I've always known the poor to be the most giving in society.
If you're in trouble, or hurt or need - go to the poor people. They're the only ones that'll help - the only ones.
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2025
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I think what you're observing is the interplay between two variables with opposing correlation with respect to wealth:
- Having empathy
- Ability to display empathy
Poorer people might have more empathy, but their ability to show it is inhibited because of lack of resources (time/energy/material) and lots of mental health issues that are a result of being poor. Wealthier people may have all the means to display empathy, but they're less incentivized to do so. At some point in the middle, you get a sweet spot where there's both sufficient desire and ability to do good.
No, the working class and the lower class are both very empathic. I'm guessing you haven't spent very much time with us.
I work in child welfare. I routinely do.
Selection bias.
You typically only interact with people who put their children at risk. Someone who doesn't give a shit about their kids is someone who lacks empathy.
This sounds like a handful of people I know that believe food stamp programs are flawed and destructive to society. They same a handful of routine abusers and applied that as the norm. 9 people used the stamps appropriately and faded into a nonexistent memory, but the one person that returned food for fash and bought cigarettes and lottery tickets each time was the face they remembered
Then you should hopefully already understand the multiple reasons anecdotal evidence is a poor way of trying to understand large groups of people, which is why we use statistical studies.
The people specifically in your community, engaging with welfare resources, are in no way an accurately representative sample of a larger social class in all areas. Your specific region likely has unique cultural factors at play. The subset of people engaging with welfare have unique economic factors.
I honestly think how we treat the service industry is how many people end up treating their kids.
Don't let the random deter you online. The online crowd are very out of touch
I'd like to point out that Melvin is part of the online crowd.
Oh you got me. You're right. People online are very in touch with reality
This is not true at all. Poor people are incredibly empathetic and forgiving. The middle class is a mixed bag but mostly just want to understand why and how to avoid it in the future. Rich people are a mixed bag, too, but most of the biggest assholes are rich.
This is from experience as a banker for many years. Whenever I had bad news (fees for example) for a poor person, they just looked sad. Whenever I had bad news for a rich person 1/3 of the time, they'd want me fired for being the messenger, 1/3 they disappear to talk to a higher up, and 1/3 they grumble and accept it. There are exceptions in every gro. Some rich folks were super nice, some middle class people were nightmares, but there was never a poor person who took it out entirely on the low tier employees.
I think there's solidarity that the decision comes from others and it's out of our hands. This may also be because I never told them bad news without advocating for them behind the scenes and understanding the whole sequence of events first. Probably over half the time I got the fees revoked since it was an accident or bad timing on something the bank did. Since we were a small bank, I had more power than big banks would allow.
No. Not in my experience.
Huh??? How do you figure poor people aren't empathetic???
I grew up poor. (Not homeless). We shared among all our friends and neighbors, especially when someone falls on hard times. It was kinda like a safety net. Being desperately homeless and addicted probably has a much different experience though.
I think it was David Graeber that pointed out that the poorer you are the more you need to be able to empathize with your boss and clients in order to survive.
But this notion that the middle class are somehow more empathetic is interesting because I think it is based on the (correct) idea that people need to actually own something in order to be generous. However, I find from personal experience, poor people have an easier time giving what they have because they know they can survive having nothing.
I never thought about it that way. Great take. If empathy is tied to percentage of wealth donated then surely the middle or middle upper is the winner, but in terms of what one wishes to give, I find it hard to believe from my experience with extremely impoverished people that they wouldn't give more if they could.
I'll never forget a guy in Chicago that while we were checking out a pizza place he walked up, obviously struggling, but was highly recommending the place and gave me a free slice because he was full after his first one. I didn't want to take it but eventually did because it seemed important to him. I think about him often.
Oh man I have a story about an unhoused lady who has dementia. I walk my dog and sometimes she recognizes me, other times she has no idea. One of the days I was walking the dog and she forgot who I was and asked to pet my dog. She thought I was unhoused as well for some reason and told me about some good spots to sleep. These people know what it means to survive based on the kindness of others.
PS
Her name is Catalina, and sometimes I see her at church and she donated what little money she has. It sorta painful but then I remember how we treat her. We always have a place for her at our table to eat after the service. She's our neighbor as far as we're concerned.
I think it’s more likely that you need to be able to empathize with someone in order to recognize when they’re being empathetic, and you empathize most with the middle class.
These are all great answers.
I'm pretty sure you have that curve wrong.
The poor have plenty of empathy, even more so than most. It just takes the back seat when priorities are to simply put food on the table the next day.
Poverty brain is weird. All mental strength is spent on ensuring one's own survival. And in this regard, acting on empathy comes with a cost. If not financial, it takes your focus away from your own needs. And those needs are so severe that every ounce of resources, monetary or mental, is spent wrestling against one's own impending ruin.
Source: Was poor, now I'm far from it. Focusing on living instead of just survival is a luxury I will never take for granted.
No , empathy's not really tied to how much money one has . Everyone has varying empathy levels . Empathy ≠ kindness
Some one could be very rich and still have empathy and still be terrible person . Because empathy isn't what determines some one's morality
Because empathy isn't what determines some one's morality
Maybe not entirely, but it's a MAJOR factor.
It's really hard to hurt another person when you feel their pain. I lack empathy for Walmart, and honestly don't care if you steal from them, but I'm going to make problems for you if I catch you creeping around my friend's house, because I'd empathize with their loss.
It’s really hard to hurt another person when you feel their pain.
Consider the sadist. How can you enjoy someone's suffering if you can't recognize it?
The most wicked people are advanced empaths.
I'm on the fence here. I won't rule out your claim, as sadism could be a perversion of empathy.
But, I think they recognize and enjoy the suffering BECAUSE they lack empathy, and it's the feeling of power over another that drives them.
The human mind is a messy place, especially when you start analyzing psychopaths.
I'm not sure that recognizing someone's suffering is the same as feeling that suffering. Empathy is feeling another person's suffering as if it were your own. So, to hurt that person would be to hurt yourself.
Seems very unlikely to me that there's any real relationship between financial wellbeing and the capacity for empathy. There are wonderful people and shitty people and everything in between, at all levels of society IMO. Better to judge individuals on their actions, than classes on their general characteristics.
https://www.definefinancial.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/giving-by-income-group.png
The pattern is poorer & richer people give more. The poorer people understand hardship & help one another. The richer people have more to give (and financial incentives to do so, such as tax write-offs).
The middle class gives the least, likely because they feel the most pinched on maintaining a quality of life that’s often becoming more expensive.
The poor, In my opinion, have the MOST empathy. They give a lot as a percentage of income & have the most to lose.
Your intuition is pretty much the opposite of the statistics.
Just because the cause you donate to is a tax write-off doesn't mean it's charitable. Example: all the charities that Trump used as grifts. His entire family is now forbidden from running "charities".
Also, fuck you for equating monetary donations with actual empathy.
This feels like a grave mischaracterization of what I wrote. I don’t think you’re a good faith actor. Have a good one.
We're talking about empathy and you immediately turn to finance as a measure of it. When it is not. Not at all.