Wealth, Poverty, and Morality

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Also, nominal dollars, or even “purchasing power parity”, are a terrible way to think about money. Income is relative to the country you live in. As @redbetta said, what actually matters is housing/food/healthcare/ability to live a comfortable life.

Think about a couple in the U.S. with an income of $55,000 and three children. To you they are “rich”; in reality, they are just making enough to pay for housing/food/healthcare/transportation, with maybe a little extra for entertainment, etc.

slate.com

How well can you live in India on $2 per day?

Recent news reports about the Congress Party's election victory note that two-thirds of Indians live on less than $2 per day. How far does two bucks...
slate.com slate.com
 
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Anything over 50hrs/week would be hell! I wouldn’t do it being single, let alone married.
 
I would say it is better that they make you uncomfortable and you do something than to just pretend it is communism or something and continue with blinders on. Poverty is a moral issue. Full stop. Remember what Jesus said about how you treat the least among you.
 
I remember a homily on that Parable. The Priest didn’t talk about literal money. He talked about how each person has special talents of their own and to waste them is to waste the gifts God gave you.
 
Three out of his five kids dropped out of college and one is an alcoholic. My mom always said he must have thought he could buy his kids’ Love, but it didn’t work.
 
It is a common problem. I have a friend who works hard and gives his kids lots of things, but they actually want to spend more time with him, instead of getting more stuff.
 
Exactly. I would have gladly traded a lot of the nice things I enjoyed as a kid for a sibling to play with. Material comforts aren’t everything.
 
I hate bugs. Go on: be sad caterpi.

Just kidding. I’ve forgotten how fat Gen 1 pikachu was.
 
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kotaku.com

Pikachu Used To Be Way Cuter (and Fatter)

Pikachu, the iconic Pokémon from Pocket Monsters, looks slightly different these days. Adorable, sure, but not nearly as adorable as in 1997, back when the Pokémon anime first debuted. Not nearly as fat, either.
kotaku.com kotaku.com

:grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:
 
I like new pikachu better. At least he has a neck now.

I can’t tell looking at that picture in the article if the artist just didn’t know how to draw straight lines or is implying that pikachu changed genders.
 
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Where i live, 55k with three kids is very hard to get by on, even with frugality.
 
Precisely my point. A dollar is very different in NYC or Idaho or India. The $2/day metric is rubbish. According to the article I linked to earlier, earning $2 per day in a rural village in India doesn’t even qualify you as poor. The OP is out of his element here.
 
I think the OP has a point about modern American Christians often overlooking poverty as a moral issue. The fact that cost of living is relative doesnt change that. I am with the OP about the moral need to aid the least among us.
 
I disagree. I’ll bet you that among CAF members there is tremendous generosity towards the poor. Whether through Catholic Charities, local parish outreach programs, or whatever else, I’ll bet the people on here are very generous.

The OP wanting to literally have Americans write checks to Sub-Saharan Africa is ludicrous and not worthy of serious discussion. People in this country have to live, too.
 
This is an interesting topic to me personally because we are a family of 9 squeaking by on roughly 50k per year in Texas. I choose to not work for money so I can do the harder and better work of homeschooling and raising the kids. My husband chooses to not find a higher paying job because, among other things, the one he has is secure (family business). He chooses to not get a second job because, among other things, working more than ~40 hours a week would take him away from us too much. Money isn’t everything. Family life and bringing up kids in the way we think they should go are much more valuable than money to us.

That being said, a “living wage” or “family wage” would be nice. Not essential, obviously, but nice.
 
Actually, on CAF i have seen many posters who express quite uncharitable attitudes towards the poor. How much they give to charitable causes is not known to me and varies by individual. But the way some posters disregard the poor, the sick, the immigrant etc. , at least in their online postings, seems to me to be more influenced by American politics and the materialistic “greed is good” culture than Catholic teaching, or the Christian tradition.
 
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Fair enough. Does not change the fact that the OP is incorrect. The Church has spoken on this issue multiple times: Communism/Socialism are not acceptable.
 
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