A Biblical Case for Economic Freedom

Anne Bradley of the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics thinks there is one. Here is the introduction to a lecture she gave at Grove City College.


She highlights the importance for economic freedom and ameliorating poverty. That was also one of the conclusions of Francis Wayland. I encourage those interested in thinking about economics and how to help the poor to take a look at the book For the Least of These.

Here's How We Can Stop the EPA's War on the Poor

In his State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama promoted his vision of "middle-class economics."

As part of his program, he pledged to lower taxes for working families, "putting thousands of dollars back into their pockets each year."

Alas, what his budget proposal pledged to giveth, his energy policy taketh away. The industry regulations pushed by Obama's Environmental Protection Agency, conflict with his stated budget intentions by foisting higher household energy costs that fall disproportionately on the poorest among us.

In a free market, entrepreneurs serve society tremendously by coordinating the entire market division of labor, directing scarce resources toward their most highly valued use as determined by members of society.

The price system ensures that those who produce the most demanded goods in the most efficient way will reap profits, while those who fail to do so will reap losses.

Business regulations serve to hamper this beneficent market process. Regardless of any other purposes they serve, regulations constrain entrepreneurs from arranging production processes in their best, most efficient pattern.

They necessarily increase costs of production and decrease the quantity of products people have available to satisfy their ends. In short, business regulation results in relative impoverishment.

Read the rest here at the Harrisburg, PA Patriot-News

Dalrymple on the Capacity of the Poor

Here is a brief video clip from Poverty Cure featuring one of my favorite writers, Theodore Dalrymple. He is the author of a tremendous book, Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass. It is an outstanding picture of the ideologies, values, and behavioral habits of those in poverty Dalrymple came across in his vocation as a prison doctor and psychiatrist.


In the video above, Dalrymple urges those of us who are eager to help those in poverty to raise the questions,

"Why are these people uniquely unable to get out of their poverty? Is there not evidence, in fact, that when given the opportunity, they do in fact get out of poverty themselves?

Does the Road Out of Poverty Run through Sweatshops?

Ben Powell, director of the Free Enterprise Institute at Texas Tech University, presented a great lecture last week to students in my Economic Expansion and Development class. Powell is on a tour promoting his latest book published by Cambridge University Press entitled Out of Poverty: Sweatshops in the Global Economy. Their function is not what you think.

Powell's primary goal is to educate people to the positive economic role sweatshops play in the lives of poor people who work in them. Additionally he hopes to encourage those who truly want to help the poor to do no harm mistakenly encouraging policies that will result in factories that close  because of rising costs and lower demand for their products. Such policies only make it more likely that poor workers in less developed countries have fewer opportunities and therefore will be faced with even worse working conditions and lower and less stable wages.

Here is Powell in a brief video that introduces many of the themes in the new book:

Bradley on the Real Social Justice

As reported earlier, Anne Rathbone Bradley, Vice President of Economic Initiatives at the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics, spoke here at Grove City College in its Center for Vision and Values' Freedom Readers Series. Her lecture was entitled "The Real Social Justice: A Christian Response to Poverty and Inequality." Here is the video of the provocative and inspiring lecture:


100813 FreedomReaders Vimeo from Center for Vision and Values on Vimeo.

These are issues that I also tackle in my book Foundations of Economics: A Christian View. Interested parties should look at Chapters 4, 16, and 19.

Five Reasons Christians Should Embrace Private Property

Ann Bradley

This evening the Center for Vision and Values at Grove City College will host Ann Bradley for this month's Freedom Readers Lecture. Her lecture is entitled "The Real Social Justice? A Christian Response to Poverty and Economic Inequality." She will be explaining, among other things, why Christians should embrace private property.

