Well, I'm going to take a brief detour from my principles of thrift and wander down an idle lane...

Today on the way home, I saw, as usual, a couple of people standing at a busy intersection panhandling. I thought, how sad, especially since the job market is supposed to be pretty good here. Then I thought, well, what makes it worse than many of the minimum wage jobs here? True, in one you're earning your money, but are you treated better? More respect? I've seen some minimum wage workers treated like criminals. Or worse. There seems to be some illusion of supervision of the treatment of criminals. Not so with many minimum wage jobs (I exclude a lot of fast food places because they mostly hire minors, and mistreatment of minors gets attention). I've heard a lot of stories, most of which I believe. Yes, there are plenty of people who are lazy, incompetent, unreliable, dishonest and just plain dumb as dirt. But there's no higher percentage of them in minimum wage jobs than in professional or executive jobs, or business owners. I've met some fine people in executive positions, but I've met others who obviously had a parent with the money to buy them a degree and a job.

Ooops, sidetracked. Anyway, would panhandling really be more humiliating than the way many minimum wage employees are treated? The panhandlers probably make more money, frankly. They only have to work when they want to (or are getting too hungry).

Would I resort to panhandling or take a minimum wage job? Probably I'd take the job, but I'd be finding SOME way out of that job as quickly as possible. Actually, I'd probably find a way to do neither unless I had to have money NOW, but that's another question. If I did have to take the job, I'd start making things after work hours to sell and look for a part-time job as well so I had an exit. But I've been very fortunate, I've been given a lot of gifts that many other people haven't.

Can I honestly blame someone for panhandling rather than taking a minimum wage job? No. But it's a very sad thing that in a country as rich as ours is supposed to be, that's a better choice for some people.