The deadliest sin? Shame and entitlement can both be toxic to upward mobility

Editorial note: this essay originally appeared at The Giving Review.
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No one really believes in homo economicus, the model of human beings as perfectly “rational” decision-makers, constantly optimizing for their material self-interest. Although useful for predicting some components of human behavior, thinkers on both the right and left often use the myth of perfect human rationality as a strawman to point out flaws in the other side’s policy proposals. And while both sides seem willing to admit that humans (or at least the lower-income humans they study and for whom they create policy) are not actually unfeeling robots, they have very different ideas about which kind of irrationality presents the most problems for getting out of poverty.

Many on the left focus on the potentially crippling effects of shame among the poor. A 2023 report from the UK’s Joseph Rowntree Foundation, “Poverty stigma: a glue that holds poverty in place,” speaks for many people’s beliefs when it asserts that “the stigma associated with poverty, and the lack of dignity, self-worth and feelings of shame it can give rise to, can be as devastating and debilitating as material want.” In her widely cited 2017 Surviving Poverty: Creating Sustainable Ties Among the Poor, Joan Maya Mazelis posits that not only do wealthy and middle-class Americans look down on the poor, but the poor themselves also look down on one another, with devastating consequences.

“The stigma about poverty and about welfare keeps them [the poor] apart from their neighbors,” according to Mazelis. She believes these feelings of shame among the poor are directly tied to the stigma attached to receiving public assistance, preventing them from making social connections that could help them advance out of poverty by pooling resources and sharing risk. She even takes issue with any emphasis on the role of personal agency in overcoming poverty, writing, “The focus on what we have the power to do through our own actions inevitably leads to blaming poor people for their own poverty.”

While many on the right may not share the same concern about the poor making economically irrational decisions because of shame, they are much more likely to be concerned about the debilitating effects of a sense of entitlement. According to a 2022 Manhattan Institute paper,

Entitlement thinking goes beyond normal selfishness because it elevates the belief that one is deserving of special treatment, unearned privileges, and respect—independent of effort. The consequences of entitlement thinking are devastating. Entitlement thinking divorces individuals from personal responsibility; it impedes recognition of the consequences that stem from the individual’s behavior; and it leads the individual to view wants and desires as rights whose pursuit is beyond reproach.

For those who see this attitude as a key driver of poverty, the public-assistance system is perceived as both responding to and further propagating a sense of entitlement, aided by efforts over the years to reduce the stigma attached to receiving benefits. A Cato Institute blog entry succinctly captures this concern, asserting, “Massive amounts of redistribution create an entitlement mentality. People begin to think that government owes them a living.” It goes on to quote an Investor’s Business Daily op-ed that reflects a common, if romanticized, view of this cultural shift, “Once a nation of stoic, self-reliant individualists, America now seems full of people who think other taxpayers owe them something.”

Strengthen character and revitalize connections

Most sensible people of all ideological stripes can probably agree that feeling excessive shame (for whatever reason) probably inhibits the formation of fruitful social connections and that feeling an excessive sense of entitlement (also for whatever reason) probably inhibits fruitful individual effort. The conviction that one feeling is problematic to the exclusion of the other, however, leads not only to dueling studies and paper-writing efforts to prove the other side wrong, but also to mutually exclusive prescriptions for cultural change.

The “shame drives poverty” side would prefer a society where taking public assistance was free from any kind of stigma. The “entitlement drives poverty” side would favor a culture where such assistance was viewed as a last resort, increasing the stigma attached to receiving it. But what if neither change would have a meaningful effect on upward mobility for those who seem stuck at the bottom?

Rising out of poverty—especially multi-generational poverty—is extremely difficult, even in the presence of great opportunity. What if—raw talent and abilities being equal—those who rise successfully are most often those who can both exert individual effort and form healthy social connections? And what if those who get stuck are typically the ones unable to do one, the other, or both?

If this were true, the prescription would not be a widescale cultural reform that either decreased or increased the stigma associated with receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Section 8 housing, Medicaid, and so on. It would involve finding some way to both strengthen individual character formation and revitalize human connections in the neighborhoods that are struggling the most.

For nearly half a century, the Woodson Center has found that the most-efficient and -effective way to do both is to identify and resource indigenous leaders who are able to catalyze transformation in their own communities. Between 1996 and 1997, 65 people were murdered in the Benning Terrace housing projects in Washington, D.C. But the Woodson Center—then known as the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise—worked with the leaders in the neighborhood to broker a truce. The homicide rate dropped to zero for years, while former gang members finished school, found employment, got married and lived peaceful, prosperous lives. The strongest communities have healthy connections between individuals and families who each exert effort to help each other as well as themselves. And when this has been lost, for any number of reasons, it takes strong leadership from within to renew it.

It’s worth remembering that toxicity is usually determined by the dose; a little shame may just be a sign of a healthy conscience, while a little entitlement could be associated with self-respect. And of course, excessive shame and entitlement are not unique to the poor or working class; they are struggles of the human condition. But of course, wealth insulates people from the harshest physical consequences of isolation and laziness, if not their miseries.

The proposed policy changes (or desired cultural shifts) in the “implications” section of poverty studies are not like the life-saving medications produced by successful clinical-drug trials. At their very best, good policies create the space for positive change; they can never create the change itself. But just because character and relationships cannot be fixed with public policy does not mean they cannot be fixed at all. And just because the efforts must start from within doesn’t mean they cannot become contagious in the best possible way.

The Benning model was exported successfully to other neighborhoods facing similar problems. Funders who are serious about addressing such problems should look for indigenously led efforts that are already having success. Our most-distressed neighborhoods today are full of solutions, waiting to be discovered.