For several years now, we’ve been engaged in a national, even global, conversation about “income inequality” and “The 1%.” Here are a few thoughts, as these conversations relate to the problem of Extreme Poverty.
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Income Inequality
Is income inequality a problem? Specifically, is “inequality” the word we want to use; is equality really the goal when we speak of incomes across our country and around the world? Equality, in the sense of sameness, would seem to be an unnatural state. Where is the equality in our height, or weight, or intelligence, or emotional predisposition, or artistic talent, or athletic ability – is inequality, the lack of sameness, a bad thing?
Where incomes – livelihoods – are concerned, the ethical question ought to be one of “sufficiency” as opposed to comparison. Sufficient for what? At the very least, survival; perhaps a sense of human dignity and hope could be considered basic as well.
The problem of Extreme Poverty is not an issue of income equality, but of income insufficiency. An income of less than $1.25/day is not sufficient to secure simple survival, let alone fundamental human dignity and hope. This state of insufficiency is the harsh reality for over 1 billion human beings, or about 15% of earth’s population.
The 1%
This conversation is even more misleading. We point to the incredible wealth of the world’s very richest (the 1%) and bemoan the injustice of such stupendous inequality. Yet, here is a question that rarely gets properly answered: On a spectrum with Extreme Poverty on one end, and The 1% on the other, where does the great lower-middle-class "we" fit in?
Looking at income figures, we are deceived. A family income of $40,000 seems much closer to the Extreme Poverty end of the spectrum ($500) than the Richest end of the spectrum ($1,000,000).
Yet, the truth is that the great American lower-middle-class has more in common with the 1% than with those who suffer in extreme poverty. No, our incomes are not nearly enough to provide for the luxuries, extravagances, and freedoms that the super-rich enjoy... but, our incomes are indeed sufficient in the sense of providing a reasonably secure grasp on what is needed to get by in the days, weeks, and months ahead. We do not have to choose which of our children gets to eat today. We do not watch 18,000 of our children die, every day, of entirely preventable causes. Our lives much more closely resemble those of the 1%.
So what?
I John 3:17 asks: If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? No, we are not the 1%, but God has not left us, the great American middle class, without means to give. By pointing to the wealth of the 1%, the very richest, are we seeking to absolve ourselves of responsibility for answering the biblical call to help the needy?
What the 1%, the super rich, do or don’t do with their wealth, and their responsibilities before God, is irrelevant to the question of what my own scripturally mandated responsibilities are to those who suffer in extreme poverty. It is not the exclusive job of the super rich, though they could certainly help (and often do) in a big way. Scripture has spoken a clear obligation for all of us to be about helping the desperately poor.
Each of us – and this includes lower-middle-class me –
each of us will stand before our Lord to give an account.
Then the King will say to those on His right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.” For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you visited me... I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.
-- Matthew 25:34-40
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