I grew up poor, not "oh, we're short on money" poor, but "people would randomly leave grocery bags with food in them during the holidays on our doorstep, of which some people stole food out of before we knew it was there" poor. It's hard to sum everything up properly in just a comment here on HN, it's not a lack of effort, or drive, or want to improve the situation. It's literally everything in the deck completely stacked against you. Get a $100 bonus? Well, that means we can pay the past due on the electric and water bill both this month instead of paying only the one that is about to get shut off. There's so much ground to make up that there is never any appearance of improvement, any and all progress results in "less behind" than you were before, but you're still behind and still have the same problems. I started my own lawn mowing business when I was fairly young (~11-12) by borrowing someone's lawn mower, dragging it from section 8 housing to middle class neighborhoods and charging $20 a lawn. I gave half of the money I made to my parents. One of the things I bought from my portion of it was an 18 speed bike. I eventually ended up getting hit by a car, and could afford to replace the rim of the wheel that got screwed up. Eventually, my parents replaced the rim and gave the bike to my brother for Christmas. Yes, they took my broken bike, spent less than $10 on a used, not-quite-right part and then gave it as a gift.

From all that I saw during this, I never once knew of a charity that provided any actual help. Around the holidays, several different charities, churches and caring folks would drop off food. But the food all had a shelf-life of less than a month, so we would eat really good for November/December and then immediately go back to how it was before. I've worked for a few charities/non-profits since dragging myself out of that. I wouldn't ever contribute a single dollar to a charity. However, my time is worth far more value (to me and to those receiving it) than a dollar could be. Volunteer regularly somewhere, like one Saturday a month. The day given up is less cost than a corresponding day's worth of salary and the benefit you can provide is larger than the dollar amount. In the past, I've provided efforts such as: plumbing/electrical/construction/maintenance at zero cost to the person receiving it (including replacement parts), child herding (three of us would take and pay for a trip to a local amusement park for the day, along the lines of a carnival in terms of rides), free tutoring (this one went a long ways, 2 kids and free "babysitting" all day, as well as providing a lot of benefit for the kids). It is much easier to find people who are in need via religious organizations or shelters.

The key takeaway is that if you give dollars, it will be spent on what they absolutely need to survive. There are no more decisions about sacrificing a little bit somewhere in order to do something "nice" such as fixing the leaking faucet because they just can't be made. By providing the things that are sacrificed, you give a glimpse that things can be better while providing for what they cannot manage to. I'm also of the opinion that it doesn't introduce a dependency on charity, which means that it would be better for them in the long term.

Thanks for your insight. Would you agree with the "Bee Sting" theory of poverty that was discussed here before, then?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1467832

(article: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/03/30/... )

Somehow I managed to miss when that article came across HN, and they auto-detect mobile devices so I couldn't read it till I got home, but it is a much better fit that the typical ones people assign. It's a somewhat flawed analogy though, if you have 6 bee stings and can relieve one, there's noticeable improvement. A better description would be "Imagine you get stung 6 times per day and you have the option to treat one sting a week". The entire problem is that they're losing ground every day and any progress they make is to lose less ground per day, not actually making forward progress.

give directly to local charities, like your food bank or library. you could ask around at your civic center or library for groups who don't have a lot of overhead - i personally try to only donate to groups who are very local and don't have high administration costs, e.g. run by volunteers. if you aren't bothered by church groups they also can do a lot of good. if you have children at school, as your local school if you can help out by donating books or music instruments for those who can't otherwise afford these things. you can make a difference in someone's life, believe me.

This. My better half is director at a small non-profit here that is part of an ecosystem focusing on helping people get out of this cycle.

Her non-profit is the last step in this local ecosystem, taking people who are at about 75% of the local median household income and helping them with more affordable housing while they get back on their feet (or find their feet for the first time). However, it's no free ride. They require that the participants go through financial education, require that they continue making forward progress in bettering themselves, and monitor/mentor them all along the way.

