January 20: Making Idle People Merry, Working Poor, Poorly Working

"I don't make merry myself at Christmas, and I can't afford to make idle people merry."

Scrooge makes this comment to the two gentlemen who visit his office on Christmas Eve, looking for a charitable donation.  It touches upon one of the biggest myths about the poor:  that they are lazy people who don't want to work.  A lot of people (Republicans) think that because someone is out of work or can't pay bills, s/he is taking advantage of "the system."  (I know a few surgeons who prescribe to this notion.)  Just by using the term "idle," Scrooge seems to imply that the poor are simply standing on street corners, waiting for hand-outs.

While this stereotype may be true of some poor people, I know that most people who struggle with their finances have jobs.  As a matter of fact, most work their asses off just to put food on the table.  Foreclosure is not the result of somebody who won't pay his mortgage payment; it's the result of somebody who can't pay his mortgage payment.  What I'm talking about is the working poor:  inviduals who have paying jobs and still can't rise above the poverty line.  A lot of people (Republicans) think that if someone has a minimum-wage job at McDonald's, s/he should be able to have a home, a car, a family, food, heat, clothing.  These people are wrong.

My point is that most poor people want to work, and most working people want to pay their bills.  It's not that the working poor are poor workers.  The working poor are poor because they are not paid a decent wage.  I live in a country where 20% of the people own 85% of the wealth.  We live in a world where the richest 2% of adults own more than half of total global household wealth.  If you do the math, that means that 80% of the people in the United States are living on 15% of the country's wealth.  And 98% of the people on this planet live on less than 50% of the world's wealth.  That's a little obscene.

I have to be honest:  Scrooge pisses me off when he makes his "idle people" speech.  He's supposed to piss you off.  Dickens wants you to recognize the falseness of his statement.  Bob Cratchit is not idle, but he's poor.  Bob Cratchit is not the exception.  Bob Cratchit is the rule.  The truth is that most poor people work.  Most poor people work really hard.

Saint Marty just wants to bitch slap the Scrooges of the world.