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‘Some things never leave you’: Poverty’s indelible marks

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Re: ‘Some things never leave you’: Poverty’s indelible marks

#51

Post by lotsofpulp »

sokoloff wrote: post #29
sdiacom wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of people who have so-called "good" health coverage in the US are paying one to three orders of magnitude more for it, compared to the price of private health insurance in countries with a public health system. The best thing that could happen to people who currently have private health insurance and wish to keep it is that a public health system appears, forcing the private health insurance oligopo…

> vast majority of people who have so-called "good" health coverage in the US are paying one to three orders of magnitude more for it, compared to the price of private health insurance in countries with a public health system. I pay (employer plus employee amounts) just under $20K/year for a family of four. I doubt anyone in the “vast majority” is paying over $50K/yr. Three orders of magnitude less than that is $50/y…

You pay $20k per year in premiums for a family of four to avoid paying more than the out of pocket maximum in a calendar year, and to have to an agent negotiate prices and appropriate services with the healthcare seller.

The likely amounts owed below your out of pocket maximum also have to be incorporated.

Also, my gold metal level BCBS network PPO plan is near $30k per year for a family of 4, so $20k seems like it might be sacrificing quantity/quality of in network providers.

Re: ‘Some things never leave you’: Poverty’s indelible marks

#52

Post by dionidium »

bluedino wrote: post #48

The holidays are always a good time to reflect on this. My father is one of ten children. They all grew up in a 900sq ft house. Most of them dropped out of high school, none of them went to college. Now that they are all grown up (the youngest is 48?) it's interesting to see how they all ended up. Some worked a factory job for years, and ended up with a nice house, retirement, etc. some worked the exact same job and…

I come from a family with a lot of poverty. Whenever I hear people who have never been poor talk about poverty it sounds like they're from Mars. I understand that there's a certain amount of this that's just manners/politeness, but if your position on poverty is that everybody's doing their best and lack of success is never the result of individual choices or effort, then I just assume you've never actually met any poor folks.

And remember that I'm talking about my family here! These are the people I love the most in the world. I don't want them to starve. I'm glad there's a social safety net and I'd like to see it expanded. But these are not people who are giving it their all and coming up short in a society that's structurally in opposition to them. They're drug addicts and alcoholics and the ones who aren't watch 14 hours of TV every day. I never knew my grandparents to have even an ounce of ambition. My grandfather had a "nervous break down" in his 30s and never tried to work again. (He was by all appearances entirely capable of working.) I don't think my mother ever once made a plan for the future. Etc, etc.

Re: ‘Some things never leave you’: Poverty’s indelible marks

#53

Post by jl6 »

kjellsbells wrote: post #19
hilom wrote: post #3

That was a long read, but very much worth reading. This part really stuck out to me: > A few years ago, a friend of mine, in a well-meaning attempt to understand the impoverished diets of poor people, ate a Food Stamp diet for a week. On the last day of the diet, he talked about what he had learned and spoke philosophically about his renewed appreciation of healthy food as he prepared to end his restricted diet with…

Pulp called this out in 1999. There's a william shatner cover which is...surprisingly good. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_People

“If you called your dad he could stop it all”

- the key line.

Re: ‘Some things never leave you’: Poverty’s indelible marks

#54

Post by bluedino »

troupe wrote: post #42
pflenker wrote: post #12

One of the things that suck most about being poor is that you need to have money in order to save money. You need to have enough money to buy a certain level of quality, and if you don't have it, you're forced to buy cheap stuff that breaks more easily (thus spending more money in total). I found this aspect hard to understand for others, the attitude often seems to be: "you don't have to be poor, you simply need to…

It is a similar situation with buying a car for $500 that will require lots of repairs vs. a more expensive car that will give you a lower cost per mile. While this does add some drag, in most of the situations I've actually seen, it isn't the main barrier to getting out of poverty. The main barrier seems to be a culture or mindset that prioritizes short term benefit/feelings over long term benefits even when there a…

> For example, things like getting a dog, signing up for cable TV, getting an unnecessarily expensive new phone, spending money on going out to eat, etc.

In a way, people without a lot of money need to "learn how to be poor"

When you're low on money, you eat sandwiches and ramen and beans and potatoes. You don't eat McDonald's or get Starbucks.

Re: ‘Some things never leave you’: Poverty’s indelible marks

#55

Post by dionidium »

hilom wrote: post #3

That was a long read, but very much worth reading. This part really stuck out to me: > A few years ago, a friend of mine, in a well-meaning attempt to understand the impoverished diets of poor people, ate a Food Stamp diet for a week. On the last day of the diet, he talked about what he had learned and spoke philosophically about his renewed appreciation of healthy food as he prepared to end his restricted diet with…

What sticks out to me is that it sticks out to you (and the author and so many others besides). I have actually been on food stamps. I never ate so well. Before I had food stamps I was just a typical working poor person. I had never spent as much on groceries as I was able to on food stamps. Food stamps are accepted at regular grocery stores -- the same ones you shop at. You can get anything you want, more or less. It's totally up to you. You can, of course, use them to buy vegetables. In fact, I was a vegetarian the entire time I was on food stamps!

