Caring for the Poor: Some Thoughts from Thaddeus Williams

 * A piece from Thaddeus Williams' book Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth.

“It is common to hear that Christians who don’t support big government programs intended to help the poor don’t really care about the poor.  I heard the charge today, in fact.  This charge is often combined with the claim that Christians are so fixated on getting people’s souls to heaven that they don’t care how impoverished people’s bodies are on earth.  But what are the facts?  

 

“In a 2018 Barna study on global poverty, we learn that

 

·     75 percent of practicing Christians in the United States provided food to a poor person or family, compared with 58 percent of all US adults.

·     72 percent of Christians directly donated resources such as clothing or furniture to the poor, compared with 64 percent of all US adults.

·     62 percent of Christians spent a significant amount of time praying for poor people, versus 33 percent of all US adults.

·     47 percent of Christians gave of their personal time to serve the needy in their community, compared with 29 percent of all US adults.

·     nearly twice as many Christians compared to all US adults volunteered for an organization to serve the poor in other countries or traveled outside the US to help the disadvantaged.²¹

 

“A 2010 study from a nonreligious research group looked at a dozen faith communities around Philadelphia—ten Protestant churches, one Catholic parish, and one Jewish synagogue.  Researchers use a fifty-four-point metric to determine the economic impact these congregations had on their surrounding communities.  The results are astounding.  These twelve congregations brought $50,577,098 in economic benefits to their neighborhoods in a single year.²²

 

“There is a big difference between not caring for the poor and thinking that government-enforced redistribution of wealth is a bad way to help the poor.  Equating the two is a convenient way to feel like we’re on the side of the angels and those who disagree are in league with the Devil.

 

“Is it possible to be opposed to government-enforced redistribution of wealth precisely because we care about the poor?  The welfare state had noble intentions of helping the poor.  Yet it denied government checks to intact households, effectively incentivizing homes without married parents, thereby making poverty even in worse in communities that were already suffering.  In the last twenty-five years, 1.25 billion people have risen above extreme poverty.  That’s about 475 people who have broken away from extreme poverty over the last five minutes while you’ve been reading.²³  The major factor in this historically unprecedented rise from poverty, according to economists, has been the spread of free market economies, particularly in countries like India, China, and Nigeria.  The ‘Asian tigers’—Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan—have become prosperous despite a lack of natural resources as they have encouraged free markets, while resource-rich Russia and Brazil remain poor with big government systems that claim to help the poor.  Endorsing government wealth redistribution is simply not the same as caring for the poor.”  (pp. 189-190)

 

²¹“Three Reasons to Have Hope about Global Poverty,” Barna Research Group, April 26, 2018, https://www.barna.com/research/3-reasons-hope-global-poverty/.

 

²² David O’ Reilly, “A Study Asks: What’s the Churches Economic Worth?” Philadelphia Inquirer, February 1, 2011,https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/religion/20110201_A_study_asks_What_s_a_church_s_economic_worth_html.

 

²³ Alexander Hamilton, “The World’s Poorest Are Getting Richer Faster Than Anyone Else.” Foundation for Economic Education, October 27, 2017, https://fee.org/articles/the-worlds-poorest-people-are-getting-richer-faster-than-anyone-else/.

 

The Tax System Explained in Beer

This comes from Mr. Conservative.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten
comes to $100.
If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like
this…

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing
The fifth would pay $1
The sixth would pay $3
The seventh would pay $7
The eighth would pay $12
The ninth would pay $18
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59

So, that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the
arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve ball. “Since you
are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your
daily beer by $20″. Drinks for the ten men would now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the
first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what
about the other six men ? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that
everyone would get his fair share?

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that
from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end
up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill
by a h higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the
tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he
suggested that each should now pay.

And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% saving).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to
drink for free. But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their
savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20 saving,” declared the sixth man. He
pointed to the tenth man,”but he got $10!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar too.
It’s unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!”
“That’s true!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back, when I
got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison, “we didn’t get
anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks so the nine sat down
and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they
discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of
them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and government ministers, is how our
tax system works. The people who already pay the highest taxes will
naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much,
attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In
fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat
friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.  –   Professor of Economics.