I'm confused whether the author is poor, has been poor, has never been poor but has deep understanding of what it's like for other reasons (friends, family, etc.). He writes
> I have a van that is falling apart. It needs a lot of work that we cannot afford to do.
but I think that should be read as "Imagine that I have ...", because, from his About page, he seems to have an irrigation and landscaping business and plays around with technology on the weekend.
I think the article would have been more effective it had been clearer exactly on what basis the author is writing about the experience of poor people.
I think the ambiguity is leading to a better discussion. Many commenters are struggling mightily with the urge to dismiss the author as a lazy moral failure, which would allow them to ignore his arguments as originating from an unreliable source. Since there's not enough information to do that, we're getting a certain amount of discussion of the actual ideas.
Hmm, possibly, but from my point of view the fact that he might not be speaking from experience, or at the very least from the experience of someone he has been close to, makes me disinclined to put a lot of weight on his opinions.
> I have a van that is falling apart. It needs a lot of work that we cannot afford to do.
but I think that should be read as "Imagine that I have ...", because, from his About page, he seems to have an irrigation and landscaping business and plays around with technology on the weekend.
I think the article would have been more effective it had been clearer exactly on what basis the author is writing about the experience of poor people.