Why are the poor so generous?

[Senator Jack]

Okay, I apologize for making a generalization about the haves. From my experience, though, the have-nots seem to be a bit more generous. It's the attitude of 'I may have nothing, but you're still welcome to partake of it.' No, they can't give millions to charity, but they make sure they have booze and food on hand at a party. :eusa_clap

Regards,

Senator Jack

 

[Lincsong]

Generousity and frugalness crosses all income brackets. You've got people of modest means who will have you at the dinner table if you stop by unexpectedly just as others of more prosperous means will. On the flip side there are both better means and not so better means people who will tell to to come back in a hour when they've done eaten.

 

[Daisy Buchanan]

I don't know Jack, I've heard stories of such people but have yet to meet them!!!!

 

[Amelie]

because they know what its like to lack of something, and are able to appreciate something when its there, so they are more able to see all the good it can make to be generous to others

 

[Baron Kurtz]

I have yet to meet those of the absurdly prosperous bent.

However, i grew up a member of a distinctly working class family in a distinctly working class neighbourhood. One was always welcome at the dinner table if one dropped by. If you stopped in at someone's house and the kettle was not on the stove within a couple of minutes you knew you were somehow not welcome (arguments etc.).

Admittedly this was in the UK. I have little experience outside the middle class (or what passes for middle class. Most who would describe themselves as such are - to me - distinctly working class) in the USA.

bk

 

[K.D. Lightner]

When I loved in New York City twenty-some years ago, I read that the most generous tippers in NYC were Puerto Ricans. At the time I lived there, they and foreign born people were the most populous groups in service jobs, waiters and waitresses, taxi drivers, bartenders, etc. I also had lots of friends who had those jobs.

When you work hard at jobs for very little money and you depend on tips to make a decent living, you empathize with those who do the same. My waiter friends always tipped 20% at a time when the tipping rate was 10%. If they didn't have the money for a good tip, they wouldn't eat at the establishment.

Also, having worked with the poor in my social work job in San Diego, I found that those who had experienced the most extreme hardships were generous with their time and money and personal possessions when it came to giving to others who had fallen on hard times.

Just as Amelie stated "they know what it is like."

 

[Fletch]

In the Italian workingclass side of my family, you were always expected to eat when you dropped by. In fact it was hard to stop eating with all the food foisted on you. But my late uncle and aunt bought every durable good used - cars, furniture, appliances - and didn't believe in spending much on clothes or the house. Still, there was always a place at the table for you, and a crash on the couch if your luck ran low (and they had some hard-luck kids all right).

 

[LizzieMaine]

One of the reasons my grandparents died broke was that in all the years they were in business they refused to crack down on friends who owed them money for fuel oil or car repairs. Unfortunately, way too many people took advantage of that generosity...

 

[Hondo]

"Money is like fertilizer -- if you hoard it, it stinks. If you spread it around, stuff grows" I think its true, although I’ve been trying to save 10% of what I make, they say the rich invest their cash, spend whats left, the poor spend cash, invest whats left see? Thats why the rich are so cheap.

I’m generous when I can be, feel good about it, not reckless, I wish I could give and give but I can’t so little things like tipping waitress, the shoe shine guy is about it.
We won’t be here for ever, can’t take it with you, and its not a heck of a lot. That A.N. Smith taught me (and others) to update your wills, everyones taken care of, too bad no one did that for me but that’s life in the nut shell.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

Yep. You can't take it with you,... so what's the point in hoarding it?
It's bad karma to be miserly, and I honestly believe it is a universal law to be generous to those less fortunate than ourselves, those who can not pay us back.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

because they know what its like to lack of something, and are able to appreciate something when its there, so they are more able to see all the good it can make to be generous to others

Yes. It's more than sympathy: it's empathy. Walking a mile in someone else's moccasins, and all that.

.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

This reminds me of a lady that was complaining in the post office about the free address labels the Disabled Veterans send her. She said they should leave her alone! All this as she got into her new Cadillac SUV.