In a recent white paper, Bradley explains that Christians should support private property for the following reasons:

• We are called to work.
• We are called to serve the poor.
• We are called to flourish.
• Private Property Rights are Biblical
• Minimum Government is Biblical

As Bradley begins:

What is economic freedom, and why do we need to embrace it? As Christians, we are called to be good stewards of the resources that God gives us. Stewardship is not just about tithing or caring for the earth; it is about every choice we make. It is then inextricably tied to flourishing. If we are not good stewards, we cannot possibly practice true sustainability by creating more than we are given and caring for one another. Markets facilitate stewardship by helping us to fulfill the great commandment, which calls us to love our neighbor.

Read the rest here.

Welfare Subsidizes Poverty

One of the foundational principles of economics is that people act to increase their future satisfaction. They apply means according to their understanding of causal relations to achieve their end. For example, other things equal, they buy at the cheapest price and sell at the highest price.

One bureaucratic institution that puts in place incentives that works against the very ostensible purposes of its advocates is the welfare state. According to Michael Tanner and Charles Hughes, "welfare currently pays more than a minimum wage job in 35 states, even after accounting for the Earned Income Tax Credit." This does not bode well for a system that ostensibly is designed to reduce poverty.

If a person's income is subsidized for his lower income, welfare ends up subsidizing poverty. This is because receiving income without working reduces the opportunity cost of leisure time and, therefore, promotes idleness. This does not, of course, imply that everyone stops working if income subsidies are available. It is to say, however, that some, perhaps many, people will opt for not working it is made worth their while. This is important, because historically one of the main reasons children live in poverty in the U.S. is because their parents do not work. Encouraging people to not work is the last thing we want to do if we want to combat poverty.

Expect Unemployment to Rise

In the unskilled labor sector anyway. CNN reports that the minimum wage is scheduled to increase in eight states. This means, of course, that it will make unskilled labor more expensive to hire for businesses. For those workers who do not generate enough income for their firms, they will be let go, adding to our nation's unemployment woes.

Some might argue that increased wages is just what the laboring poor need. While that sentiment is certainly understandable, the problem is that higher legal minimum wages make it harder to employ these very people. That is the main reason why the minimum wage does not reduce poverty. Those interested in more on the issue of the minimum wage might be interested in a piece I wrote a few years ago, "What You Need to Know About the Minimum Wage."

Sowell on the Hunger Hoax

Thomas Sowell has what should be an eye-opening column out explaining "The Hunger Hoax." Cutting to the chase, Sowell notes

Ironically, the one demonstrable nutritional difference between the poor and others is that low-income women tend to be overweight more often than others. That may not seem like much to make a political issue, but politicians and the media have created hysteria over less.

Enterprise Not Aid

I am presently at Acton University 2011 where I will be lecturing over the next two days about the nature and function of money and the morality of capital and interest.  Last night during the evening session, The Action Institute announced it was launching a new initiative called PovertyCure. PovertyCure wants everyone to stop asking why are so many still so poor and begin asking the right question: what causes wealth?

As I point out in the introduction to my Economic Expansion and Development course at Grove City College, poverty is the historical norm. Instead of asking why are so many still poor, we should instead ask how did we become rich?  The short answer is we were allowed to take advantage of a more extensive division of labor using accumulated capital wisely invested by entrepreneurs. Aid breeds dependence. Enterprise breeds prosperity. That is the solution to poverty and that is the vision of PovertyCure. I encourage you to watch their video promo:

The Welfare State Subsidizes Poverty

Here is a picture that supports the point made by Walter Williams, myself, and countless other economists: We get more of whatever we subsidize. If we give subsidies for producing bad art, we get more bad art. If we subsidize wasteful production, we get wasteful production. If we subsidize poverty, we get more poverty.

Look what has happened to the U.S. poverty rate since 1959:

Since the late 1930s there had been a general decrease in the percentage of U.S. citizens living in poverty which continued through the late 1960s. The uninterrupted decline halted in 1969 and bottomed out completely at around 11% in 1973.

