Poor people are not beneficial to this country

Thank you for starting this discussion. I shall frame my line of reasoning against the notion by (1) addressing my opponent's points, and (2) making a note about the subject of this discussion. Firstly, however, some definitions are in order. By "this country", I will assume that you mean the United States. "Poor people" refers, most likely, to individuals who fall below a certain economic threshold in society. This is the concept of "relative poverty", in contrasted to "absolute poverty". The relative poverty threshold, in the United States, is very different from that of other, poorer countries. Relative poverty figures are used in measuring income inequality within a community of people(1). Because "relative poverty" is often replaced with "income inequality", and because I do not necessarily believe the concept of "relative poverty" is useful, from hereon I shall replace the term "poor people" with "lower income individuals". Now, to address my opponent's three points in favor of his position. Your first claim is that poor people either don't pay taxes (because they do not work) or live off the taxes of others. However, both of these assertions are false. Around 40% of Americans (the working poor) pay no federal income tax. But that leaves many other taxes for them to pay either directly or indirectly. Social security taxes, now split into social security and Medicare, totals 15.3% of all income earned for those who make less than $106,000 in 2009. That's what a self employed handyman or factory worker pays. The working poor may pays only 7.65% directly because the employer pays the other half, but economists will tell you that directly-paid wages are a function of total labor cost to employers, so the other half is paid indirectly through lowered wages(2). We all pay sales taxes as well, which in some areas can be as high as 10% when state and local taxes are combined. These taxes are paid by all, but make up a larger percentage of the income of the poor, because as much as 50% of their income may be spent on taxable items. In other words, a poor family may pay out as much as 3% of their total income in sales taxes, while a wealthy family is likely to pay 1% or less. State income taxes range from nothing up to 8% in some states. Property taxes are paid by all working poor as well. Even those who rent are paying the true cost of property taxes. By the way, the costs of corporate income taxes are also passed on in the products and services produced. If taxes on profits were paid only as owners received those profits as income, prices would likely be lower, so we pay those taxes indirectly as consumers. In response to your second point, most people work by the way. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of Americans on welfare is about 2%. This is in contrast to 24% of Americans estimated to be below the relative poverty threshold(2). In other words, about 8% of so-called "poor people" take welfare. This is a small figure: too small to equate with all lower income people. Your second claim is essentially that poor people produce crime. This is absolutely false. Falsely, when we think of crime, we think of a hooded man stealing a car. However, while damages from theft and robbery in 1993 amounted to only $15.3 billion (committed by "poor people"), white-collar crimes such as embezzlement cost society about $200 billion. With respect to murder, the FBI counted exactly 23,127 in the United States in 1993. However, if we take into account corporate negligence and malfesience, the figure is actually closer to 318,368. Since murder is "an unlawful killing with malice aforethought", a rich mine owner is equally as guilty if he knew his mines were unsafe as the mugger who killed his victim(3). From these figures, it is clear that the powerful and rich are capable of much more loss of life and property than the poor. Taxes are spent to fix problem areas like Harlem because the crime we associate with poor black men is thought to be prevented easily by a stronger police presence. These same crimes committed by the rich and powerful are seen as unpreventable, because closing down an business is met with strong opposition from community members. Your third claim is that rich people are beneficial to this country. And I agree. However, I am not sure how this supports your claim that the poor are not beneficial. Are you saying that the poor would be more beneficial if they were rich? However, that would not make sense. Would we pay the software designer (Bill Gates) the same as the assembly line worker? In that case, what would be the incentive to produce, knowing that you will be paid the same regardless. That is the failure of socialism, an economic system that puts the entire populace in poverty. Innovation can happen within any class of a society. A vast majority of businessmen in this country did not start rich; they became rich after being relatively poor, but dedicating themselves to becoming rich. I would move now to my own arguments if I had any. However, I don't think my position is worth arguing. This is because whether or not a certain class of people is "beneficial" to a society is irrelevant to any and all considerations. It is un-American to think of individuals merely in terms of their place within a group, and to measure a person's value simply by where they place monetarily and numerically within a group. A person's value transcends his or her social context or social utility. Some (if not most) of the greatest intellectuals and artists in the history of mankind have lived most or their entire lives under the poverty threshold within their societies. And yet we would hardly call them "not beneficial" to their respective societies. The fallacy in my opponent's arguments is the treatment of a class of people as a homogeneous class, with the same goals, aspirations, and characters. All poor people do not commit crime, just as all rich people do not commit crime. All poor people do not depend on social welfare, just as all rich people do not depend on corporate welfare. I should not have to defend anyone from the kind of abject classism as I have seen here. Although I have no intention of defending the welfare system in any way, I have no interest in allowing classism to ferment on the pretext that lower income people are, in some way, useless to the societies they bleed dry. This is reverse-Marxism: both philosophically and politically untenable. ----------- (1) = http://www.census.gov... (2) = http://www.fiordiliji.sourceoecd.org... (3) = http://www.huppi.com... -----------