Rural Ways recently received a surprise payment from the federal treasury. After calling the IRS to complain, we learned that the payment was our share of the Making Work Pay tax credit from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The credit is so named because only those who are working, and earning below a certain amount, are eligible. The lady with whom I spoke at the IRS almost slipped and called me "the working poor." She caught herself and said something like, "help for people who are working [and struggling] like yourself."There are two things about this that we find amusing at Rural Ways. First, there seems to be this undercurrent in government and the popular media that those of us who work extra hard, take some risks, and do well out of it (i.e. "the rich") are bad. They are just plain evil, no matter how they came by their rewards. Conversely, those of us who work hard, but earn less, are, by default, more righteous somehow. To be a member of "the working poor," is almost like a badge of righteousness, no matter what our personal choices may have been.
Second, the amount that one can earn, while still qualifying as poor or "low income" seems somehow warped. If we earn less than $150,000 per annum at Rural Ways, we qualify for the tax credit. Since Rural Ways usually earns not even half that much, we are clearly poor. Moreover, we learned recently that our daughter can attend Stanford University for free if we qualify as "low income." What is Stanford's magic number? $60,000. Wow. We're close. If we play it right, we might be able to go to Stanford for free. What a country! Where else can you earn sixty grand, garner media sympathy for being poor, and attend one of the best universities in the world for free?
The bottom line in all this is that American culture has been blinded by wealth. Whether we earn sixty or one sixty, we are obviously "rich." There is no way that you can look at the way people have lived throughout history, and are still living today in many parts of the world, and conclude that Rural Ways is "poor." (Heck, there are many who might even question whether we are "working.") We have a roof over our heads, food on the table, and the freedom to go up on the forest to paddle our canoe. We recognize that these are privileges that many people go without.