It is ironic that it was in 1968 when President Johnson launched his war on poverty. It was Johnson's "Great Society" legislation that put in place the poverty entitlement programs that continue today. That was when the government committed itself to subsidizing those who earned lower incomes. Those subsidies created an incentive to remain poor. Not everyone, of course, decided to quit their jobs and live on the dole. The poverty rate did not increase to 100%. However, it did stop its general decline and has hovered around 13% ever since.

A Biblical View of Poverty: Cuased by Foolishness

The Scriptures teach us that people can bring poverty on themselves through laziness and greed. The Bible also teaches that another cause of poverty is foolishness. The word foolishness, as used in Scripture, does not mean stupid or mentally dull. A fool is someone who is immoral and pernicious. It is not easy for our modern minds to accept that God's providence has anything to do with one's level of prosperity, but as it says in Psalm 75:6-7

For not from the east or from the west
and not from the wilderness comes lifting up,
but it is God who executes judgment,
putting down one and lifting up another.

Elsewhere in Scripture, God specifically instructs us that poverty can be the result of one's own folly, one's own poor moral decisions. Speaking of the Israelites who came out of Egypt, Psalm 106:13-15 reads "But they soon forgot his works; they did not wait for his counsel. But they had a wanton craving in the wilderness, and put God to the test in the desert; he gave them what they asked, but sent a wasting disease among them."

In Proverbs we are taught that "the mouth of a fool brings ruin near" (Prov.10:14-16) and that "poverty and disgrace come to him who ignores instruction, but whoever heeds reproof is honored" (Prov. 13:18). Additionally, a foolish man "devours" what treasure and oil is in his household (Prov. 21:20), and a woman's folly will destroy her own house (Prov. 14:1).

The bottom line is that a general consequence of foolishness is impoverishment. One reason some people are poor, consequently, is that they ignore God's instruction and they instead lead wanton, profligate lives. A 2004 study by the National Poverty Center, for example, found that substance use and abuse was an important "barrier to self-sufficiency" and hence a contributor to poverty. Again this does not mean that all poor people are immoral and foolish. It is to say that there are often negative economic consequences to foolish behavior.

A Biblical View of Poverty: Caused by Greed

Thursday, I began examining the various causes of poverty as outlined in the Bible. I cited E. Calvin Beisner who did the heavy lifting documenting that God's Word indicates that poverty is often self-caused. It is the natural consequence of the actions that lead to poverty. Thursday I provided scriptural evidence showing that laziness is one source of self-caused poverty.

Another source of poverty people bring on themselves is greed. This may seem paradoxical at first, because it would be natural to think that greedy people would be anything but poor as they fill their bank accounts with cash by always grasping for more. In Jeremiah 6:12-13 the weeping prophet communicates judgement on those greedy for unjust gain and as a result, they would have their homes turned over to others.

In Proverbs we are taught that greedy people trouble their own homes (Prov. 15:27). This is partly because greed often results in poverty. "A stingy man hastens after wealth and does not know that poverty will come upon him" (Prov. 28:22).

As Charles Bridges notes,

And how often in our own day, has greediness of gain plunged whole families into misery by ruinous speculations! For where the enriching blessing of God is not desired or sought, we cannot wonder that it is withheld!

In Habakuk 2, the prophet contrasts the righteous who shall live by faith with the idolatrous Chaldeans.  He pronounces woe against those who seek to enrich themselves through injustice. Habakuk proclaims

“Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own—
for how long?—
and loads himself with pledges!”

Will not your debtors suddenly arise,
and those awake who will make you tremble?
Then you will be spoil for them.

Because you have plundered many nations,
all the remnant of the peoples shall plunder you,
for the blood of man and violence to the earth,
to cities and all who dwell in them.

“Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house,
to set his nest on high,
to be safe from the reach of harm!

You have devised shame for your house
by cutting off many peoples;
you have forfeited your life.

For the stone will cry out from the wall,
and the beam from the woodwork respond.

