
Regardless of our beliefs about the reasons for poverty, the government has shouldered the responsibility to care for the poor by spending almost half of its spending budget on income support programs such as social insurance, public assistance, and work/employment programs. In order to raise the standard of living of the poor, the government also considers education as an essential social welfare program. After all, if the government were to stop supporting the poor by whatever means it can, our country would be pretty much like a third world nation where the majority is poor and sleeping on the streets.
Yet, a number of literate people among our population – most definitely those who are not poor enough to be on income support – argue that the government may be wasting its money on the poor and lazy folks. Such people further argue that the poor and hungry people will become dependent and virtually useless if the government were to go on supporting them. But, how would such people consider answering the question of poverty that is facing the third world? The poor people in the least developed nations are certainly not dependent on their governments for income support.
Their governments cannot afford to support the poor and needy people as they ought to – seeing that leaders are not equal to their followers. Hence, we should be glad that we live in a nation where the government (the leader) is in a position to support the people (the followers) to an extent that should make us all grateful citizens. What is more, we are in a position to guide the least developed world with respect to policy in the matter. References Orwell, G. (1945). Animal Farm. London: Secker and Warburg.