Gans has reflected at some length on the functions of poverty, taking up Merton s point that items which are functional for some sub-groups in society may be dysfunctional for others. Society, he argues, is so preoccupied outwardly with the costs of poverty that it fails to identify the corresponding benefits, or rather, the groups or values who benefit. Poverty helps to ensure that dirty, dangerous, menial and undignified work gets done. The poor help to provide emotional satisfaction, evoking compassion, pity and charity, so that the affluent may feel righteous. The poor offer affluent people vicarious participation in sexual, alcoholic and narcotic behaviour.
Poverty helps to guarantee the status of the non-poor.
The poor assist in the upward mobility of the non-poor. The poor perform cultural functions, like providing labour for Egyptian pyramids, Greek temples and medieval churches. The poor play a relatively small part in the political process and indirectly allow the interests of others to become dominant and distort the system. Gans denies that he is showing why poverty should persist, only that it survives in part because it is useful to a number of groups in society whether the dysfunctions outweigh the functions is a question that clearly deserves study . He points out that alternatives can be found easily enough for some functions.