Habakuk here makes it clear that the Chaldeans who made a practice of heaping up what was not their own, placed themselves in debt, plundered nations, obtained dishonest ("evil") gain so as to become financially secure actually were devising shame and economic spoliation for themselves and their households. Some even forfeited their own lives. 

A Biblical View of Poverty: Causes

Quite a bit of debate has been generated from my recent op-ed "What Would Jesus Cut?" In fact I received a blistering response just today. An earlier reader voiced displeasure at my statement that "Like it or not, institutional entitlement payments to the poor encourages idleness, one of the primary reasons that many households earn low incomes." That reader thought I was unkindly blaming the victim. In order to make sense of the issue, it is important to have a clear understanding on what God teaches us in His Word about poverty.
Sunday, I discussed the nature of poverty as defined in Scripture, explaining that the Bible characterizes poverty as an absolute lack of the bare necessities of life. This is a far cry from the relative lack of what most people have that often is what moderns think of as poverty.

In his book, Prosperity and Poverty, E. Calvin Beisner has done excellent work in documenting the nature and various causes of poverty mentioned in the Bible. On the basis of those causes, he divides poverty into two categories: self-caused and imposed. There are many passages in Scripture that teach that often poverty is the result of unwise personal decisions. Sometimes people are poor because of laziness. Another reason for poverty is greed; not on the part of an oppressor, but on the part of the poor person himself. Another source of poverty, according to Scripture is foolishness. Finally, shortsightedness is identified as a generator of self-caused poverty. I will discuss each of these over a series of blog posts. Today I will only focus on the first source of self-caused poverty.

One reason some people are poor are because they are indeed lazy. The Bible makes clear that people are responsible to be productive in order to support themselves. In 2 Thessalonians 3:6–12, or example, the Apostle Paul tells his readers:

Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.

Paul's line of reasoning is if an able body person does not work, then he should not eat. Instead, he is encouraged to work and earn his own living.


In Proverbs there is a passage that more straightforwardly teaches that laziness causes poverty.

Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man (Prov. 6:6-11).

In this passage, the ant is held up as a positive example who voluntarily engages in labor and production with “diligent foresight” in summer and harvest, so she has food for winter, as noted by commentator Charles Bridges. Labor and productive activity is a virtue. The willingness to put off present consumption and endure toil in the summer allows for consumption in winter. This points to lower time preference and thrift being economic virtues. Bridges also emphasizes that the ant is not hoarding as if a miser, but wisely saving for future provision.

The sluggard or lazy person, on the other hand, cares only for, in Bridges words “present ease.” He does not want to work. (Whether he just wants to bang on the drum all day is unknown). The passage in Proverbs is clear that, because he does not work, instead slumbers in his laziness, poverty comes swift and hard.

The link between slothfulness and poverty is affirmed in many other passages in the wisdom literature. We find that an idle person will suffer hunger (Prov. 19:15) and have nothing (Prov. 13:4; 20:4). Toil brings prosperity, but mere talk brings poverty (Prov. 14:23). The very house of a lazy person will deteriorate (Eccl. 10:18). Proverbs 10:4 says straight up "a slack hand causes poverty.".

There is no escaping the conclusion that Scripture teaches that laziness results in poverty. This point was not lost even on the producers of the Looney Tunes.

A Christian response to poverty needs to keep these facts in view. It is especially important that we do not develop poverty programs that encourage a person who is poor due to laziness to persist in his laziness. Acknowledging this point is not harsh or cruel, it is part of a biblical view of poverty.

The Biblical View of Poverty: What It Is

One of the primary intersections between Christian thought and economics is the issue of poverty. Proper responses to poverty we encounter requires an understanding of economic law as well as ethics.

