You do not have to be begging on the streets to be poor nowadays. And having food on your table is no indication that you do not have serious financial problems.
Although it is not common knowledge, as many as 60,000 Maltese - 15 per cent of the population - and an alarming 20 per cent of children are living below the poverty line. According to Eurostat criteria, Lm2,036 is how much money a Maltese person needs every year to live adequately and not be considered poor.
The reality of the matter in Malta is that the minimum wage, plus social transfers, amount to a poverty wage for the family, according to research on family policy. This fact has now been officially confirmed by the National Statistics Office.
Single persons on a minimum wage do not fall under the poverty line but the minute someone else is also dependent on that income, they do, said stress senior lecturers Angela Abela and Charles Tabone, who conducted the research.
Dr Abela is a clinical psychologist and family therapist, while Rev. Dr Tabone is a sociologist, as well as the Head of the Department of Social Policy and Social Work at the University. They have put their heads together to analyse the poverty situation in Malta, discovering some alarming facts and presenting their proposals to the government to be incorporated in the draft National Family Policy.
The draft, which should be presented by the National Family Commission by the end of the month, should take into account minimum wage earners who are raising children, as these automatically fall below the poverty line. In order not to do so, both parents must have full-time jobs. Until they are childless, that is fine. But shouldn't they have the choice not to fall into poverty when they have children?
The researchers maintain that to have the choice, they would need to be offered benefits in cash. They recommend revising and increasing children's allowances. By how much is in the process of being calculated, but the idea would be to simply top up their allowance and get it up to the poverty line.
Children have to be at the centre of the National Family Policy, they insist. The fact that one in five lives below the poverty line is considered to be worrying, this being a significant chunk of the population.
"We cannot afford to have these children in such situations, and with poor possibilities of improving their status," the researchers feel.
Children have to be prevented from getting ensnared in the trap of inter-generational poverty.
It is now established, even internationally, that poverty and social exclusion are intertwined. Poor children are immediately socially excluded and cannot participate fully in what is going on around them, putting them at a disadvantage at the onset of their lives and impacting on their education and their health, both mental and physical.
Indicators of social exclusion include unemployment, living in a deprived environment, and a higher level of distress in the family (they argue more due to accentuated levels of stress).
Quantitative research has revealed that poor people's health is significantly worse, as is their level of education. The rate of depression in poor families is three times higher, while they have more chronic health problems - often the cause of job loss and consequent poverty.
If they have mental health problems, these are normally left to deteriorate because they cannot seek care, mental health services being limited, with a long waiting list, Fr Tabone points out.
The myth that poor people are lazy and do not try enough is unfounded, the researchers maintain. The problem is that what they are being offered is not enough to help them out of the poverty trap, particularly in the case of children.
The study on family poverty included interviews with 14 mothers who, in turn, gave permission to interview their children's teachers.
"It was interesting to note that they had no idea that certain students were below the poverty line," the researchers said, explaining that the main reason was the stigma surrounding poverty which parents tried to hide. "They are not really ready to tell the school that they cannot make ends meet due to the issue of shame."
Moreover, the teachers had certain myths about poverty, stressing that these children "always have enough to eat" - as though eating enough is the modern-day criteria for being financially OK.
So what is poverty in today's day and age? The first criterion is economic deprivation. But what is economic deprivation today? Has society conditioned us to need things that are not always necessary and, as a result, make us feel poor?
In concrete terms, these families cannot afford a computer; neither can they afford to go out for a coffee; nor can they call the doctor when they are sick.
A simple cold is a cause for alarm, the researchers explain. "When they catch a cold, they worry that it could move on to the rest of the family, and Lm20 on medicines is a lot for someone whose weekly wage is Lm55."
Certain medical services do not offer them what they require: doctors do not do house visits, while not every health centre opens, and sick children, running a temperature, cannot catch a bus and be left waiting on a bench until it is their turn.
They may not live in dirty, squalid environments - on the contrary, their homes are well-kept, although those of single mothers, a high proportion of whom fall under the poverty line, are much humbler and often tucked away in alleys.
Being poor is about a lack of money for the day-to-day running of the family. Everything has to be calculated to the nearest cent. One woman claims she makes a list of what she would be cooking during the week to be sure she buys nothing outside that when she goes to the supermarket.
As soon as she receives her welfare benefit, another prepares and freezes sauces to be sure that if she is ever short of food, she can buy some pasta and would have something to feed her son.
Poverty is not necessarily a result of social problems, Fr Tabone explains, although the Employment and Training Corporation advisors reckon that 30 per cent of the unemployed - who are normally poor - do have social problems.
People below the poverty line are often normal; they are not mismanaging their economic resources, or being lazy; they are sensible and calculating, Fr Tabone says.
Being poor means not being able to afford to send one's children on a school outing, for example. These children have to keep back all the time and, eventually, they rebel because they "want to be like the others".
Dr Abela relates that, during the quantitative research, an interviewer visited one of the families and found the children at home when they were meant to be at school. The reason was because, at that time of the year, they were normally asked to buy stationery, so the mother would pretend they were sick not to have to.
Schools may be ready to pay, but parents would not accept because it means stigmatising the child.
"The shame and the stigma paralyse the parents in a way," says Dr Abela. "If they informed the school that they did not have the money, I am convinced it would provide them with the stationery. But the moral of the story is that the parents want to be helped in a respectful way. Why should they be singled out and given the copybooks for free when, in fact, it is a right not to be poor. Why do they have to continue embarrassing themselves, asking for pencils for free?"
As regards employment, the fact that their jobs are unskilled and full of hardship explains why a number opt not to work. They find it unfair to work so hard for such a low wage when unemployment benefits are only Lm5 less than the minimum wage.
Moreover, many of these menial jobs are now being carried out by immigrants, which means it is even harder for them to find employment, Fr Tabone points out.
The country has to work against allowing these people to fall into the benefit trap, whereby they live on relief and top it up with a part-time job, then decide they are comfortable and that it does not pay them to work. It takes around six months for someone to fall into this trap, which has negative consequences not only for the unemployed, but also for their children, who inherit the unemployment culture.
An idea to fight the benefit trap would be to offer full-time training, as opposed to courses, to those registering for work so that they would still need to get out of the house, while increasing their capabilities, the researchers propose.
Eighty per cent of the unemployed have a low level of education, while almost 55 per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds have the minimum level of education, they point out.
Education needs to start before school and the focus should be on the pre-readiness skills children need, Dr Abela insists, pointing out that "you can tell if children are going to do well at school from when they are toddlers".
The research showed that 80 per cent of poor mothers did help their children with their homework - an interesting revelation. But children still repeated in school, despite being sent to private lessons.
"We are not aware of how ashamed and embarrassed parents are, and as professionals, we can be patronising, instead of being empowering and collaborative. The parents often feel that advice is criticism. We need to be more aware of the devastating effect of shame on these people. It is so inhibiting, leaving people without a voice and not allowing children to be curious and learn."
The reason why many families do not end up begging on the streets is because of the support from their relatives, although it is really only the maternal grandmother they turn to and who helps them the most - the only person they are not ashamed of.