I used to assume that all street beggars were down-on-their-luck homeless people stuck in unfortunate situations and forced to panhandle for survival. That, however, is not always the case. In fact, the truly needy are starting to become overshadowed by “imposters” at an alarming rate.

For this new wave of street beggars in disguise, panhandling is an up-and-coming industry, a form of entrepreneurship if you will, according to an article in urban-centric magazine City Journal. Author Steven Malanga refers to this “diverse and swelling community of street people who have made panhandling their calling” as “spangers” (spare-change artists).

“Spangers” aren’t necessarily homeless or in desperate need; instead they consider begging for money to be their career, and a fairly lucrative career at that. In Oregon local panhandlers were said to be taking in as much as $300 a day from a nearby Wal-Mart parking lot, according to City Journal. I’m not going to do the math, but with that kind of money I’m thinking about getting into the business myself (kidding!).

I don’t know about you, but I think that pretending to be homeless, preying on the sympathetic feelings of generous passers-by and altogether abusing the tacit system of panhandling is NOT entrepreneurship. It’s fraud. On top of that, as people become more aware of these fake street beggars, they’ll start to doubt the intentions of all panhandlers and be more reluctant to give, hurting the chances of truly needy people from receiving the hand-outs they need to survive.

But that’s just my opinion. I’m curious what you all think. Are these “spangers” participating in a legitimate form of entrepreneurship, just trying to achieve the American dream? Or are they scam artists swindling money from the charitable people of this world?

Have a great weekend!

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