The CAMHP Foundation’s mission is to research, bring awareness, and reduce poverty through initiatives which focus on relative economic stability. Relative economic stability recognizes the potential of economic power in everyone regardless of income.

The socioeconomic system of the United States is firmly rooted in a fundamental guiding belief: industrial and cultural capitalism is the natural form of economic existence and market interaction. Capitalism is defined as “an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than the state.”(Tremr.com, Ryan, p.1); the corollary of this definition is an ideal of unlimited growth potential. Bearing this in mind, capitalism must logically define economic stability as engaging in profitable action that is free from limitations in earning potential, as those limitations would contradict the very definition of capitalism.

However, U.S. residents living in poverty who are receiving public benefits (social security, disability, food stamps (SNAP), HUD housing, government subsidized utilities and childcare) are governed by a different set of rules in regard to their capacity to gain wealth, and those rules do contradict the definition of capitalism. Capitalism relies on private investors, machinery and technology to increase production of marketable goods to generate increased wealth. Persons relying on public benefits are required to engage in the free market without the capacity to capitalize on—and benefit from—the interaction, limiting them severely and excluding them from the potential within the system. Additionally, individuals living in poverty are held to the same standards of economic rigor to gain access to goods and services as the wealthy. Economic rigor refers to management and use of personal history (including legal and socially accepted social capital) to gain access to goods and services. “Tools” such as credit score, credit history, revolving debt, financial management of small and large purchases, insurance, and income earnings multiplied post-debt are used to compete for regular market housing. To gain access to credit (to purchase goods and services) and employment, personal criminal history, mental health, medical history, and driving record are utilized to establish an individual’s value in the system. This value then determines access, and financial rate of access, to free market goods and services. The limitation of earnings stipulations for persons receiving public benefits creates a downward financial spiral for those persons. This spiral atrophies into a poor financial value—in many cases irreversible—which defines these persons, and excludes them from the possibility of again positioning themselves to create and accumulate wealth. 

Capitalism creates a hierarchy of economic classes; naturally, conflict develops between these classes. The wealthy have achieved the American dream of prosperity and financial security within the system. The working class provides labor to continue production of goods and services that directly contribute to the wealth of the upper class. The poor attempting to live within the financial restrictions of government public benefit programs are outliers of American capitalism’s class structure. As outliers, the poor do not serve a purpose for the wealthy, and are relegated to a marginalized existence of financial insecurity within the system. As a result, investment, development, and access to machinery and technology are severely titrated for the poor. Despite the obvious and growing economic differences between wealthy and poor Americans, the United States continues to have unshakable faith in capitalism. 

The term “relative economic stability”, and its concomitant theory, provides a foundation for Americans living in poverty to continue to exist within the capitalist system while they meet the demands of economic rigor, allowing them the possibility of recovery. 

Taken individually, the words relative, economic, and stability may each be discussed in terms of personal finances in a healthy state. We define the words as a phrase to describe the individuality and complexity of a person’s economic position in the long term. Stability does not refer to a financially solvent existence, but rather how an individual’s finances evolve over time. The understanding of the psychological development of a young individual within a socioeconomic environment is considered vital to the understanding of that adult’s relative economic stability. The paradigm of the theory is not to compare or contrast wealth with poverty, as class comparisons can potentially place blame, shame, or guilt on how one has gained, earned, or lost income. Additionally, to compare or contrast wealth to poverty arises from the misleading misapprehension that wealth can create a utopia.

CAMHP Foundation’s mission is to research, bring awareness, and aid in the reduction of poverty through legislative initiatives that focus on creating/supporting relative economic stability regardless of income.