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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

#191

Post by djbebs »

TeaDrunk wrote: post #84
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…

The main barrier to poverty is that there is a statistically almost no way to meaningfully save up enough money to get out of poverty, by onesself, just by forgoing anything that doesn't contribute directly to food and shelter . Literally: what is the point of saving up 5$/wk? That's less than 300$ by the year. What can you realistically do to get yourself out of poverty for a one-time payment of 300$? You can't even…

Small amounts let you gather up enough capital to reduce the negative impact of emergencies.

People who don't have thay ability make mistakes when emergencies inevitably come around.

Those 10$ a week after a year is enough to make up a small car repair, or problem with your paycheck.

Just last year I had an issue where my paycheck was short 1000$, because I wasn't spending everything as it came in, it wasn't a problem. I had a big enough buffer in income and emergency funds to make up for it.

If it had happened to my colleague who doesn't save up, he would have had to get a payday loan to put food on his families table.

That's how people stay poor.

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

#192

Post by treis »

woodruffw wrote: post #70

It’s a bummer to see many people on here not respond to the two phenomena that the author explicitly identifies: fear and shame. Nothing good comes from shaming struggling people for making short-term financial decisions. It only breeds more shame, makes people afraid to express their needs, and pushes the poor even further out of the public’s eye.

I kind of feel like this is a self selecting population. In that those that feel shame are going to do something about their situation and escape. Because I've definitely seen some shameful shit done by people that appeared quite shameless.

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

#193

Post by throwuwu »

akie wrote: post #170
blackgirldev wrote: post #160

As someone who grew up solidly middle class and went to a near Ivy private university and dropped out, I thought I was under educated about "life" and felt the need to enlist in the military. There, I found out that people who grow up poor looked at me like I was a total idiot. There were daily reminders that I grew up privileged. That my brief stint as an enlisted scrub were not enough to understand what it meant wh…

Am I correct in understanding that you concluded that poverty is primarily a mindset issue?

No, they correctly identify it as learned helplessness which is a real behaviour common to many animals including humans. If you experience repeated misery, set backs, abuse, discrimination, and even just bad luck it conditions you to believe that no matter what you do you will always fall victim to the worst outcome so you just give up and stay where you are and endure it the best you can. That is not saying that the reason people are poor is due to that conditioning, it’s saying that they were conditioned to act that way because they were poor and now even if you provide them a way out they are so beaten down and demoralized that they will just stay where they are and not even try. It’s almost impossible for people who have not experienced that level of abuse to imagine what this feels like or follow the reasoning behind it.

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

#194

Post by dionidium »

UweSchmidt wrote: post #152
dionidium wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're going to get pushback on this commonsense understanding of the world, but I've been on food stamps and of course you're right. "It's more complicated than that." No it isn't. Poor people shop at the same stores as everybody else. The food is all there. "They don't know the difference between healthy and unhealthy meals." How stupid do you think poor people are? They know how to prepare a healthy meal. The noti…

Anything can be overcome, humans can do anything (get out of poverty, convert to healthy living, run marathons, stop smoking....) yet the majority (of a huge sample size of humans) is stuck in their way, held down by environmental conditions and, if you will, by limits in the human condition or whatever. If it could be fixed by telling people to "try harder" they would have by now, no? The answer is to alleviate the…

> You have mentioned in another post that you have benefitted from food stamps for a while (did I understand that right?), allowing you to eat healthy; other people need that and maybe a little additional help with food, housing and clothing

Absolutely. There’s a false dichotomy that runs all the way through this entire debate, which says that in order to demonstrate that we are compassionate and that we care about the plight of the poor and working class we must also insist that their condition is never the result of personal choices, but always external factors. This makes no sense. It is not particularly hard to keep two sets of books, one that says we should help those who need it and another that tells people who can benefit from this message that they do have agency, that their choices matter, that they can do things to improve their situation.

People need to believe that their actions have consequences. And the good news: it’s not a lie. Actions do have consequences. There actually are things you can do to improve your situation. That’s a hopeful message, not a cruel one.

And yet, there will of course be people who for whatever reason are unable to improve their lot in life. We should help them. There’s no contradiction here.

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

#195

Post by ryan93 »

steele wrote: post #92
ryan93 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesnt really square with the insane fraction of food stamps spent on soda. Im lowish income and can easily afford peppers, onions and garlic. bulk stuff like sweet potato is cheap. My rice and chicken stir fry would take like 20-25 min of work at a fast food job to afford.

