Why do the poor make poor decisions?

I don't have hard numbers, but I think you are overestimating people in poverty's disposable income and access to fresh groceries.

(1) I think you have at least partially misconstrued my comment. It is not my intention even a little to dismiss the plight of the poor. I agree with the article that being poor inhibits people's ability to make good decisions for themselves, and that the best way to break the vicious cycle may be to provide them with enough income that they have more freedom to make decisions that will improve their circumstances. I certainly do not think asking them to dig themselves out on their own is the last word in a conversation about how to solve poverty.

(2) My bullet points about diet/clothing/saving/debt/etc were not intended to mean the poor have a way out and need no help. I was simply pointing out that there are ways that a more educated/energetic/encultured person can behave that will yield better outcomes. The parent comment's thesis seemed to be that nobody with those financial means could do any better, and that seems wrong to me.

(2.1) I have been convinced by some other comments plus some googling that I have overestimated the means of many of the poor. A one-child household that can only scrape together $5k per year in the USA is in dire circumstances indeed. Google suggests such households are rather more common than I thought.

(2.2) I included that thrift store bit in an attempt to cover all the parent comment's points. In actuality, I think that the fraction of jobs where the candidate's wardrobe budget is a serious factor in determining eligibility is so small that this is not worthy of in-depth discussion.

(2.3) While I can imagine situations in which your spend-all-the-money-because-ill-end-up-in-a-hole-anyway logic seems genuinely valid, I'm not sure how common they are, and I'm skeptical that anyone actually performs that particular calculus in their brains. It seems like regular thoughtless spending is probably more the norm, even when that calculus is offered as a rationalization after the fact.

(3) Who really takes signals about socioeconomic class into account when making hiring decisions? Is this different from rejecting less-educated candidates due to their inferior communication skills? Does anyone mind a secretary/cashier/barista/construction-worker/floor-manager who seems like they are poor (or even from some alien subculture with wildly different social sensibilities) as long as they are efficient and productive and communicate effectively? If so, that sounds like a pretty small-minded hiring manager to me.

(4) Thanks for your comment. I still think I mostly agree with the article's thesis, but I'm coming around to the idea that I'm not fully appreciating number of people who find themselves in economic situations where savings of any kind are nearly impossible.

(5) I realize that my point of contention with the parent post is somewhat irrelevant because, regardless of which of us is correct, the proper way to combat poverty probably does not change. We both believe (I think) that a large fraction of the population is not going to be stuck in poverty unless/until the rest of us provide them with an unconditional income substantial enough to let them turn their lives around.

I suppose you're pretty much right about everything here. But with my eastern-connecticut goggles stuck irremovably over my eyes I still have trouble accepting that it can be so hard to get someone to hire you.

I don't think I know anyone under 60 who would object to a girl based on her having a tattoo on her neck.

While in college, working various jobs to pay my tuition, I worked alongside a variety of poor individuals, both rural "white-trashy" types and urban people of various races (It's a pretty rural area, but a bunch of people would take a 1-hour shuttle ride from Hartford to throw boxes around at the Fed-Ex distribution hub). These people varied widely in intelligence, charisma, criminality, and work ethic. I got to know many of them and had a fairly good sense of what each was capable of. If I am ever in a position where I'm hiring a receptionist or a construction crew or a store clerk or a plumber for my own house, and I get an applicant that looks like one of those guys I used to work with, I will certainly give them a serious interview and determine as best I can whether they are both reliable and capable of doing the job.

Of course, the job will go to the most promising applicant and it doesn't seem unlikely that another candidate with a middle class upbringing would demonstrate better literacy or communication skills or critical thinking abilities (or maybe even work ethic?) and I don't deny that this places the poor at a disadvantage in a competitive job market. But it's not clear to me that this is the same thing as a systematic bias against those who "smell poor".