The Scriptures are clear that God calls us to care for the poor. As I write in Foundations of Economics: A Christian View,

God does make it clear that we are to help the poor. We are to be imitators of God and he tells us that he cares for the poor (Ps. 35:10). God tells us that the poor and orphaned are to be defended from would-be oppressors (Ps. 82:3). We definitely should not turn a deaf ear to the cry of the poor. In fact, God tells us that whoever ignores the plight of the poor himself shall not be heard when he calls for help (Prov. 21:13). God tells us that in times of trouble, he will deliver the one who has consideration on the poor (Ps. 41:1). Whoever is charitable to the poor lends to the Lord and God will repay him for his generosity (Prov. 19:17). The mandate to minister to the poor even includes our poor enemies (Prov. 25:21).

We receive similar instruction in the New Testament. When the rich young ruler asked Jesus what last thing he needed to do to be perfect, Jesus told him to sell all his possessions and give the money to the poor (Matt 12:21). In the early chapters of Acts we find the Apostolic Church ministering faithfully to those in need. Additionally, James clearly teaches that it is not enough to feel compassion on the poor, but we are mandated to provide them with real material help when they are in need (Jas 2:15–16).

Because of this Biblical mandate, it is important to know just what the Bible means by poverty. This is very important because the conventional definition of poverty has changed over the course of the Twentieth Century. Before then, the predominant view of poverty was similar to that of Scripture. E. Calvin Beisner does an excellent service to all Christians by explaining the biblical view of poverty. In his excellent "Poverty: A Problem in Need of a Definition.” in Welfare Reformed, edited by David W. Hall, Beisner points out that, while the modern view of poverty characterizes it as a relative lack of what others have, when the Bible speaks of poverty, it refers to an absolute lack of bare necessities. The poor are those who do not have adequate food, clothing, or shelter to live.


The above is important to keep in mind when we seek to be good stewards with the wealth God gives us. We are not called to indiscriminately promote income equality, especially if it erects a perverse incentive structure. As I have noted before, there is very little biblical-scale poverty in the United States. The vast majority of what we call poverty in the US is the relative kind. That is not to say we should not be charitable toward those of lower incomes here in our country. It is to say, however, that we should recognize there is no biblical mandate to perpetuate a vast welfare state for the purpose of income redistribution.

It is also important to note that God's Word never calls us to minister to poverty or to solve the poverty problem. It calls us to love our poor neighbor. God wants us to minister to people, not conditions. This is another reason we should eschew the welfare state in favor of the ministry of the deacons who can personally interact with those people who need help.

What Would Jesus Cut?

A few days ago I received an e-mail from the Christian leftist organization, Sojourners. The subject line asked "What Would Jesus Cut?" The body of the e-mail contained the following two paragraphs:

The biblical prophets make clear that a nation’s righteousness is ultimately determined not by its GNP or military might -- but by how it treats its most vulnerable people. Jesus says our love for him will be demonstrated by how we treat the “least of these.”

We can’t move backwards on programs proven to work: international aid targeted at empowering women; vaccines and bed nets combating deadly diseases; school lunch programs and early childhood education that give poor children the opportunity to thrive; tax credits that reward work and help stabilize families. These are dollars we can’t afford not to invest.

As I've noted before, we certainly are called to love our neighbor as ourselves and this love, when directed toward the poor and needy, must manifest itself by providing real material help to those who truly need it. I have also warned about treating as materially poor those who merely have less prosperity than others. I have also written many times about the need for using ethical means to achieve ethical ends. Good intentions are not enough.

We should keep these principles in mind when considering the above exhortation from Sojouners. They are correct when they say that societal righteousness is not measured by GDP or our military spending. Also one of the good works demonstrated by righteous people is charity to the poor. A fundamental problem with the rest of the statement, however, is its assumption that what "we" do must be done by the state. It is a large an not logically necessary leap from "We are called to be charitable to the poor," to "A righteous society will have an extensive welfare state."

In the first place, it is not clear at all that the programs mentioned above have been proven effective. There is a large literature documenting the ineffectiveness of foreign aid to produce sustainable development, which is the best way to reduce poverty in less developed nations. The link between domestic welfare programs and personal development is also tenuous.

