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Being Poor vs. Feeling Poor

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Re: Being Poor vs. Feeling Poor

#21

Post by lkbm »

ecshafer wrote: post #20
zepolen wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you say a person like Bezos would remain poor if they were in that exact situation?

Yes. Jeff Bezos parents gave him a loan of $245,573, in 1993 money to start Amazon. This indicates that he grew up if not very wealthy, but solidly on the upper side of middle class. Growing up poor he would've probably not had the opportunities to get into Princeton (statistically), so probably would have had a harder time breaking in the hedge fund industry, giving him less cash on hand, and probably wouldn't have…

> > Would you say a person like Bezos would remain poor

> Yes. ... but its more likely as a smart ambitious poor person, he'd have gone to whatever school gave him a good scholarship, and then ended up as an Engineer or some other safe profession and landed middle class.

So by yes you mean...no. Unless middle class is now poor?

Re: Being Poor vs. Feeling Poor

#22

Post by MisterBastahrd »

happytoexplain wrote: post #11
Quinzel wrote: post #2

>”By all financial measures, we were poor.” >”But here’s the thing: I never felt poor.” >”I had everything I needed and wanted. I had all the resources I required to do well at school too, so I never felt underprivileged there either.” This is written by someone who doesn’t understand that they were not poor. Poor is only eating 3/7 days a week. Poor is not owning pyjama’s, underwear or socks. Poor is not having scho…

I think it's probably going to do more harm than good trying to gatekeep the status of "poor" against any but the most egregiously out-of-touch claimants. E.g. asserting near-literal starvation as a prerequisite is just antagonistic to no useful end.

If all your needs are being met and you aren't personally struggling, then you aren't poor. This isn't gatekeeping. It's simply not what being poor actually is.

Re: Being Poor vs. Feeling Poor

#23

Post by deaddodo »

Quinzel wrote: post #7
meowtimemania wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor is a fuzzy word that could mean many different things. I think what you are describing could be understood as "poverty" while what OP described could be understood as poor. I think OP's point is that wealth isn't requisite for a fulfilling life. If you have a good home life, a community, and enough money for the essentials, you can live a "rich" life.

Sure wealth isn’t a requisite for a fulfilling life, but it’s pretty clear that OP wasn’t actually poor. If you have a good home life, a community and enough money for the essentials (and everything you want - according to OP) you’re not poor.

People seem to be using simple financial metrics to define poor/poverty. They don't seem to understand that someone with 1000usd/mo (in the US) that chooses that lifestyle (usually has a decently supportive family structure to fall back on) is drastically better off than someone earning 1500usd/mo, that has two kids to clothe/feed and has zero opportunities to escape the cycle whereby the beater car that is all they can afford breaking down is a make or break it situation.

Re: Being Poor vs. Feeling Poor

#24

Post by Gualdrapo »

Quinzel wrote: post #7
meowtimemania wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor is a fuzzy word that could mean many different things. I think what you are describing could be understood as "poverty" while what OP described could be understood as poor. I think OP's point is that wealth isn't requisite for a fulfilling life. If you have a good home life, a community, and enough money for the essentials, you can live a "rich" life.

Sure wealth isn’t a requisite for a fulfilling life, but it’s pretty clear that OP wasn’t actually poor. If you have a good home life, a community and enough money for the essentials (and everything you want - according to OP) you’re not poor.

Maybe because poverty is mostly a relative concept/status/whatever? i.e. I'd bet I'm relatively poor compared to many people from there, or even from my own country (Living in an impoverished neighborhood on a suburb from a third world city, don't own a house or a car, haven't ever left my country nor even my state in more than 30 years, I've never been how paid vacations feels like...) but definitely am not poor compared to what I was 10-15 years ago, or compared to several people from my own neighborhood.

Surely if OP has all of their basic needs covered isn't poor for most people, but maybe some wealthy person can ponder them like they actually are.

Re: Being Poor vs. Feeling Poor

#25

Post by lazide »

meowtimemania wrote: post #5
Quinzel wrote: post #2

>”By all financial measures, we were poor.” >”But here’s the thing: I never felt poor.” >”I had everything I needed and wanted. I had all the resources I required to do well at school too, so I never felt underprivileged there either.” This is written by someone who doesn’t understand that they were not poor. Poor is only eating 3/7 days a week. Poor is not owning pyjama’s, underwear or socks. Poor is not having scho…

Poor is a fuzzy word that could mean many different things. I think what you are describing could be understood as "poverty" while what OP described could be understood as poor. I think OP's point is that wealth isn't requisite for a fulfilling life. If you have a good home life, a community, and enough money for the essentials, you can live a "rich" life.

If you can afford to do all the things you want or need to do, it’s hard to call that being poor.

