the high cost of poverty
a good article in the washington post about how much more it costs to be poor than to be middle or upper class, especially if that poverty is intergenerational. the myriad ways that the very people who can not afford it are ruthlessly soaked in every aspect of daily life is something many people are not aware of. the absence of these facts from our political discourse allows people who have never encountered poverty and have never known anyone who has to make ridiculous claims about what it takes to rise from the ranks of the poor. You have to be rich to be poor.
That's what some people who have never lived below the poverty line don't understand.Put it another way: The poorer you are, the more things cost. More in money, time, hassle, exhaustion, menace. This is a fact of life that reality television and magazines don't often explain.
[snip]
Poverty 101: We'll start with the basics.
Like food: You don't have a car to get to a supermarket, much less to Costco or Trader Joe's, where the middle class goes to save money. You don't have three hours to take the bus. So you buy groceries at the corner store, where a gallon of milk costs an extra dollar.
A loaf of bread there costs you $2.99 for white. For wheat, it's $3.79. The clerk behind the counter tells you the gallon of leaking milk in the bottom of the back cooler is $4.99. She holds up four fingers to clarify. The milk is beneath the shelf that holds beef bologna for $3.79. A pound of butter sells for $4.49. In the back of the store are fruits and vegetables. The green peppers are shriveled, the bananas are more brown than yellow, the oranges are picked over.
the whole article is worth a read.
living in a poor neighborhood, i see this every day. ST and i have the knowledge and income to leave the neighborhood to do our shopping and the self-confidence and personal connections to fight back when people are trying to screw us over, but people attempt to do so more often just because of where we live. for example, my car insurance automatically increased by 20% when i moved from hyde park to the west side. nothing about my car or the kind of driver i am changed, but since their actuarials characterize my neighborhood as 'high-risk' i have to pay more and i have no recourse. there are dozens of costs like that.
and there have been many times, when i have had to correct mis-impressions among shop keepers, (so-called) public servants, professionals in service industries, and more about who the hell they are dealing with. and every time i have to do so, i am filled with an anger that is doubled because i know that if i were not myself, if i did not have a phd from the university of chicago, if i were timid, if i had no access to credit, if i did not have friends who know the law, there would be many situations in which i would be taken advantage of as a matter of course because it is perfectly legal to poach from the weak. hell, credit card companies base their whole business model on it.
in the next year or so, ST and i will move out of both the situation and the neighborhood that causes so much extra cost and stress for us, but i can't help thinking of the people who don't have that opportunity and likely never will.
everyone deserves to live free from economic predation.
That's what some people who have never lived below the poverty line don't understand.Put it another way: The poorer you are, the more things cost. More in money, time, hassle, exhaustion, menace. This is a fact of life that reality television and magazines don't often explain.
[snip]
Poverty 101: We'll start with the basics.
Like food: You don't have a car to get to a supermarket, much less to Costco or Trader Joe's, where the middle class goes to save money. You don't have three hours to take the bus. So you buy groceries at the corner store, where a gallon of milk costs an extra dollar.
A loaf of bread there costs you $2.99 for white. For wheat, it's $3.79. The clerk behind the counter tells you the gallon of leaking milk in the bottom of the back cooler is $4.99. She holds up four fingers to clarify. The milk is beneath the shelf that holds beef bologna for $3.79. A pound of butter sells for $4.49. In the back of the store are fruits and vegetables. The green peppers are shriveled, the bananas are more brown than yellow, the oranges are picked over.
the whole article is worth a read.
living in a poor neighborhood, i see this every day. ST and i have the knowledge and income to leave the neighborhood to do our shopping and the self-confidence and personal connections to fight back when people are trying to screw us over, but people attempt to do so more often just because of where we live. for example, my car insurance automatically increased by 20% when i moved from hyde park to the west side. nothing about my car or the kind of driver i am changed, but since their actuarials characterize my neighborhood as 'high-risk' i have to pay more and i have no recourse. there are dozens of costs like that.
and there have been many times, when i have had to correct mis-impressions among shop keepers, (so-called) public servants, professionals in service industries, and more about who the hell they are dealing with. and every time i have to do so, i am filled with an anger that is doubled because i know that if i were not myself, if i did not have a phd from the university of chicago, if i were timid, if i had no access to credit, if i did not have friends who know the law, there would be many situations in which i would be taken advantage of as a matter of course because it is perfectly legal to poach from the weak. hell, credit card companies base their whole business model on it.
in the next year or so, ST and i will move out of both the situation and the neighborhood that causes so much extra cost and stress for us, but i can't help thinking of the people who don't have that opportunity and likely never will.
everyone deserves to live free from economic predation.