Mary expressed her gratitude to Jesus Christ for raising Lazarus from the dead by bathing his feet with precious oil. Judas complained to Christ that Mary should not be wasting such a precious ointment on his feet but should sell it and give the proceeds to the disciples to be issued to the poor. Whereupon Christ chided Judas with the reminder: "The poor you have with you always but me you shall not have always."

The scriptures make it clear that Judas, who eventually betrayed Christ, had little interest in the poor. He was the group's treasurer and, as such, was not averse to helping himself to the contents of the treasury. His alleged concern for the poor was simply an expression of a selfish interest in boosting the contents of the treasury for his own benefit.

There is a great semblance in today's Bermuda to the biblical reference. Many of us who profess to be concerned with the welfare of those less fortunate, too often find frivolous excuses to avoid helping them. Some of the reasons for this negligence are an echo of the sentiments of Judas Iscariot. We complain: "They will only take the money provided for basic needs to take trips". Or we might postulate, "If anyone wants work in Bermuda they can easily find it." Many of those who complain loudest will consider themselves deserving of tax breaks to extend their hotel properties or to build grandiose condominiums.

As recent as September 30, I published an article in The Royal Gazette Opinion page which demonstrated that there are a substantial number of poor households in Bermuda. In fact, of Bermuda's 24,761 households interviewed during Census 2000, there were 7,428 who could be classified as poor or near poor. Further, 19 percent or 4,705 of all households could be classified as simply "poor".

The definition of poor by Bermuda's statistical department might be considered generous in just about any country in the world. According to the department of statistics, households that earned less than $36,000 per annum were 'poor'. If their earnings were in the income range of $36,000 to $45,000 per annum, they were to be considered 'near poor'.

Littered among these financially disadvantaged were 'the usual suspects' the single-parent households, high proportions of blacks, women and the aged. An interesting group that I did not specifically identify but which all will recognise as probable hardship cases would be women heads of single parent households who were retired, black and earned incomes of less than $36,000 per annum.

In general, the households I targeted were those whose heads were above retirement age and earned less than $45,000 per annum. It was noted that four in ten households among the aged had incomes of less than $36,000 per annum and were therefore poor by any definition of that economic state. Further, there is evidence that this severely disadvantaged group was also the fastest growing group of households. This may be inferred from the fact that since 1960, the number of people aged 65 or older have almost trebled while the number of persons in the entire population has risen by less than 50 percent.

The reaction to the article by a retired former Cabinet Minister was very interesting. He informed me that what I had written about Bermuda's poor was well known to the previous Government. He explained that the inaction of that group was due to an inability to extract money to address the issue of the aged from a tight fisted Minister of Finance. However, in fairness to the UBP legislators, Premier David Saul did upgrade the protection provided by pensions in at least a partial effort to assist our burgeoning poverty stricken seniors.

One needs to ask whether the PLP are equally aware of the problem of the growing poor. If they are, I am not aware that this is reflected in the current legislative programme. In my most recent article, I noted the example of the suffering veterans, particularly those who are black. These men were a living example of the general plight of the aged and to date there has been very little done about their situation. Yet these men have made the supreme sacrifice for their country only to find themselves destitute in the twilight of their existence.

Evidence abounds that the PLP has been much more concerned with expanding the economy rather than with expanding welfare. Lost in the shuffle has been affordable housing which has received much publicity and unemployment insurance which has received very little. One might wonder how unemployment insurance can help the aged who are largely retirees. Unemployment insurance will prop up the incomes of those younger people who have to provide for ageing relatives whether they (the young) are employed or not.

Recently, the boom that both parties seem to be trying to outdo themselves in trying to accelerate, has entered an inflationary stage. Those of us, who understand inflation, know that inflation takes income from the financially weak and transfers that income to the financially strong. No group in this society is weaker than the elderly heads of households. It is again worth repeating that this group is growing faster than any other demographic segment of Bermuda.

I think even the most callous among us will admit that once you have been retired forcibly from the workforce, unless you have a house that is paid for, you are doomed to instant poverty. Nor is there currently a public will to create housing that is affordable for this particular segment of society. Hence our seniors seemed doomed to be buffeted by drastically reduced incomes and competition from an imported workforce that benefits both from subsidised housing and widely shared accommodation.

Some conclusions are all too obvious. Clearly, we need to recognise that Bermuda has a growing number of poor and that the problem is very serious among our ageing population. This reality is resulting in a gap between the incomes of Bermudians and non-Bermudians which, if not eliminated or at least reduced significantly, will certainly lead to social unrest.

In order to deal sensibly with this challenge, we must rid ourselves of anecdotal analysis and take a hard look at the reality of Bermuda's poor. The philosophical challenge is to find ways to alleviate the suffering of the poor without reducing significantly their desire for self-sufficiency. The overwhelming practical consideration is to make a real effort to assist our growing poor population, if we do not want to create conditions that will kill the Golden Goose of International Finance.

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