It's just so odd to me as someone who has actually been very poor that according you (and seemingly the rest of the professional managerial class) I was at that time completely without agency. Nothing I did or didn't do was in my control, apparently. I was but flotsam in an ocean of systemic effects. I have to tell you, that's not how it felt to me.

I felt like a person making choices.

Poor people typically know lots of other poor people. I knew a lot of poor people. Some of them made good choices. Many of them made very bad choices. The ones who made good choices are universally doing well 20 years later.

Re: ‘Some things never leave you’: Poverty’s indelible marks

#56

Post by jl6 »

pflenker wrote: post #12

One of the things that suck most about being poor is that you need to have money in order to save money. You need to have enough money to buy a certain level of quality, and if you don't have it, you're forced to buy cheap stuff that breaks more easily (thus spending more money in total). I found this aspect hard to understand for others, the attitude often seems to be: "you don't have to be poor, you simply need to…

Ironic that hire-purchase / instalment plans are designed to solve this problem but end up making it worse because they're usually only available at predatory rates, due to the huge risk of default.

Lenders and borrowers alike can’t rely on the borrower having a source of income at all.

For most people on a low income, it could be better to be on an even lower income if in exchange that income could be made more reliable. The instability and stress of precarious employment is worse than the low pay.

Re: ‘Some things never leave you’: Poverty’s indelible marks

#57

Post by notRobot »

bluedino wrote: post #54
troupe wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a similar situation with buying a car for $500 that will require lots of repairs vs. a more expensive car that will give you a lower cost per mile. While this does add some drag, in most of the situations I've actually seen, it isn't the main barrier to getting out of poverty. The main barrier seems to be a culture or mindset that prioritizes short term benefit/feelings over long term benefits even when there a…

> For example, things like getting a dog, signing up for cable TV, getting an unnecessarily expensive new phone, spending money on going out to eat, etc. In a way, people without a lot of money need to "learn how to be poor" When you're low on money, you eat sandwiches and ramen and beans and potatoes. You don't eat McDonald's or get Starbucks.

Ah yes. "If only these people would abstain from the joys of eating fucking McDonald's, they'd no longer be poor."

Re: ‘Some things never leave you’: Poverty’s indelible marks

#58

Post by klenwell »

bparsons wrote: post #27
pflenker wrote: post #12

One of the things that suck most about being poor is that you need to have money in order to save money. You need to have enough money to buy a certain level of quality, and if you don't have it, you're forced to buy cheap stuff that breaks more easily (thus spending more money in total). I found this aspect hard to understand for others, the attitude often seems to be: "you don't have to be poor, you simply need to…

Being poor is really expensive. This is something rich and middle upper class people never can really grasp. The cost of credit, unstable housing situations, having a car that breaks down all the time etc. all conspires to keep you poor. As the OP points out, when you are below the threshold needed for "basics", the interest on your debt is always higher than any return on any hypothetical investment you might make w…

Good example of that here:

https://www.cnn.com/2015/03/06/us/ferguson-missouri-racism-t...

So began an odyssey with Ferguson police, municipal court and city hall that left her with $1,200 in fines that to this day she still doesn’t fully understand. She paid the sum because endless court hearings about the car wore her down.

“I don’t have a lawyer. I’m not a lawyer. It’s me going up against the city of Ferguson when the attorneys won’t help,” Hoskin said this week.

From a NPR story:

Earlier this year, in the series Guilty and Charged, NPR's investigations unit found that the practices in Ferguson are common across the country. The series reported that nationwide, the costs of the justice system are billed increasingly to defendants and offenders, and that this creates harsher treatment of the poor. Because people with money can pay their hundreds or thousands of dollars in fines and fees right away, they are usually done with the court system.

https://www.npr.org/2014/08/25/343143937/in-ferguson-court-f...

It's one of things that boiled over with a lot of the civil rights protests.

Re: ‘Some things never leave you’: Poverty’s indelible marks

#59

Post by zoklet-enjoyer »

bluedino wrote: post #43
monero-xmr wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that a historical thing? In the US you get a SNAP card and can buy fresh produce at the store. I shop at a low-income focused grocery store (because it’s the same stuff but cheaper) and most people are using SNAP benefits and carts are always a mix of healthy stuff to unhealthy frozen junk.

The excuse for this is they either don't know how to cook, or don't have the staples to cook, or they don't have the time to cook.

You sound out of touch with society. Many poor people don't have time to cook. They might have multiple jobs that take up all of their time. Transportation is a big issue as well. And any disability they may have.

Most of America has horrible public transit. I don't know if it would even be possible for me to get onto a bus from my house to the nearest grocery store without first walking a mile. Some of the bus routes in this town turn what would be a 15min trip in a car to a ~2hr trip with a transfer in the middle.

In 2011, I briefly lived in a house in Northeast Tacoma, right by Dash Point State Park. Beautiful area. No buses. There wasn't even a sidewalk on the road I had to walk along to get to the bus. It was a mile walk from my house to a bus stop in Federal Way. From there I could get to a hub and get on another bus to anywhere I wanted. It was awful.

Re: ‘Some things never leave you’: Poverty’s indelible marks

#60

Post by nobodyandproud »

Non-white and urban here (NYC raised).

This essay resonates with me as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30043719#30047716

Today, I never feel like I fit in with my colleagues or direct reports.

The mindset itself is limiting and I fear I’ve passed along this same mindset to my children.

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