It's a rhetoric born out of ignorance that most people pass off as an opinion.

"If you're poor, then just work harder and get a job!"

I've been known to joke about that statement in regards to the people who say it. (And by that, I mean, saying, "People who say things like that don't understand how the job market works.") But there's a lot of truth in jest, and I feel like people who believe that the cure for poverty is as simple as working hard really have a very sheltered view of how the world works.

As someone who has come up from a poor, lower class background, I can say that jumping over that hurdle is not as easy a feat as those who are more privileged make it out to be. And I'm one of the lucky ones -- I was able to go to college, I had the resources to get a job.

Not everyone else is quite as fortunate.

It's ironic, really, that a pool of people so certain that they won't be able to get jobs post college graduation because of the bad market and economy think that people living in poverty, who get welfare or what have you, are lazy. This isn't to say that everyone who is privileged thinks this way. In fact, quite the opposite. I know plenty of people who are well off that are painfully aware (and thankfully, critically conscious) of the fallacies in our capitalistic society. However, there are always those people who want to get rid of government aid and tell people to just get a job.

Sadly, it feels like those people are the loudest.

What people fail to realize is that yes, for some people, it's just a matter of a little hard work. But, and I can't believe in 2016 I'm still having to point this out, not everyone has the advantages you do.

I feel myself cringe when I see a well-to-do person say, "Just hit the bricks and work hard. I pay for things myself," in reference to why other people are lazy.

OK, good for you, but not everyone has those resources.

And no, I'm not just talking about money.

In the workforce, how important is presentation? The résumé? The credentials? The amount of experience needed for entry level jobs in minimum wage fields is almost hard to believe. Plus, there are many people applying for very few positions.

The biggest dichotomy within the argument of this mindset involves the idea of secondary education. The poor are told to "get a degree and a better job," but are then told, "Haha, you should have to pay for it yourself."

I've seen plenty of articles and heard a lot of people go on about, "If you want to go to college, then you should have to pay for it yourself and not take handouts!" Seeing as the only reason I can attend school is scholarship and federal aid, I don't feel like I can keep my bias out of this.

I probably shouldn't comment, but heck, I'm going to anyways.

The purpose in government aid, for food, education, general welfare, is intended to help out the disadvantaged. Sure, there are people who've abused that privilege, but hey! We've never heard of politicians or rich people doing that, right?

How often has this happened, or has this been said?

"I don't want my hard earned tax money going to freeloaders.

Really, at this point, what I hear is, "I have no idea how taxes really work."

The hardest part about talking about this is that I feel like some of these things should really go without saying. Living below the poverty line is a harsh thing to pull yourself up from. In fact, 70 percent of people who are born poor stay there the remainder of their lives. Or that not every poor person is "lazy," and that a lot of them are veterans, disabled people, young mothers and fathers with children, or people who are mentally ill.

This leads to more points I really feel should go without saying, like how even working a 40 hour week, the minimum wage is not a living wage. Like how, I don't know, if you're working a 40 hour week trying to provide for yourself or your kids, maybe going to school or moving up the corporate ladder isn't entirely possible.

I don't know what kind of bubble some people live in, but in my experience, the 'menial' labor, the demanding, time-consuming, exhausting work, is passed off to the people who are down at the bottom. I am a big proponent of education and taking every opportunity, but hard work does not always equate success.

This country has a huge problem with the exploitation of the poor, and it's so bad, I'm not sure how we could go about fixing it.

All this being said, I feel that, at its core, this issue goes back to a fundamental misunderstanding about how being poor actually works. This is due, in part, to classism, and in part, the tendency of people to hyperbolize their own financial strife.

"We didn't have much money, but I made it through hard work."

There's a difference between not having much money and being poor.

Being poor is not paying bills, it's barely being able to provide for yourself. It's about going without things that most people take for granted, like clothes that fit, electricity, three meals a day. And let me tell you, it's hard to think of the long term when you're stretching dollars, going to Coinstar, and to quote "Hairspray", "Trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents."

However, I really don't think people know this. I think in America, we are so ashamed of our poor and our poverty that as a society, we refuse to acknowledge how bad and hard it is.

Maybe it's because no one wants to take responsibility, or maybe it's because we've been so conditioned to think of the poor as less than that it's easier to blame them then the state of the world. America is one of the richest countries in the world, but we also have one of the biggest economic inequalities as well.

So, maybe the problem isn't the "lazy welfare recipients" who want "handouts."

Maybe, just maybe, it has a little something to do with where our values lie.

Sure, we can lie and say it's about work, ethics and morals, but to an extent, I don't think that's true.

We, as a country, are selfish.

We say we care about the poor, but not everyone who says that is being honest.

We care about what's ours. We care about our money.

This isn't to say that every single person in this country is a money mongering cretin, because that isn't really true. But the sweeping statements about the poor and working class don't really seem to bat eyelashes these days. I think it's time those eyes opened.

It's a flawed system -- class, capitalism, the whole lot. Many people believe this country was founded on hard work, but we forget: it was founded on the backs of those exploited for their slave labor and their land. People have been systematically and institutionally repressed for years and are expected to pull themselves back up the way more advantaged people have.

And, if that's not inequality, then I don't really know what is.

I want to throw this disclaimer out there -- I am not an economist. I am not a sociologist, I am just a writer, this piece is as much opinion as it is attempting to be supported by statistics. I also realize that I haven't even delved into every aspect of the critique I could, talking about gender, race or other inequalities that I may have missed.

But this is not a simple issue to dissect and discuss, and certainly not as black and white as some people have made it out to be.

I have known higher up employees to ride the curtails of nepotism. I have known McDonald's employees to put in more work in a day than I do in a week. This whole economic issue is really a spectrum.

I think fixing this takes some understanding. It involves creating a dialogue.

But my God, it's not as easy as, "Just go out and get a job."