Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

residentcontrarian.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 920 posts

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

#181

Post by burlesona »

carmen_sandiego wrote: post #5

As another ex-poor person: some of this is OK and some of it doesn't really ring true. E.g. > That’s the drop-off you experience at the lower price levels - there’s nothing between “This is a tiny but acceptable apartment” and “Slum apartments in stab-ville”. I don't think this is true, and why would it be? Unless you're in an area where the housing market is cliffed for some legislative or regulatory reason. But mos…

I’ve lived in small towns in Illinois and Texas, mid-sized in North Carolina, and big cities in Texas and California. That’s enough to know that housing markets are wildly divergent across the US, and really can’t be generalized.

The author seems to be describing how things are in metro Phoenix. Having not lived there, I’d assume it’s as described.

I will say that my experience has been that there’s a paradox: it should be much easier to get by as a poor person in small towns as everything costs a lot less, but paradoxically there’s even less work to do so it’s hard to even come up with the low local costs. In the end, poverty is always relative to the local market.

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

#182

Post by rdtwo »

ausbah wrote: post #79
austincheney wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want to know how people truly are, become actually poor, filthy, and seem depressed, then you will know their nature. You don’t need to be homeless to discover that some people lack sympathy. I lack sympathy. It doesn’t mean I’m an asshole. Sympathy isn’t empathy (huge distinction). Some people can’t tell the difference and everyone is just bad (cue the big tears). This is especially true if you’re a freeloa…

you know "free loaders" aren't why most people are homeless right?

Drugs almost always this

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

#183

Post by [deleted] »

brianmcc wrote: post #13
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…

There's this in The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/12/rich-peop... “All the way up the income-wealth spectrum,” Norton told me, “basically everyone says [they’d need] two or three times as much” to be perfectly happy. It references this study: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=53540

[deleted]

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

#184

Post by acdha »

mc32 wrote: post #122
devdas wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All that you needed to break down was the car failing, or someone falling sick. Minimum wage in the US hasn't kept pace with inflation for decades, and rents, school fees and the costs of medication have kept rising even faster. Banks charge even higher overdraft fees, so the small joys of a pair of branded shoes or a fancy phone are affordable, but the longer term gains aren't likely to be in reach. Escaping poverty…

True the minimum wage hasn’t kept up. That’s mainly due to exporting manufacturing offshore. People want cheap crap but they also want to keep wages high. Bernie understood this which is why he was against trade agreements and cheap labor. Now people are used to paying $5 for a Tshirt. They want to get paid $15 an hour but also balk at a $20 Tshirt. You can’t have it both ways.

> True the minimum wage hasn’t kept up. That’s mainly due to exporting manufacturing offshore.

That’s partially true but this trend has been widespread well outside of manufacturing, too. There’s no shortage of companies engaged in wage theft, converting full time positions to contract, changing benefits plans to shift more cost to the workers, etc. in every sector. Programmers are in high demand but even in tech, consider how many companies contract out core competencies or, especially, have things like helpdesk jobs which pay considerably less than they used to and no longer have a promotion path.

There’s been a well-funded push to roll back the New Deal since around the end of WWII. This has included funding libertarian think tanks, religious denominations which encourage self-reliance and distrust of the government, etc. One big factor feeding into demand for cheaper goods is that people are acting rationally in a world where their income lags behind their parents or grandparents at the same age.

Kevin Kruse wrote a book about this a while back which is good for understanding some trends in the 20th century:

http://kevinmkruse.com/book/one-nation-under-god/

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

#185

Post by bregma »

ajfjrbfbf wrote: post #81
bregma wrote: post #67

This is interesting. My wife is a case worker for the county welfare office. She deals with "those" people for a living and sees first-hand every day all the real and imagined shit spouted by righteous ideologues. She tells me that amongst those living in poverty, wealth is measured in terms of friends and family. Any money you come into is spent immediately, often on gifts to build status within your social network.…

> I had enough to keep a squalid roof over my head and three square meals a week. Three meals a week sound pretty miserable. I assume that's a typo :)

No. It was pretty miserable.

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

#186

Post by nchelluri »

I read about half of this post and I've paused there. It screams to me "Let's have a Universal Basic Income" already.

> And one day your wife calls you and tells you the water is off, and there’s nothing you can do; maybe some family member can help you out, or maybe you live without utilities for a week or so until you get paid and start the next pay cycle that much more behind.

