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On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

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Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#161

Post by throw1234651234 »

bradleyjg wrote: post #118
sql_monkey wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for sharing. Your comment highlights something important I believe when talking about poverty. One common argument against any type of government help is that poor people should just work harder and pull themselves by the bootstrap. However the situation you describe above shows the many side-effects of being poor which impede life in general: lack of proper sleep (because you live in a noisy area with no o…

I’d go further—-why do all narratives around poverty have to revolve around the middle class? Either someone used to be middle class and is now poor, grew up poor and is now middle class or at very least is moving towards that end. Where are the stories about people born into poverty, still in poverty, and not likely to be anything but poor for the rest of their lives? There are lots of people like this and cutting o…

I imagine no one cares about those stories for the most part, other than Jack London and Anton Chekhov.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#162

Post by commandlinefan »

simonh wrote: post #2

A while ago I read about a study that surveyed people with inherited wealth. IIRC they ranged from having inherited tens to hundreds of millions. No matter how much they had inherited, when asked how much they would need to have inherited to feel financially secure and not have to worry about money, they said they would need something like half again to double. I may be misremembering the details, but that was the gi…

> they would need to have inherited to feel financially secure

It seems ridiculous to most of us, but I can see how it happens. I grew up pretty poor - my father was a police officer and my mother didn't work because she had to watch the four of us. But I graduated with a degree in CS in '95 (if you're thinking about graduating with a degree in CS, try to do it in '95 because that may be the best possible year to do it) and am much better off financially now than my family was when I was growing up. Still, I keep worrying about my kids: I can pay to send them to college, but I can't afford, say Harvard or MIT. I have to keep reminding myself that they're far better off than I was at that age and I managed to turn out OK - I think part of it is that I end up comparing my situation with the people around me, many of whom are far better off than I am.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#163

Post by sethammons »

Queue my first truck. My uncle gave it to me. S-15. The bench seat didn’t lock, it slid forward and back when breaking or accelerating. Hard left hand turn and the keys would fly from the ignition and land on tue floorboard of the passenger seat (this did not turn off the truck). During the same hard left, some electrical thing would connect or un-short and my radio would temporarily turn on until the end of the turn. It ate oil and did not have a dip stick; thus you estimated how much oil to add daily. If the headlights were on, the gas gauge was zero. Oh, and it could only be pop-started (meaning I had to always park on a hill and get the thing rolling to get the ignition to pop start - it did not always work). A boyfriend of my mom’s showed me how to arc the starter bolts with a screwdriver- and I could now start it on flat surfaces! That was great. I eventually didn’t add enough oil and seized the engine. This is Southern California fwiw.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#164

Post by sandworm101 »

offtop5 wrote: post #146

The part about cars is pretty spot on, I'm upper middle class and I've been able to save so much money by getting rid of my car. On the low end you're going to hit 300 to 500 dollars a month for the privilege of driving. The problem here is America simply isn't built for public transit. But since cars are a status symbol, people still go down to Toyota, or Honda and as long as they can make that first down payment th…

>> I'm upper middle class and I've been able to save so much money by getting rid of my car.

Because you probably have job at a desk with a computer. You don't physically do much and so your per-minute presence at work isn't mandatory. If you are a few minutes late the world is not going to end and your workday rarely starts before 5am. You can handle the ins and outs of public transportation and/or you can afford to live close enough to walk/bike. I have a job that, while it pays well enough I have to be physically present (military, long story). While I am paid well enough I will get into real trouble if I am not on time every day. Sometimes I'm on call and have to get to work within 30-minutes of receiving a phonecall. I'd like to ditch the car, but I don't see any other reliable 24/7/365 transpiration options. Some of the people who work under me, and earn considerably less, are lobbying for "have own car" and "have own cellphone" to be listed work requirements. That might make at least some associated costs tax deductible.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#165

Post by lastofthemojito »

EliRivers wrote: post #69

The car. As he says, the car. The goddamned car. Every time you get into it, hoping that it will start. And not just when it's been sat outside your house for a while. When you stop for petrol (gas), or in the car park after buying food, sitting behind the wheel and hoping it starts again. The restrictions that get placed on you when you just can't rely on the car always starting. For your life, a mostly-starts car i…

I'm really curious to see how electric cars work for the poor (maybe 25 years from now, not presently).