We give every year. We drive old (not cool vintage) cars.

 

[Hondo]

Yep. You can't take it with you,... so what's the point in hoarding it?
It's bad karma to be miserly, and I honestly believe it is a universal law to be generous to those less fortunate than ourselves, those who can not pay us back.

As Ward Cleaver would say “Exactly Beaver” lol

I have only one exception and I've been down this lonely road years ago, thats bums who ask for change (change? I changed my socks this morning) you don't have to live this way if you do not wish too, I direct them to nearest homeless shelter for food or help, very rare I give them, if I feel they really need it.

 

[reetpleat]

Of course different people differ. I think plenty of wealthy people don't mind throwing their money around, but middle class and upper middle class people tend to be more conservative and proper. Which might tie them to ideas of frugality. Poor people may not have good management skills which wold cause them to throw money around too liberally, but there is also a certain attitude amongst the working class which is you help each other out.

I know that in Mexico, most people have very little, but their family pride is important to them as is the concept of hospitality (some say it is an arab custom of desert necessity, passed to spain by the moors passed to the americas via la conquesta) So hospitality is very important to a Mexican. Their last peso will be spent on a guest. Pesos come and go, but your pride in hospitality and community is much more valuable.

 

[carebear]

You all probably know this but the concept of demonstrating wealth by showing generosity (which is the root of the Arab tribal traditions) isn't exclusive to any tribal or clan society anywhere in the world.

It was as common in European and Asian tribes/clans as it was in the ME and the Pacific Islands.

What's easy to forget is that when clan and tribe affiliations give way to more "city/state/national" mindsets the practice morphs a bit. It isn't that the Chinese and the Greeks/Romans (and their Western descendents) never had the potlatch tribal concept; they just got past it to the more formalized social form of "civilized" giving sooner, for better or worse.

It's a pet peeve of mine, the forgetting that, say, my Irish and Saxon ancestors with their Roman cultural inheritance were, originally, any less "in touch with the earth" and all that other tribal good stuff as any more recently "civilized" groups. My people had spirit guides and Great Spirits too.

 

[Brian Sheridan]

I think if you find poor people to be more generous it is because more poor people follow religion. The stories in the Bible are about the poor who gave the alms they could being rewarded where the rich were not going pass through "the eye of a needle." Worshop God instead of manna (money) and you probably are more disposed to dispose of it.

BRS

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Religion is a big factor. Take Islam, for example: almsgiving is imbedded in it. Muslims give because Allah expects and approves of it. And plenty of Christian churches encourage/expect tithing (sp?).

.

 

[Caledonia]

Not sure about that religion bit, will think about that for a while, but it would be true to say that I have been offered half a ham sandwich and a cup of tea from my auntie in law, who happens to be religous, who still baths in an iron tub and has a toilet without a seat, who believes you should welcome and feed the guests even if it was meant for your supper. Another auntie in law who also dished out food as soon as you walked in the door, also religious, and also not that well off, a friend's mother who as standard donated 10% of her earnings to the church (a cleaner). So my experience goes with the generosity of the less well off. On the other hand, I've been welcomed into a very well off neighbour's house (we're talking manor house to castle here) and been treated like family with no stinginess in sight, and was donated a bed to boot (that's another story!). Maybe wealth corrupts, maybe if you're poor you have empathy and understand need, or maybe it doesn't matter how much or little you have, it's who you are that dictates your generosity.

 

[patrick1987]

The poor know they are going to continue to be poor so why not share it? That's why I like watching old Honeymooners and Flintstones when their get-rich schemes fail: they aren't going to starve and they lead rich lives and yes, I know it's only tv.

 

[Cousin Hepcat]

I don't know Jack, I've heard stories of such people but have yet to meet them!!!!

You should've grown up in MY neighborhood! It was a somewhat rough urban part of town, and there were a few people you had to avoid, but most were "visitors" who didn't live there... most everyone else was "Good People" and would share with you anything they had if you were in greater need at the moment, and they knew they could expect the same.

- C H