Re: Being Poor vs. Feeling Poor

#26

Post by neilv »

vector_spaces wrote: post #14
Quinzel wrote: post #2

>”By all financial measures, we were poor.” >”But here’s the thing: I never felt poor.” >”I had everything I needed and wanted. I had all the resources I required to do well at school too, so I never felt underprivileged there either.” This is written by someone who doesn’t understand that they were not poor. Poor is only eating 3/7 days a week. Poor is not owning pyjama’s, underwear or socks. Poor is not having scho…

Yeah the linked post rubbed me the wrong way too. I don't know anyone who grew up poor who didn't know they were poor. Not being able to afford vacations or nice things isn't a sign of being poor Being poor is dealing with housing instability, untreated mental illness, not calling 911 during likely medical emergencies, not being able to afford gas or bus fare to go to work, and generally catastrophe after catastrophe…

> Being poor is traumatic. Even after you claw your way out of that hole, into a comfortable life funded by a comfortable tech salary, you never feel quite secure. You keep waiting for that next catastrophe to hit, and to be back in another job where you have to ask permission to use the bathroom or plead for time off to attend a funeral.

Excellent point.

A related trait I've seen from some people who've made (or are making) an economic class leap up is that they're accustomed to soldiering through tough and unjust situations.

For example, imagine some really awful situation that shouldn't be happening, in a workplace or school or housing or safety or bureaucracy or similar.

Someone of more fortunate history might react like "WTF?! This is not OK! I don't even know what to do with this, other than get a lawyer!"

But the person who's been through many situations they shouldn't have been through, is desensitized to the injustice, and just getting through it somehow is familiar, so that's where their energy goes. (I don't think it's only fear of the next catastrophe, though that might also be a factor.)

The person with the "WTF?!" reaction, who demands their rights (and maybe has the family money to back it up) will probably have a better outcome from the unacceptable situation, and less stress and misery along the way.

Re: Being Poor vs. Feeling Poor

#27

Post by carlotasoto »

This is a good article, but to me, it illustrates well how the concept of a “middle class” has practically dissapeared in our culture. Is being “not rich” the same as being poor? The article doesn’t describe the childhood of a rich kid, but it doesn’t describe the childhood of somebody poor either. Perhaps this is an interesting consequence of the inequality we’re living in, we forget there’s actually an in-between that could be (perhaps?) a nice thing to also aspire for.

Re: Being Poor vs. Feeling Poor

#28

Post by MisterBastahrd »

lkbm wrote: post #21
ecshafer wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Jeff Bezos parents gave him a loan of $245,573, in 1993 money to start Amazon. This indicates that he grew up if not very wealthy, but solidly on the upper side of middle class. Growing up poor he would've probably not had the opportunities to get into Princeton (statistically), so probably would have had a harder time breaking in the hedge fund industry, giving him less cash on hand, and probably wouldn't have…

> > Would you say a person like Bezos would remain poor > Yes. ... but its more likely as a smart ambitious poor person, he'd have gone to whatever school gave him a good scholarship, and then ended up as an Engineer or some other safe profession and landed middle class. So by yes you mean...no. Unless middle class is now poor?

Anyone whose parents can give them a quarter of a million dollars as essentially fun money is so far divorced from reality than actual middle class people that it's hilarious to even attempt to make that comparison.

Re: Being Poor vs. Feeling Poor

#29

Post by orwin »

happytoexplain wrote: post #11
Quinzel wrote: post #2

>”By all financial measures, we were poor.” >”But here’s the thing: I never felt poor.” >”I had everything I needed and wanted. I had all the resources I required to do well at school too, so I never felt underprivileged there either.” This is written by someone who doesn’t understand that they were not poor. Poor is only eating 3/7 days a week. Poor is not owning pyjama’s, underwear or socks. Poor is not having scho…

I think it's probably going to do more harm than good trying to gatekeep the status of "poor" against any but the most egregiously out-of-touch claimants. E.g. asserting near-literal starvation as a prerequisite is just antagonistic to no useful end.

No. I was lower-middle class in a country with a social safety net, and the day my mother broke her car and had to fix it, we ate potatoes and were handed vegetable for months by a local producer, and we had to cut them because they were all partially rotten (but free!). Luckily my grandmother gave us eggs and milk regularly (yeah, countryside boy here, bite me), so we never missed on vitamins nor proteins, but each time we had cheese at school i was in heaven. The same thing happen in a city with less family support, and we would have been hungry (or at least would have suffered from deficiencies).

Re: Being Poor vs. Feeling Poor

#30

Post by welshwelsh »

ecshafer wrote: post #20
zepolen wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you say a person like Bezos would remain poor if they were in that exact situation?

Yes. Jeff Bezos parents gave him a loan of $245,573, in 1993 money to start Amazon. This indicates that he grew up if not very wealthy, but solidly on the upper side of middle class. Growing up poor he would've probably not had the opportunities to get into Princeton (statistically), so probably would have had a harder time breaking in the hedge fund industry, giving him less cash on hand, and probably wouldn't have…

He might have not founded Amazon if he was poor, but that's not a question anyone was asking.

The overwhelming majority of people, if they were given $245,573 in 1993, would not go on to build a trillion-dollar company. What Bezos accomplished was extraordinary, whatever way you look at it.

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