Do Poor people get too much help ?
The trite trope debunked — The poor receive far more from the system than they put in.
Is the glass half empty or half full? Do people actually enjoy “taking from the system”? Do most poor people stay poor? Statistically, most Americans who fall into poverty eventually climb out of it. It is also true that the longer someone stays in poverty, the harder it becomes to escape. I was born into a lower-middle-class family. My dad was born into extreme poverty. Today, I pay more in taxes than 90 percent of Americans.
My dad ended up paying back far more than he ever “took” through FHA loans, military benefits, union protections, food stamps, and public assistance. I am proud to pay that forward today through a foundation that provides college scholarships to underserved young adults, especially since I benefited from public higher-education programs — many of which no longer exist.
The next Dolly Parton, LeBron James, Oprah Winfrey, or Jim Carrey is an ambitious kid living in a trailer park or an inner-city housing project right now. In the grand scheme of things, investing in these kids costs society very little — just as society grants tax breaks to the wealthy, bankruptcy protections to entrepreneurs, and bailouts to failing corporations because we believe the return justifies the cost. Small social investments yield exponential returns. These once-struggling individuals go on to create jobs, serve our country, and eagerly pay it forward. If we refuse to invest in them, we perpetuate generational poverty and forfeit the immense value they could bring to our communities.
I don’t resent wealthy people for their wealth. But the reality is that they have the power to write laws that protect their assets and bend the rules in their favor. They have armies of lobbyists and lawyers shielding them. The poor have neither; they have no leverage to make the system work for them.
I rarely reply to comments, but this one got to me. Why? Because it reduces a complex human reality to an empty meme. Our political and corporate landscape is choked with hollow slogans that collapse under actual critical scrutiny. I prefer substance over platitudes, and evidence over ideology. Binary thinking divides; curiosity connects.
Binary thinking is so pervasive. It is us and them, right and wrong, good and evil, the good guys and the bad guys. In this case, the poor are takers, and the rich are givers. #Binary thinking is bullshit. Life isn’t either/or. It’s both, neither, and everything in between. Classical computers are binary: 0 or 1. #Quantum #computers hold multiple states at once. Life isn’t binary either. Mastering #paradoxes means upgrading your operating system from classical to quantum. You can be confident and still doubt yourself, stingy with your time and generous with your help, ambitious and grateful. Why are you converting everything to 0s and 1s? https://isbullshit.com #Leadership #CriticalThinking #LifeAdvice #Books #KeepinItReal #isbullshit #bullshit
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About the author: Tom is driven by three things: paying it forward, creating new, new things, and connecting people. Tom’s values are passion, integrity, and fun. Tom is fanatical about revolutionizing health care after suffering a LAD heart attack and cardiac arrest.
Tom is a Member of Advisor Board for Champion the Challenges. He is the Patient Advocate Ambassador for the Heart & Stroke AI Sidekick developed by Champion the Challenges and powered by the Sidekick Platform. Tom publishes content to help patients recovery from a heart incident on Tom’s Heart. His heart attack and cardiac arrest incident story and timeline are located on the Champion the Challenges website.
He is the founder and president of toosoon.ai. Too Soon is the consumerization of pre-sale intent data in real estate. The solution is for home buyers and small-scale real estate investors who are dissatisfied that the best opportunities are discovered first by agents, wholesalers, and professional investors using data ordinary consumers never see. Too Soon is the first direct-to-consumer real estate marketplace. Too Soon is building the largest consumer-focused life-event intelligence platform for residential real estate, and personal assets.
He is the founder and curator of the is BullShit brand. is Bullshit publishes books, podcasts, and blog posts debunking and disputing myths regarding technology, corporate culture, self-help, life advice, financial planning, leadership, business, and more. He is calling bullshit on social norms and the standard way of doing things- teaching people how to unlearn what they have learned.
He is the founder and president of IBS Publications, LLC. IBS is the distributor is Bullshit branded books and materials. IBS authors call out the structural deceptions, the hidden agendas, and the comfortable lies that institutions and leaders use to pacify individuals and preserve their own power. IBS Publications isn’t a vanity press for one voice — it’s an open imprint. We sign outside authors ready to write their own volume under the is BullShit trademark, or existing publications with a bullshit motif: practitioners with raw, lived experience in healthcare, technology, corporate leadership, personal finance, or wherever conventional wisdom has quietly rotted.
Tom is the founder of the Ma Pesch Foundation — paying it forward is the the only way to live. The Ma Pesch Foundation provides scholarships to young adults seeking a Science Technology Engineering and Math (#STEM) degree.
Tom occupies his time mountain biking, meditating, snowboarding, reading, water skiing and surfing, playing pickleball, writing, golfing, riding his Harley, scuba diving, hiking, and dipping into cold water.