They've taken nearly destitute families and guided them to the point of sustainable, unsubsidized home ownership, requiring far less monetary assistance along the way than comparable (less effective) government programs. I'm generally jaded by the waste, fraud, and ineffectiveness that we so often hear about regarding charities, but the work that her charity has done is amazing.

It's depressing to watch her smaller, deserving organization have to fight a desperately uphill battle against huge, inefficient organizations when it comes to funding and donations. So, I strongly second the notion of finding good, local charities to donate to.

"This" is not a complete sentence.

</grammar nazi>

I'm going to try this donating to the local school, thanks for the constructive ideas.

There's a program in Germany which has well-educated non-teachers teaching and tutoring pupils in low-income areas. It's quite new, but from what I've heard (from a teacher), it's going to help, mostly by showing pupils possibilities.

If you can, try engaging or tutoring pupils in low-income areas.

I just had a thought for a charity that could really help people who are stuck in a bad (physical) location: enough money to cover, specifically, the first and last month's rent deposit required by most apartments.

Living paycheck-to-paycheck (I've been there... although by my own fault and not for long enough to be desperate) means you can't make certain changes because they require some money up front, and those changes would help break the cycle of poverty (such as moving to take a better job).

I think this is a great idea. I know the microfinance people love to do photo ops in the third world, but there is a great need for microfinance to the poor in the first world too.

Enforce minimum wages that people can actually live on. Most poor people work significantly harder than your typical white collar office worker. The only thing that separates most of the middle class from the poor is that the middle class had a solid foundation from their family on which to build their future.

What if minimum wage laws actually perpetuate the problem by preventing low skill workers from getting hired in the first place?

I don't think minimum wage laws are a significant cause of unemployment, but there is plenty of dispute about that. Even if you're right, what good is having a job if it gives you nothing more than the ability to spin your wheels and never progress in life or provide your children with some good opportunity? It seems preferable to have a system where workers are paid well and there is higher unemployment, but also stronger safety nets as opposed to a system with lower unemployment, few safety nets, and swathes of working poor that will never make progress.

Also, there is reason to believe that higher minimum wages encourage your workforce to become better skilled in order to compete on the world market at their higher price, as is the case in Germany.

Being hired on the US minimum wage is hardly going to lift people out of poverty. One thing that really seems crazy to me is that the US minimum wage isn't even tied to inflation and went though a period of no increase from 1997 to 2006.

Almost need some kind of subsidy somewhere to give these people at least a decent standard of living.

"Enforce minimum wages that people can actually live on. Most poor people work significantly harder than your typical white collar office worker. The only thing that separates most of the middle class from the poor is that the middle class had a solid foundation from their family on which to build their future."

What would stop companies from increasing the costs of their goods and services because they know minimum wage is higher (and people can now afford it)?

Minimum wage in the US is $7.25/hour (many states are higher). A person couldn't support a family on this, but they could find a place to live (either renting a room, cheap apartment, or sharing a bigger apartment with friends) and have enough left over for the bare-minimum.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._minimum_wages

Following your comment through to it's logical conclusion: why not make the minimum wage $1,000,000/yr?..that should take care of poverty altogether.

That's not even close to the logical conclusion: the statement was "Enforce minimum wages that people can actually live on", not "Higher minimum wage is always better."

Contrast that with many right wing arguments about taxation, which usually take the form "Lower/more regressive taxes are always better, and here's why" - disturbingly many of those arguments are "valid" (i.e. if you accept the arguer's claims, the conclusion follows) no matter what the starting point is, and the end result would either be zero taxes for everyone or (surprisingly common) almost 100% taxation of the lower classes and no tax on the upper; hell, if we allow for redistribution, many of the conservative arguments actually imply that the upper class should be given money by the lower class, for the good of the economy.

If your argument pushes some number in one direction but doesn't turn around for some value of that number, then there's typically a problem with the argument; here, that's not the case, the poster explicitly provided that stopping point.

That really depends on what you are willing to risk. You could volunteer\Donate directly to your local food kitchen. Then you know you have stopped someone from starving today. If you are willing and able to risk more for greater effect give a homeless person a job.