Work hard… get out of poverty--- well, let’s talk about that

Alan L. Maki

One time when I lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan Richard DeVoss, the big-shot Republican founder of AmWay called me and told me that he would help everyone get out of poverty if they purchased one of his kits to sell his AmWay products and if they were willing to work really hard they wouldn't be poor.

I asked Mr. DeVoss to provide me with the income tax returns of AmWay salespeople to prove his point--- next thing you know I heard this great big loud "clunk" on the other end of the line... unfortunately, most people who work at AmWay and sell his AmWay products are among the poorest of the poor.

I have also made some observations that people who work the hardest seem to make the least.

I worked for Lillian Vernon Corporation in Virginia Beach, Virginia for several years.

This is a huge sweatshop employing some 5,000 people. I was a Meistergram operator (a big computerized industrial sewing machine) making "top pay" in the place... if I worked 12 hour days six days a week I could afford to purchase groceries and usually manage to purchase gas to get to work between paychecks.

One day the plant manager came by telling everyone, "We are working a mandatory 7 days a week, ten hour days, for the next three weeks.

The elderly Black woman working behind me told him: "Why don't you people just bring back the chains." She had worked there for 13 years and was so poor she had to live with her children. The plant manager fired her on the spot for "insubordination."

The next day the plant manager came through and took away all of our stools to sit on... he said it was for "safety reasons." I asked him how the stools posed a safety hazard... he said he didn't want anyone to get tired and fall asleep and sew their fingers.

I have never seen people work so hard for so little. Once a year "Ms. Lilly" would tour her plant asking everyone how they liked their jobs... obviously no one asked her "When are you going to bring back the chains?"

I have always wondered how hard a person has to work to work themselves out of poverty.

If there was a correlation between people working hard and the amount of wealth a person attains in life I would think there would be 90-million millionaires and a couple-hundred thousand people--- maximum--- living in poverty.