Submitted by Rebecca Hammock, class of 2020, philosophy
I am a frequent reader of the East Tennessean, and I wish to bring up concerns about an article that was run on Jan. 27, entitled “Understanding the relationship between poverty, health.”
Though the campus paper usually does an excellent job of being fair and reasonable (indeed, the same issue that I am referring to featured a brilliant piece on the struggles of being a single mother in college), this article was rather poorly written and offensive.
Firstly, the article has no cohesive theme. The author jumps from the topic of health and poverty to a distaste for drug users and then begins to attack welfare with little to no link between topics. Additionally, I understand that this is an editorial and thus it is opinion based, but several of the points made in this article are blatantly false and insulting. For example, consider the claim that “often, people are willfully poor and willfully unhealthy” or that people are “deciding to remain poor” – as one of ETSU’s many first generation college students from a low-income background, this is incredibly hurtful and untrue.
Furthermore, his suggestion that poor people aren’t trying to help themselves is uneducated. Research by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-2/pdf/spending-patterns-of-families-receiving-means-tested-government-assistance.pdf) indicates just the opposite; those on welfare spend far less than their average counterparts. The vast majority of participants (https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2015/cb15-97.html) use welfare for less than four years. This document also points out that public assistance is largely utilized by single mothers, children, and the temporarily unemployed, not simply “lazy drug users.”
Finally, if the author had discussed the entirety of the study that he cites instead of merely quoting the abstract, he would note that the researchers attribute the relationship between poverty and health to a large number of complicated and compounding factors. They also caution that “the cross-sectional nature of the analysis does not allow for investigation into causality.”Instead of blindly calling for a dismissal of welfare, the researchers emphasize the importance of improving “education, economic development, and health care” for poor areas (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31897491).
Though it is important to consider alternative viewpoints, it is unhelpful to turn a discussion of poverty and health into one that associates low income individuals with drugs and welfare. A more productive conversation would aim for understanding the struggles of less fortunate individuals and how we can best address their needs without making assumptions about their moral character.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
