On Twitter, I posted the following:

2 guaranteed reforms reformers refuse to do: 1) give children books 2) give poor children’s parents money.

Both of these are supported by solid research—the need for access to books and choice reading by decades of research in literacy and the second point is powerfully supported by a recent study from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation:

The impact of increases in income on cognitive development appears roughly comparable with that of spending similar amounts on school [emphasis added] or early education programmes. Increasing household income could substantially reduce differences in schooling outcomes, while also improving wider aspects of children’s well-being.

Yet, here is a response I received:

I’m afraid some poor children’s parents do not spend money wisely.

And the person’s Twitter profile begins with “I love Jesus!”

This is the problem.

The default assumption in the U.S. about people in poverty is paralyzed by stereotypes and blind to the inverse of this person’s fear: In a world in which childhood poverty in the U.S. exceeds 20% and the new majority in public schools is students living in poverty, when the filthy rich buy gold-plated teeth, is that spending money wisely?

Mullainathan and Shafir, in Scarcity, caution against drawing conclusions from observable behaviors by people living in poverty:

Given that we hold highly negative stereotypes about the poor, essentially defined by a failure (they are poor!), it is natural to attribute personal failure to them….Accidents of birth—such as what continent you are born on—have a large effect on your chance of being poor….The failures of the poor are part and parcel of the misfortune of being poor in the first place. Under these conditions, we all would have (and have!) failed. (pp. 154, 155, 161)

To be clear, the overwhelming evidence detailed by Mullainathan and Shafir shows that the same people behave differently in situations of abundance and situations of scarcity.

People in abundance have enough slack to behave in ways that are productive while people in scarcity do not have that luxury.

Remove the scarcity, add slack, and people can and will behave differently.

But as long as we can love Jesus and hate poor people (or at least remain skeptical, if not cynical, about them), we will never address the systemic conditions that produce the evidence that we use unfairly against people in poverty.