Poll: Poverty not fault of poor
Most high, low income respondents agree: Government doesn’t do enough to deal with poverty. But few are willing to pay higher taxes to solve problem
Israel’s poor live under “circumstances beyond their control,” or at least this is what 69 percent of the Israeli public believes according to a survey conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute in anticipation of the Caesarea Forum that will take place in Jerusalem Tuesday.
On the question of “blame,” 83 percent of poor people said they were not responsible for the deterioration of their situation, while only 53 percent of those with higher salaries shared the same opinion. Five percent of poor people alone said that poverty resulted from lack of effort on the part of the poor, compared to 30% of higher salaried people who thought so.
Government at fault
Both the poor and non-poor, however, agreed that the government deals insufficiently with the poverty problem which has gained momentum in recent years. Eighty percent of high-salaried respondents and 88 percent of low-salaried respondents said they were dissatisfied with the way the government treats poverty, and the majority (63.4 percent) believe the government spends too little money on the problem.
The Israel Democracy Institute noted that the survey was carried out during election time, which may have influenced survey results.
Most of the respondents of various income levels (about 62 percent) answered negatively when asked if they would be willing to pay additional taxes to reduce poverty in Israel. With that, willingness to pay more taxes increased with rising income: Some 40 percent of wealthy respondents said they would pay higher taxes compared to 14 percent of the poor.
Higher taxes
Another interesting statistic that arose reveals that those with left-wing political opinions are more willing to pay additional taxes and deal with poverty compared to those on the right of the political spectrum.
But besides external methods of solving the poverty problem, the survey revealed that most people perceived the poor themselves as having difficulties advancing from a personal and professional perspective in order to break out of the poverty cycle.
About 70 percent of respondents (80 percent of affluent and 88 percent of poor) testified that they were dissatisfied with the opportunities existing in Israel for poor and low-income level citizens to advance through hard work.
