The Deserving Poor

The Issue:

Various funds such as the government’s Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) that are offered to mitigate damage from COVID-19, are directed toward people who have lost employment, or are about to, because of COVID-19. There are other groups who should be covered. One category is those who became unemployed just before COVID-19 but not due to it. The other group is people who became unemployed earlier than COVID-19.

Both categories face abnormal difficulties in becoming employed due to COVID-19. With everyone closing down, who will be hiring, aside from Walmart (nothing wrong with that, save perhaps the close and frequent exposure to possibly ill people) and farmers (many people would be physically unable to help farm)?

Ethical and Moral Dilemmas:

The real issue here is what Shaw’s Doolittle (Pygmalion) called the “deserving poor” and the “undeserving poor”. Shaw ascribed this to middle-class morality.

I ask you, what am I? I'm one of the undeserving poor: that's what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that he's up agin [against] middle class morality all the time. If there's anything going, and I put in for a bit of it, it's always the same story: 'You're undeserving; so you can't have it.' But my needs is as great as the most deserving widow's that ever got money out of six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband. I don't need less than a deserving man: I need more. I don't eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement, cause I'm a thinking man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I feel low. Well, they charge me just the same for everything as they charge the deserving. What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything. Therefore, I ask you, as two gentlemen, not to play that game on me. I'm playing straight with you. I ain't pretending to be deserving. I'm undeserving; and I mean to go on being undeserving. I like it; and that's the truth.

There is a second way to understand the distinction: the belief that some people deserve being poor because of immoral actions such as laziness, drunkenness or other addiction; or marriage or family failure; or theft or other crime; while some are poor through no fault of their own. It is this last category we may find in our current situation, although I would not argue for considering anyone to be deserving poor as above. No one deserves to be sick or starving or too cold or hot for healthy living. No one deserves to be isolated through lack of means to make it in this world.

Jonathan Haight’s The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion asserts that social liberals view fairness as something which should be for all, while social conservatives expect fairness to be earned. These distinctions may lie behind some of these attitudes toward the currently unemployed.

People in the positions identified above might ask, “If Government is now capable of keeping nearly so many above water, why not go all-out?” If the objective is to get money into people’s hands so they can take care of themselves and drive the economy once stores open, it would be to society’s advantage to give more people the same ability. In other words, a more inclusive, just society.

The Toronto public school board is preparing for the delayed return to schools by developing on-line learning. As part of this effort, they are attempting to provide computers and internet service to every student who does not have these already. The benefits are obvious: when it is clear that the return to physical schools is some time away and either closing or distance education are the alternatives, equipping them in this way ensures that all students, including low-income, can be connected, educated, and be able to prepare themselves for the next things in their lives. This robs income disparity of some of its power to keep the poor, poor.

Making a ground floor for everyone (including those receiving lesser social assistance) may improve their chances of bettering their circumstances. This is turn may make it likelier that they will improve our society economically, socially, and morally.

Legal and Values Dimensions:

Doing the right things is too often discussed without naming and clarifying one’s values. My value, “be as concerned for others and things (animals, environment) as for yourself; neither more nor less,” is a paraphrase of the religious injunction, and it is the most demanding ethic I know.

I am also fond of Hillel’s (second century CE Jewish teacher) three questions:  “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when?” These are questions every moral person must answer for themselves.

Applying these values, I think that COVID-19 is actually forcing us to investigate the benefits of continuing to do what we are doing now. The benefits are obvious, but so too are the risks. We must as a society take time to examine why we have persistently shied away from these strategies for so long, and whether there are sustainability, social cohesion and other detriments to continuing along this fairer, more just, new path.
If we are equal before the law, as in this lion and lamb sculpture at the McMurtry Law Gardens, indicates, then equality fuses the economy and social justice.

The CERB will provide $2,000 per month to workers impacted by COVID-19 for up to 4 months The CERB benefit is to be paid every 4 weeks and will be available from March 15, 2020 until October 3, 2020

People who are eligible include:

• (a) Workers who must stop working due to COVID-19 and do not have access to paid leave or other income support;
• (b) Workers who are sick, quarantined, or taking care of someone who is sick with COVID-19;
• (c) Working parents who must stay home without pay to care for children that are sick or need additional care because of school and daycare closures;
• (d) Workers who still have their employment but are not being paid because there is currently not sufficient work and their employer has asked them not to come to work; and
• (e) Wage earners and self-employed individuals, including contract workers, who would not otherwise be eligible for Employment Insurance.

Further Reading:

Jonathan Haidt

George Bernard Shaw

The CERB is made up of the two previously announced Emergency Care Benefit and the Emergency Support Benefit. The benefit will be accessible through a secure web portal starting in on April 6th. Applicants will also be able to apply via an automated telephone line or via a toll-free number.

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