The poor get rich by practicing a system of values.  Since Americans are less interested in religion, having children, hard work, community involvement, and education, the passing lane into wealth is wide open. 

 

The Wall Street Journal recently published an article titled, “America Pulls Back from Values that Once Defined it.”  That means, there’s never been a better time to be poor in America.  The passing lane into wealth is wide open.  Here’s why.

Religion

This year, 39% said religion was very important in the survey. That was down sharply from when the Journal first asked the question in 1998 when 62% deemed religion to be very important.

In so much of my writing and speaking, I’ve made the point clearly that religious people are happier and richer than non-religious people.  Most of my data comes from the book by Arthur Brooks titled Gross National Happiness. 

I addressed a young woman in my sophomore class at DBU recently with the astounding assertion, “As a Christian, American woman, you are among the happiest people in the world.  If you want to increase that measure, just get married.”  Yep, it’s true: A Christian American married woman is the happiest person in the world.  And, three of those are choices.  The only one that you’re “stuck with” is the woman part, but that made her happier also. 

So, the message to the poor: You can CHOOSE to be happy AND rich because you can choose to be religious.

Multiply

We are commanded to “Be fruitful and multiply.”  But according to the WSJ study, Only 23% of adults under age 30 said that having children was very important.  That’s really kinda sad.  It seems so obvious that God made women to reproduce.  Sorry, I typically give more meaningful economic support for my positions, but this one just seems so basic.  If women DON’T reproduce, what happens?  Well, what happens is what is happening now in every developed country: There are not enough humans to produce economic goods for each other, and we all get poorer. 

Ginger reminds everyone we meet, that the most viewed of my podcasts is #88 titled Don’t Fear the Future.  The reason I end every podcast with the phrase “Fear God, tell the truth, earn a profit,” is because if you fear God, you fear nothing else. 

But, accepting the invitation of Christ is a choice.  And fearing the future is a choice.  Fortunately, poor people can choose to follow Christ, and that makes them richer.  

Hard Work  

This measure is down from 76% to 62%.  Ok, here’s the real opportunity for the poor.  If 38% of the population is not interested in hard work, the poor can set themselves apart by wanting to work hard.  If there’s one thing that makes the poor richer, it’s hard work.  Those who do it, get richer, and those who don’t, get poorer.

I make this point every semester during the first meeting of my Econ class at Dallas Baptist University.  I show them the final grades of students from a previous semester and show that they almost perfectly correlate with attendance.  I tell them, “You think there are smart and dumb students in the class, but you’re wrong.