These are people with children we are talking about. Why can't there be simple equity for these beings who are facing their demise through no fault of their own? Like seriously, WTF?

I want to support:

- sustainable electronics

- living wages

- right to repair

- removal of slave labor from any supply chain I am involved in

What do I have to do to make this happen?

--

> When I’m trying to explain to my sons how a company decides what to pay someone, it usually goes something like this: A company is looking to pay a person as little as they can and keep them, so a person’s pay is determined by how rare their skills are and how much demand there is for those skills.

> [...]

> This isn’t evil on anyone’s part, and you shouldn’t feel bad about it - I’ve made a lot of choices in my life that led to this point and I have a lot of responsibility in terms of where I find myself.

_Yes it is evil._ I'm sure we cannot exist as a fundamentally secure, sane, healthy, fair, equitable, respectful, productive, diverse, healthy, robust society until this rot is done away with once and for all.

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

#187

Post by dagw »

cableshaft wrote: post #131
alistairSH wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I'm solidly upper-middle-class (typical income for this forum, I imagine). I don't think doubling my net worth would make me much happier or financially more secure. It would allow a new Tesla instead of a used BMW. And flying business class for vacation. With the state of health care/insurance in the US, despite being a ridiculous amount of money by most measures, it wouldn't allow me to retire in the 5…

Yep, the US healthcare system basically means you have to be a multimillionaire when you've retired if you want to have any semblance of a comfortable retirement, because any serious injury or health issue (which will happen at some point) will do a damn good job of sucking up most or all of that money away super fast. If you're younger at least you might get lucky with GoFundMe "insurance", but that requires your st…

I thought everybody over 65 in the US got free national healthcare?

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

#188

Post by dazc »

airhead969 wrote: post #57
mudita wrote: post #29

I was poor for some time after deciding to quit my computer science phd for a career in art. I guess I still am compared to others, but it does not feel that way any more. When I was really poor, worrying about money and how to pay the next rent was a regular source of stress for me, which took quite a lot of emotional energy. Now I still have much lower income than people, who have regular well-paying jobs, but I do…

Ever slept in a bus station? I have, in the US. I went for 3 years without any healthcare, and then it took another 7 years and a lawyer (who took $16k USD) to get more permanent help. One thing is for certain: with 99.99% of people, their friendliness (or meanness) is proportional to the size of your bank account. If you want to know how people truly are, become actually poor, filthy, and seem depressed, then you wi…

This resonates with me as someone who has been homeless for a, thankfully, short period of time. I was given a chance to get back on my feet by someone who was almost as poor as I was, he did have a house and a couch I could sleep on though. Ten years later I have no money worries, and because we remain good friends, neither does he.

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

#189

Post by acdha »

tstrimple wrote: post #157
yibg wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's also about trade offs that are made. For example, TV dinners (from an article in another thread here) for us was not a staple, it was a luxury. They kept for a long time, but they were also high cost to calorie ratio. We got the cheapest cut of meat we can in bulk and frozen it.

While I'm not suggesting your method isn't more economically efficient, it also requires time and money investment. When I was "poor", my parents would often both work late and it wasn't uncommon to not see them until later in the night if at all before bed. Many nights my brother and I would make our own dinners. Dealing with large cuts of frozen meat takes planning and skill that microwaveable dinners do not.

Also equipment: one thing working with our local mural aid group has really underscores is how many people have, say, a microwave or hot plate but not a working stove or enough capacity to store bulk food purchases. That’s definitely not true of everyone, of course, but it’s a real barrier for some people- especially, say, a newly-single mother who can’t feed an infant rice and beans.

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

#190

Post by bkirkby »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #145
pessimizer wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the kids are wearing Nikes and playing on iphones. This is investment. If your kids are socially rejected at school and can't get on the internet, are they going to be better off in the long term or worse off? If you are poor, looking poor is not going to help you up, it's going to drive you farther into poverty. It's the same impulse that makes lower-middle class parents go into debt to put braces on their kids' p…

Not to mention: an iphone (or any smartphone really) is a really efficient investment. I'm not sure, but for a few hundred dollars you have a very good device already. Compare that to my own growing up, and we had separate costs for a TV, a radio, we would save up for a walkman or CD player, internet started off as dial-up at the library, then a PC. We'd buy CD's with games and things like Encarta, we'd record or ren…

i don't think it's smartphones that are considered luxury items, it's the $1000 iphones when a $50 android will provide all those benefits just fine.
Post reply on HN