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How poverty changes your mindset

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Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#291

Post by nichtich »

analyst74 wrote: post #206
kraig911 wrote: post #69

I hate seeing people's comments on stories around this topic. I grew up in poverty and food stamps from time to time. My dad was a roughneck and when the oil bust happened in the 80's there was a time we lived out of our car -- my whole family. here was literally nothing to do in the oil patch during that bust. There was literally no work. But people don't understand true hopelessness. My dad did everything he could…

American poverty sounds so different from Chinese poverty. I grew up during the tail years of communism and everybody was dirt poor. The interesting thing is, nobody was financially stressed, starvation and homelessness was not a thing. I ended up developing an abundance mentality and terrible money management skills. Looking even further back, my parents experienced the height of policy stupidity and barely survived…

By the time you are born it's already getting better. Yes it's dirt poor compared to now but is already on the trend of improving. So the stress level would be very different than the "suddenly become poor" people.

Another point is back in those days the majority of population are poor, which means the social structure are build around poor people. Food, cloths, education, haircut, all of them targeted poor people. You don't need to live in the corner of the city and go great length to find products suited for you.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#292

Post by zaarn »

draugadrotten wrote: post #269
gizmo686 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? If you define poverty as being below the Xth percentile of wealth, then it is tautological that we cannot reach 100% non-poverty. However, if you define poverty in absolute terms, then there is no fundamental reason why we cannot reach 100% non poverty. All that is necessary is for society to produce enough "stuff" that, when divided by the total population, is still greater than the poverty threshold. In pr…

> Why not? If you define poverty as being below the Xth percentile of wealth, then it is tautological that we cannot reach 100% non-poverty. This is indeed how it is defined in many wellfare states eg in Europe. "People are considered at risk of monetary poverty when their equivalised disposable income (after social transfers) is below the at-risk-of-poverty threshold. This is set at 60 % of the national median equiv…

"60% of the Median" can easily be a zero number of elements from the set.

In this case, median means "sorted by income, at which point have we divided the entire dataset in half". For a dataset with more than 2 elements (so 3 elements minimum), you can construct a dataset for which any below-100% of the median of the dataset is not represented in the dataset.

The easiest example would be using "99% of the median" and [9.999, 10, 11]. Median is 10, 99% of the median is 9.9, the smallest sample is 9.999.

60% of the median income basically means "the lowest 50% income bracket should not have more than 40% deviation". Or rather; the lowest possible income is bigger than 60% of the lowest earner of the top 50% of society.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#293

Post by oblio »

kbart wrote: post #262
chlorophyl wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this. I was destitute when I was 18, but I managed to come back through a series of part time jobs. I've always lived within my means but since my job do not really pay much anyway, it's very hard to save. Now that I'm 40 and poor again (lost my job due to cutbacks), it is impossible for me to recover. Getting new jobs are much harder and people are pretty discriminative towards my age. Nowadays, even em…

Why impossible? It's just a mindset. People do switch careers at >40 years, it's far from impossible.

The social pressure can be overwhelming, unless you're not super-super strong, mentally. We cannot assume the average person to be so strong.

Why is the social pressure overwhelming? Socially sometimes it seems that it's better to crawl into a cave and never be seen in your poverty, than be seen as a 40-45+ year old doing janitorial work (or other kinds of jobs most people find degrading, despite the fact that to your face they will deny it), by your friends and family. Also a lot of people can't accept the downturn in their lives. That's how you get alcoholism, depression, drug abuse. It's much harder to wake up and say: I've failed all these years, I need to start over.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#294

Post by pjc50 »

nicoburns wrote: post #142
kraig911 wrote: post #69

I hate seeing people's comments on stories around this topic. I grew up in poverty and food stamps from time to time. My dad was a roughneck and when the oil bust happened in the 80's there was a time we lived out of our car -- my whole family. here was literally nothing to do in the oil patch during that bust. There was literally no work. But people don't understand true hopelessness. My dad did everything he could…

I'm from the UK and I'm currently travelling the world for a few months. I have been shocked by how different American attitudes to poverty are to European ones. We may not be very good at actually helping people in poverty, but most people accept that poor people are in need of help.