You got dependents? Does cooking require any utilities? Let's say you can only afford one. You going to sleep by the oven or do homework by candlelight? How many illnesses are you away from homelessness?

That stuff would be easy if I had food stamps on top of my income.

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

#196

Post by drekipus »

My sister and I both grew up poor. The stories in the OP resonates a lot with what we experience.

The annoying thing for me, is that I got out and I can't seem to help get my sister out. I was using a shitty "hustle" / "self-improvement" mindset that eventually taught me about delayed gratification, skilling, fake-it-until-you-make it, eating and cleaning-up well (part of self-improvement was also tied with "I'm very lonely how do I attract girls" -- dealing with shame and self-value.) -- now I have a very good job, wife, kid, and working on savings myself.

But what worked for me is polar opposite to what my sister needs. She already has a partner and 3 kids, and they're effectively re-living the story (after a long slog, partner does work now, so there's improvement there.) things can go sour quickly, and it'll be disruptive to her kids.

I was thinking of sending her some of my paycheque automatically each week/month (ala UBI) mainly as I'm skeptical of the UBI model myself, so I would look at it like a sort of experiment in to how does it improve things.

I've sent her "once-off" lump sums, which just get spent on "paying back [partner's] family members" or buying a mini quad-bike / latest xbox / massive TV, etc, for the good times.

We live in Australia, so healthcare, education, etc, are all provided for us as long as she actually goes to it. There is a large mental barrier to everything, and sometimes even going to the doctor is just "a huge drama" that is not worth it. The kids have changed school maybe 3 times in the past 2 years.

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

#197

Post by tester756 »

lelanthran wrote: post #91
phkahler wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Poverty is hard to come by in these United States. If you're starving, or homeless, or unemployed, you've worked yourself into a corner fairly diligently. You have a lot to learn. Start by reading the article, and understand that the effects of growing up that way are hard to overcome - psychologically. The author has a Ph.D and still suffers from it. You may also want to look around at low cost of subsidized hous…

> You have a lot to learn. Start by reading the article, and understand that the effects of growing up that way are hard to overcome - psychologically. The author has a Ph.D and still suffers from it. The author grew up poor and has a Phd? Sounds like all the arguments here about how it is impossible to escape poverty are at odds with that fact. -- someone who grew up poor

How many people who grew poor reached PhD?

0.000x%? 0.x%? 1%?

It raises bar

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

#198

Post by treis »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #178
treis wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This annoys me every time I see it. Good boots don't cost 1.5 months of a worker's salary. They cost a day's or less. And if you buy used stuff you can live cheaper than ever. In that respect it's a golden age for the poor. The problems for the poor in modern America are health care, education, and rent.

It's a metaphor for the greater issues of being poor, which, as you quite accurately stated, are health care, education, and rent. Health care: you can afford your insulin or you blood sugar goes out of whack and you end up in the ER. Education: you can't afford the time to learn a new skill (or even attend school) so you can't move up out of your low-paying job. Rent: you're paying high rent instead of owning. The i…

Not really because in the boots example it's a tyranny that reigned over all poor people. The things you mentioned are easily avoidable through choices or luck. Not everyone is disabled, not everyone racked up dumb student loans, not everyone lives in a stupid high rent area, and so on.

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

#199

Post by JanisErdmanis »

Existenceblinks wrote: post #183
JanisErdmanis wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I wonder if decision to work such high-skill draining jobs is caused by an upbringing in poverty. Like they are bending on peer pressure to get the biggest wages to fit in with their spending habits because investment in yourself is not valued. It's as if poor people only see a community based on money. It's the thinking that still haunts them.

I have a thought model that fits your explanation. That is a size of choices. Once they see peers have more choices to be happy, they know they have too small ways to be happy, and then trying to expand that choices. Ignorance is bliss is kinda stuck in local maximum is bliss.

An interesting approach to a pleasure/pain maximising agent. It could also fit with a picture of shame touched a bit in the article leading to insecurities which are then compensated in competition.

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

#200

Post by bluedino »

EliRivers wrote: post #65
bluedino wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Life with no money and the perpetual fear of being evicted and living in a car with your children until they're taken away, or being fired for taking a day off sick because you work a bad job with no protections, or not being able to pay the electric and making a game of huddling together with your children at night for fear that they'll freeze, this is being poor. Learn to live poor? Learn to live this life? People…

Does it sound better if I say "live within their means"?
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