Another problem with the message from Sojourners is the assumption that the money spent on these projects are "investments." In fact, they more resemble government consumption. Investment is the voluntary directing of saved income toward capital accumulation and the employment of that capital in its most productive use. Calling government spending funded by coercive taxation or monetary inflation "investment" is doing violence to language.

Forcing taxpayers to pay for such programs, even if worthwhile, likewise does violence to the citizenry. It is a violation of the Christian ethic of property and, hence, cannot be accepted as a truly Christian approach to ministering to the poor. If Christ wishes us to adhere to the ethics He has revealed to us in Scripture, perhaps Jesus would want us to cut a lot more government spending than Sojourners assumes.

A better solution would be for the church to be the church. Churches should fully fund their diaconate and charge them with earnestly ministering to the needs of the poor as they become aware. The diaconte should be pro-active and eager to minister. However, they should be wise in their ministration, so as not to promote the very problems they seek to alleviate. More importantly, the church should preach the Gospel to all, making disciples of all people. This two-pronged approach will minister to both the material poverty of the poor, and, more importantly, the spiritual poverty of those who do not know Him.

Misguided Compassion Hurts the Poor

So says Theodore Dalrymple in an excellent article from the Spring 2010 City Journal. Dalrymple shows remarkable insight he begins his essay with the following:

To sympathize with those who are less fortunate is honorable and decent. A man able to commiserate only with himself would surely be neither admirable nor attractive. But every virtue can become deformed by excess, insincerity, or loose thinking into an opposing vice. Sympathy, when excessive, moves toward sentimental condescension and eventually disdain; when insincere, it becomes unctuously hypocritical; and when associated with loose thinking, it is a bad guide to policy and frequently has disastrous results. It is possible, of course, to combine all three errors.

Dalrymple then proceeds to provide historical episodes from his own personal experience while living in the Gilbert Islands, Tanzania, and England to illustrate the negative psychological, moral, and cultural effects of the kind of income distribution that is commonplace in the welfare state.

Dalrymple's essay brought to mind Chapter 2 in Herbert Schlossberg's magnificent Idols for Destruction: The Conflict of Christian Faith and Culture. Early in this chapter, entitled "Idols of Humanity," Schlossberg, like Dalrymple after him, calls our attention to how humanism so quickly moves from sympathy to sentimentalism with devastating consequences. Scholssberg observes:

Humanism raises sentiment to a level of command that is wholly inappropriate to it nature. In so doing, it bases its ethical structure on sentimentality, which is the doctrine of the primacy of sentiment, its elevation into a principle of truth. Humanism thrives on sentimentality because few religions are more dishonest in their doctrinal expressions. Unable to withstand dispassionate analysis, which would reveal its lack of foundation, it stresses feeling rather than thought. That is what makes sentimentality so vicious. People can get good feelings from almost anything; "sadism" refers to a philosophy that elevates feeling into a moral principle.

After over forty-five pages of expert analysis, including that of the problem of poverty and the consequences of attempted statist solutions motivated from sentimentality, Schlossberg concludes that, instead of bringing freedom, humanism breeds tyranny.

The better educated he is, the more likely the humanist is to believe that people are like machines and need to be programmed, and the more likely he is to believe that he should be one of the programmers. Given their premises, the logic of their position is invincible: Gods without power and wealth are an absurd contradiction.

Humanitarianism is saviorhood, and ethic perfectly suited to the theology that divinizes man. But the theology that divisnizes man, it turns out, only divinizes some men. The objects of humanitarian concern becomes less than men, so that the humanitarian can exercise the prerogatives of a god.

That god that failed is man.

The moral of the story is that, if we truly want to help people who are poor, we must treat them as people, not things are as mere atoms in an abstract blob we call humanity. And we must do so accepting the whole counsel of Scripture. We must recognize that some people are poor because of their own actions, while some are because of the actions of others. We must also recognize that it is easy for poverty assistance to breed the negative social consequences of dependency and sloth.