The UK has gone off a cliff in recent years in this regard, thanks to constant TV and news propaganda trying to say that poverty is always the fault of irresponsibility and unbourgeoise attitudes.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#296

Post by Simon_says »

dizzystar wrote: post #260
Simon_says wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think, but I'm not sure, that at her income level, the Earned Income Tax Credit will let her get a net refund from the federal government? And Texas doesn't tax income. Savings have to come from the biggest choices in your life. You've already assumed a bunch of poor choices in your model of this hypothetical person. You didn't mention your city, but I found $400-500 2 bedroom apartments on a quick Craigslist searc…

But also, she will have to work a second job because no one gives full time work at that pay level. That's the brutal cost of ACA.

I didn't even consider that. I was just looking at the decisions she made.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#297

Post by pjc50 »

Simon_says wrote: post #230
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you assume someone can HAVE savings? I live in a Texas city. Rent here for a 2 bedroom apartment is over $1K a month. If you're a single mother of 2, you can expect $500 a month for EBT if you make $9 an hour. So after you get through paying your taxes, social security, medicare, etc... you're stuck with pocket change (that still has to go to electricity, gas for the car / maintenance) and use EBT to pay for y…

I think, but I'm not sure, that at her income level, the Earned Income Tax Credit will let her get a net refund from the federal government? And Texas doesn't tax income. Savings have to come from the biggest choices in your life. You've already assumed a bunch of poor choices in your model of this hypothetical person. You didn't mention your city, but I found $400-500 2 bedroom apartments on a quick Craigslist searc…

> don't choose to have kids when you're making $9/hour or have a chaotic domestic life

Often the choice to have kids is at a more stable point and then things go downhill.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#298

Post by iT5rCb8x »

dizzystar wrote: post #213
kraig911 wrote: post #69

I hate seeing people's comments on stories around this topic. I grew up in poverty and food stamps from time to time. My dad was a roughneck and when the oil bust happened in the 80's there was a time we lived out of our car -- my whole family. here was literally nothing to do in the oil patch during that bust. There was literally no work. But people don't understand true hopelessness. My dad did everything he could…

I grew up in poverty as well and my reaction to money is the total opposite. I never felt connected to it all. I want to be a good saver, but my understanding of the green stuff is nearly nil. It's just sort of there and I try not to think about it. I think it's just the opposite problem. I simply don't know what to spend money on. I feel like I spend a lot of money, but somehow everyone is in deeper debt than I am.…

Man, this is infuriating. Had this been happening in a welfare state such as in most European countries, your family would have kept a roof above their head thanks to proper public housing, and your parents would have received enough money to serve their kids 3 meals a days. Not saying that's living the life, but people in the US just don't understand that stories like yours do NOT have to happen.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#299

Post by DoreenMichele »

Simon_says wrote: post #230
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you assume someone can HAVE savings? I live in a Texas city. Rent here for a 2 bedroom apartment is over $1K a month. If you're a single mother of 2, you can expect $500 a month for EBT if you make $9 an hour. So after you get through paying your taxes, social security, medicare, etc... you're stuck with pocket change (that still has to go to electricity, gas for the car / maintenance) and use EBT to pay for y…

I think, but I'm not sure, that at her income level, the Earned Income Tax Credit will let her get a net refund from the federal government? And Texas doesn't tax income. Savings have to come from the biggest choices in your life. You've already assumed a bunch of poor choices in your model of this hypothetical person. You didn't mention your city, but I found $400-500 2 bedroom apartments on a quick Craigslist searc…

Maybe don't choose to have kids when you're making $9/hour or have a chaotic domestic life?

Most children aren't actually planned. They occur because mother nature has spent millions of years perfecting the art of tricking people into liking sex.

Or, as I sometimes say, our genes are like virii: They don't care how miserable they make you in their quest to reproduce themselves. Coincidentally, genes and viruses are both made of RNA at their root (DNA being two RNA, basically).

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#300

Post by goatlover »

Hextinium wrote: post #268
mrep wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When half your country frame it as: makers VS takers. I have never heard of that term before. What does that mean? > Then "simply need help" would be a significant policy change. Again, governments are based on policies and rules. "simply need help" is way to abstract. > Lots of other developed countries have made inroads on poverty. Just look. Which policies and rules used by other governments do you recommend?

Conservatives in the deep south I find have belief in this, they think that giving money to people that have none is fundamentally stealing from them through taxation and then giving it to someone that doesn't work as hard as them.

As opposed to giving it to defense contractors or farm subsidies. It's funny how conservatives only focus on tax dollars going to the poor.
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