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

Being Poor vs. Feeling Poor

moretothat.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 69 posts

Re: Being Poor vs. Feeling Poor

#31

Post by strken »

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…

If you're eating 7/7 days a week, but what you're eating is mostly white rice and beans and your entire family lives in one room of an apartment shared with three other families, you're poor.

Pure caloric intake is not a good way of judging poverty in the developed world because calories are so cheap relative to everything else.

Re: Being Poor vs. Feeling Poor

#32

Post by mikesabat »

Rich and poor are relative terms. Anyone reading this comment can feel rich in certain rooms and poor in others. There is only 1 person in the entire world that is the richest person they know.

My takeaway from this post is that how someone feels about being rich or poor is something they can control and it might be better to not feel poor most of the time.

Being poor (or not) has some objective level, but is mostly about the surroundings that a person finds themselves in. Feeling poor also needs to account for an individual's past. I've had times where I was flush with cash and those situations raised the bar for feeling rich vs poor for my present & future self.

Re: Being Poor vs. Feeling Poor

#33

Post by joe_the_user »

Gualdrapo wrote: post #24
Quinzel wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 com…

Maybe because poverty is mostly a relative concept/status/whatever?

No, actual poverty involves physical survival being uncertain, it involve fear and the pain of hunger and the pain of other things related to an uncertain existence (untreated health problems, physically carrying the limit stuff you possess around, etc).

Re: Being Poor vs. Feeling Poor

#34

Post by jccalhoun »

This reminds me of the University of Chicago Law professor who wrote a post about how he wasn't rich because after paying for three kids to go to private school, a gardener, a house cleaner, and retirement he only has a few hundred dollars of discretionary spending left each month... https://web.archive.org/web/20100920033403/truthonthemarket....

Re: Being Poor vs. Feeling Poor

#35

Post by Aunche »

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…

By the time Bezos started Amazon, he was already an SVP at DE Shaw, so he certainly could have found the money somewhere else. His mom had him as a teenager and his adoptive father was a Cuban refugee. That said, his grandfather was quite wealthy.

Re: Being Poor vs. Feeling Poor

#36

Post by nobodyandproud »

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…

Except for eating—and that’s only if it’s because of lack of means—every one of the listed criteria are relative to the community and culture.

Re: Being Poor vs. Feeling Poor

#37

Post by wwarner »

Wealth disparity seems more tangible to me. If you grow up in a city that was transformed by tech but weren’t able to make the switch to computing, you can’t afford to live there any more, you have move. If your job was lost to automation, you’ve objectively lost your healthcare.

Re: Being Poor vs. Feeling Poor

#38

Post by Glyptodon »

One thing to note is that sounds like writer's family was not time poor, IE, family had enough time to ensure structure for the kids. Many families from low to moderate income levels seem to lack the time and wherewithal to manage this, often in ways that seem externally inscrutable.

Re: Being Poor vs. Feeling Poor

#39

Post by joe_the_user »

strken wrote: post #31
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…

If you're eating 7/7 days a week, but what you're eating is mostly white rice and beans and your entire family lives in one room of an apartment shared with three other families, you're poor. Pure caloric intake is not a good way of judging poverty in the developed world because calories are so cheap relative to everything else.

The point of the gp imo isn't that poverty is only absolute calorie limits but that there are levels of poverty that aren't "relative" or "a feeling" but an objective, miserable situation. Poverty involves a chronic lack of basic human needs, these are often described as food, clothing and shelter but they also include health care, physical safety, the ability leave abusive situations and so-forth.

Re: Being Poor vs. Feeling Poor

#40

Post by yieldcrv »

deaddodo wrote: post #23
Quinzel wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

there's also no empathy

"what!? I was able to save on 1000usd/mo... with a kid!"

assets are either greater than your liabilities, or they're not. the dollar amounts aren't really relevant.

Post reply on HN