We must also recognize that the Scriptures do not allow for engaging in theft in the name of caring for the poor. We cannot rob our neighbor to give to the poor. Neither can we hire elected officials and their bureaucratic friends to do so.True charity begins with our sharing our own time, money and selves with those in need.

Some Perspective on American Poverty

As predicted three days ago, the announced recent spike in the official poverty rate has already led to vague calls that politicians need to focus on and do more to fix the problem of poverty. It certainly makes sense to think long and hard about which institutions promote prosperity and which hinder it and, hence, make poverty more persistent. At the same time, it is also important that we do not get misled by government statistics into ever more interventionist policies to fix a problem that might be more phantom than real.

When we hear the word 'poor' it is natural to think of images of children who suffer from malnutrition, have little if any shelter, and very few and tattered articles of clothing. In other words, we think of real, dire poverty. As I pointed out a number of years ago in an article I wrote about the minimum wage, it turns out that the official poor in the U.S. are not that destitute. I drew upon the research of the Heritage Foundation's Robert Rector who has documented the material prosperity of our nation's officially poor people. In his most recent study, Rector tells us:

The following are facts about persons defined as "poor" by the Census Bureau, taken from various government reports:

• Forty-three percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.
• Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
• Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
• The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)
• Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 31 percent own two or more cars.
• Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.
• Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.
• Eighty-nine percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and more than a third have an automatic dishwasher.

As a group, America's poor are far from being chronically undernourished. The average consumption of protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor and middle-class children and, in most cases, is well above recommended norms. Poor children actually consume more meat than do higher-income children and have average protein intakes 100 percent above recommended levels. Most poor children today are, in fact, supernourished and grow up to be, on average, one inch taller and 10 pounds heavier than the GIs who stormed the beaches of Normandy in World War II.

We should never minimize the challenges facing those who live in real poverty. However, we should also have an accurate picture of the actual economic condition of the typical person declared poor by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Helping the Poor

With the number of officially poor Americans jumping last year to the highest it has been since 1959, no doubt attention will be turned again to questions of what we can do to alleviate this problem.

Christians are right to have compassion on and be quick to truly help the poor. A key modifier in the previous sentence is "truly." Too often, professing Christians act as if the chief problem of the poor is merely material in nature. Like everyone else, however, the chief problem of a person who is poor is the same problem as those living in plenty. Without Christ we are lost in sin and are spiritually poor.

Nevertheless, God clearly expects us to minister to our poor neighbor materially as we have opportunity. God tells us that one who considers and is generous to the poor is blessed (Ps. 41:1; Pr. 14:21). On the other hand, whoever oppresses or even mocks the poor insults God (Pr. 14:31; 17:5). God promises poetic justice to the man who closes his ear to the cry of the poor by refusing to answer him when he cries to God (Pr. 21:13). We are called to defend the rights of the poor and needy (Pr. 31:9). Through the prophet Isaiah, God rebukes his people in Judah and Jerusalem for devouring the spoil and grinding the face of the poor (Is. 3:14-15).

Not surprisingly, many people, Christians included, think that to help the poor we must support and advance the welfare state, because only then will there be a guaranteed safety net that is ready to assist in poverty reduction. As I tell my students, however, there are two questions that need to be answered in the affirmative before we support any economic policy: 1) Will it accomplish its goal? and 2) Is the policy ethically sound?

Kel Kelly provides much food for thought as we consider whether the welfare state actually reduces poverty by helping the poor. As he points out, there are grave problems with the welfare state that keep it from accomplishing the stated goal of its advocates. Regardless of the intentions of the promoters of the welfare state, it works to institutionalize poverty by promoting idleness and punishing productive activity. It further results in capital consumption because it hinders saving and investment.

There are also ethical problems which cause us to negatively answer the second question as well. While it is indeed charitable to materially assist our neighbor who is truly poor, it is not charitable to force someone else to do it at the point of a gun.