‘Cause I don’t care too much for money. Money can’t buy me love…
— The Beatles, Can’t Buy Me Love
Your loving gives me a thrill,
But your loving don’t pay my bills
Now give me money… That’s what I want…
— The Beatles, Money (That’s What I Want)
Like so many of us, The Beatles had a complicated relationship with money. They wanted it, but also claimed they didn’t care too much for it.
America as a whole has a similarly confusing love-hate relationship with money. We want everyone to have enough to eat, and a warm place to sleep, but we’re pretty much okay with the idea that 1% of our families own half of everything, including multiple homes, multiple yachts, multiple private jets, and multiple golf courses. Even multiple spaceships.
At the same time, many of us are concerned about poverty. Especially those who live in it.
But also, others are concerned. Even some of the 1%.
One might think — if one were inclined to think — that poverty is caused by a lack of money. I’ve had that impression myself. In fact, I had a brief personal experience of poverty, many years ago when the kids were young, and Darlene took it into her head to suddenly quit her job, for what she thought were valid reasons. We found ourselves applying for food stamps to keep the family fed.
If you’ve ever benefited from food stamps, you know that they act a little bit like money, except that you can’t use them to buy cigarettes. As I quickly found out.
I suspect The Beatles could have written a hit song about food stamps. But too late now.
By the way, they don’t call them “food stamps” anymore. They’re called SNAP benefits. Probably because a lot of the manufactured products people are eating these days are not really “food”. I believe they’re technically “food-like products.”
Be that as it may, a lot of very intelligent people — more intelligent than this humble journalist — have also put forth the idea that poverty is caused by a lack of money, and have suggested that giving money to poor people might be a good way to address the problem.
From a recent article by Megan McArdle in The Washington Post:
Without money, a broken-down car or an eviction can cascade into a job loss and other financial crises, and the stress involved can lead to health issues and other problems…
Including difficulties buying cigarettes.
Ms. McArdle did some research into the attempts by various government and non-profit entities to solve the poverty problem by providing impoverished families or individuals with financial help — as is being tried in Denver through the ‘Denver Basic Income Project’.
The Denver project is designed as a research project aimed specifically at 800 homeless people. If you give them money, does that get them off the streets?
How much do you have to give them? I mean, you would want to spend the minimum, right? One of the three cohorts in the Denver project got $50 a month. Another cohort got $500 a month, and a third group got $1,000 a month.
I would want to be in the third group, if I had my choice.
After one year — and $9 million spent — about half the people had acquired permanent rental housing. Seems like a success story. Not a complete success, but at least a partial success.
The reports I read about the Denver project didn’t state whether the homeless people had found love as a result. But given the choice between a place to live and an occasional roll in the hay, most people would take the house. As The Beatles had suggested so many years ago.
Ms. McArdle, writing in The Washington Post, titled her article:
Cash alone proves inadequate to solve the problems of the poor
She cited some recent studies that found, when you pay off debts for poor people, or simply give them guaranteed monthly gifts of free cash, the people either start working fewer hours, or go deeper in debt buying stuff they don’t really need.
Which is exactly what Darlene and I did, while we were on food stamps. Who wants to work? Anyone?
And I’m sure the Denver Walmart didn’t complain, when they sold more unnecessary, plastic stuff to poor people.
And don’t forget: more cigarettes.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.