One of the big selling points of electric cars is simplicity - with far fewer moving parts, less can go wrong and you can hopefully expect a car to last longer.

That's the hope anyways, but the big maintenance item in an electric car is the battery, and of course that's an expensive thing to replace. Will folks be able to do DIY repairs like cobble together battery packs from various sources? Will a decades-old battery that is 50% depleted or more still allow that car to function properly, just with less range? Or will it refuse to "start"?

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#166

Post by simiones »

carmen_sandiego wrote: post #58
simiones wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, this is exactly what he explains as the reality, and I agree that this is how the job market works. However, that's not to say that it is a good state of affairs, or that it is the only way things could work. In fact, the purpose of workers' unions is exactly to stop this kind of thinking, and it seems like this may once again start spreading a bit, given the recent movements in Amazon and other places. The pro…

I'm not sure it's ever going to be the case at the very bottom of the skill continuum that workers won't be seen as a commodity given just how replaceable they are to the company. For some jobs you could have your whole workforce strike, fire them, and replace them the next day with a minor blip in productivity. The only thing that stops that is regulation or wider organization than just that particular worker segmen…

Well, showing up to work for someplace that did this used to be called "scabbing" and carried quite a bit of social stigma. But yes, this requires wider organization and some regulation. This type of organization and regulation do exist in many places in the world, and can work decently well.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#167

Post by burlesona »

This is a great write-up, and as someone who spent time being poor-ish, it really resonated.

What I realized from my own life experience: the US sawed the bottom rungs off the ladder in the 1950s when it suburbanized. There is no affordable housing or transportation in 95% of the North American land area, and virtually every societal problem we deal with either stems from this or is made worse by it. Then the healthcare disaster is the cherry on top.

The US is a great place to live and work with tremendous upward mobility —— but only if you can stay above the event horizon which is reliable car ownership and insurance coverage (health, home/renters, auto). If you fall under that, you will need help or a lot of good luck to get back out.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#168

Post by acdha »

WalterBright wrote: post #10
ImaCake wrote: post #7

>while it’s normal to put down a month or two worth of rent as a security deposit, it’s much less normal to get it back This looks insane to an Australian. I have moved house 4 times in the past 5 years and I have never not got all of my bond back. Some states here have a rule that the bond money is held by the state so that the landowner doesn't just take that money for themselves. How can the poor ever break the cy…

I always got my security deposit back when I rented. No drama, they just checked the apartment and gave it back.

In the US, there are sharp race and class disparities here: if you’re white and pass for at least lower middle class, you are much less likely to have an issue because even unethical landlords know the police and courts will listen to complaints. Go outside of those communities and complaints become more common, often with accounts of a rental company caving immediately after someone demonstrated knowledge of their legal rights and lack of fear to contact the justice system.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#169

Post by fastball »

airhead969 wrote: post #55

They don't know the meaning of poor. And, who cares about some absolutely privileged, greedy, manipulative idiots who "can't live" on $200k/yr and take from people who make way less than them. Shame on them! --- If you can count your money, you're poor. If you can count your money and it fits in your pockets, you're very poor. If you can count your money and it fits in your left pocket with room to spare, you're extr…

How much money can you fit in your pockets if they're Benjamins?

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#170

Post by fastball »

irjustin wrote: post #87
skohan wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought of “broke” as the transitory status of not having money, while “poor” is a socioeconomic status. I.e. a university student could be too broke to buy beer before their next stipend comes in, but that doesn’t make them poor if they can still go home and drive mom & dad’s Tesla on the weekend.

Context changes the meaning as you rightfully point out. Being a broke college student and being a broke adult are wildly different in almost every respect.

Not really. You could be pulling down $500k a year but have such a high spend rate that you frequently run out of money before your next paycheck.
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