Answer: The answer is indeed "economic struggle".
Step-by-step explanation:
In the year of 1933, when "Why Beggars are Despised" was written by George Orwell, the Great Depression was doing the most damage. Unemployment reached a peak of 25% in the U.S., the drought continued in the Midwest, and people were desperately withdrawing their money from banks. In Europe, Adolf Hitler, now a chancellor of Germany, opened the first concentration camp - the second World War was still to come.
Orwell reflects on the reason why beggars are despised and comes to the conclusion that it is simply because they "fail to earn a decent living". A beggar, according to him, is not different than any other human being. He is "honest compared with the sellers of most patent medicines, high-minded compared with a Sunday newspaper proprietor, amiable compared with a hire purchase tout–in short, a parasite, but a fairly harmless parasite." The issue is, to the author's mind, that people don't really care if a person works or not, or if that person is honest or not. They care for - and despise if you don't have any - money.