On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't • Hacker News Board

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

#701

Post by robotnikman » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 9:25 PM UTC

sixstringtheory wrote: post #450

u678u wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the kind of thing that casts a shadow over your whole life. Shadow really though? I'm super glad everything came through my own work, I'd hate if my parents gave me anything. I hate spending any money, to me that is just sensible though not a problem.

I’m also very pleased with the results I seem to have wrought myself (with help of course), but I always notice that I’m a bit behind the curve compared to people getting ahead in the workforce, adulting with home refinancing or retirement, entering Ivy league direct from high school, or in high school, the students that seemed to know which classes to take, or what AP was (I took 3 while my peers averaged 6-7 AP cou…

>but it’s noticeable when you have parents that can’t help you and while I’m very capable of learning all of these things on my own, and I have, I’m no match for folks basically speed-leveling early in life

I definitely feel on this one. I had to learn a lot of those things on my own as well

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

#702

Post by camelite » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 9:25 PM UTC

birdyrooster wrote: post #484

sologoub wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has experienced pretty rough times (different from the OP), but doing just fine myself, of course luck has a lot to do with it, but why in the world so many people feel so compelled to belittle the accomplishment of OP climbing out and then encouraging others to at least hope for the same? I’m pretty sure things would be very different today if I didn’t have that hope. Don’t take the hope from people e…

He said poverty doesn’t have a color implying that black people aren’t impoverished because of systemic racism, but because they don’t work hard enough. It’s racist drivel.

An interesting social science result is that one (in my mind, the primary) result of wokeness is deminished empathy for impoverished whites. I took ops comment to mean "hey, don't disregard my struggle because i happen not to be black", rather than seeing, as you apparently have, "racist drivel". A point I'm sure has been made a million times, and which you are no doubt impervious to, but one that remains valid nonetheless.

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

#703

Post by old_fart_dev » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 9:26 PM UTC

throwaway-0987 wrote: post #414

throwaway-0987 wrote: post #174

Throwaway because I don't want my co-workers to know. I was poor. My father left home when I was a kid in middle school. My mom worked part time cleaning houses and left us when she found a new husband. I dropped out of high-school in the 9th grade and went to work. Low paying jobs. I lived with my aunt on the bad side of town. Fast-forward 35 years. Today, I make about 200K per year. I got a GED, went to trade schoo…

I can't edit the original post, but I wanted to clarify that the last paragraph was intended to give other poor people hope, not to make them feel inadequate. Sort of a cheer leader type thing. I probably should have left it out. You are all right. I was lucky. We all are to some extent. I consider my aunt my only real family. I still drive to visit her grave each year.

Don't apologize for being optimistic.

I wouldn't have gotten where I have without someone telling me to take my shot and apply to a good college I dreamed about applying to when I was much younger. My parents encouraged me to with their blessing. There were plenty of neighbors and friend who told me it was a moonshot to get in, that I should go to state school, that I couldn't afford it, I wouldn't fit in, yadda, yadda, yadda. But I got in, went, graduated, and I've done well.

I'm sure if my parents told me it was a long shot, I wouldn't have applied. And, I can imagine internalizing this idea that I never had a chance because of who I was and where I was from.

So don't apologize. You don't need to feed the self-righteousness of others.

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

#704

Post by dionidium » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 9:28 PM UTC

nemothekid wrote: post #548

dahfizz wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 of the 5 factors you list boil down to "OP made good decisions and worked hard". I'm not sure how that is a counter argument to "throwaway-0987 did it, and you can too! You just need to stop being so lazy". From their description, it doesn't sound like living with his Aunt was a tremendous boon either. I don't mean to argue against a social safety net (free college in this example was certainly a good thing). I jus…

> "OP made good decisions and worked hard" On a national or even global scale I try to avoid generalizations like this because trivially they don't lead to good policy outcomes. It's almost a little like stock picking. If 5/100 hedge funds make a positive return over the year, my first thought isn't "the other 95 refused to work to better themselves". It's easy to understand this with hedge funds, but people commonly…

This is a good framing for thinking about policy, but if you were talking to an individual company that seemed not to be working hard or executing on their goals, then you would give them all the standard advice about correcting that behavior.

This difference between individual advice and group-level policymaking (mentioned elsewhere in this thread by chmod600) accounts for a lot of talking past one another in political debates. They are two totally separate levels of analysis.

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

#705

Post by robotnikman » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 9:29 PM UTC

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #322

busterarm wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fellow former-poor here. It's the kind of thing that casts a shadow over your whole life. And in this industry, nobody is comfortable talking about it. Most of the people I work with graduated from school as guaranteed millionaires. I hear things get said by people that are so far from the orbit of my reality and I cringe. Reading the article was really eye opening for me because I hadn't thought of all of the life s…

> And in this industry, nobody is comfortable talking about it. Most of the people I work with graduated from school as guaranteed millionaires. This is surprising to me. I’m also a former poor. A lot of people I work with in tech come from generally “normal” backgrounds. Middle to lower class (in excluding h1b and green card holders). It just turned out for them that their passion and hobby (computers) ended up bein…

Maybe its just the FAANG companies that are hiring only those from prestigious universities?

I still hope I can land a decent software engineering position someday without such a degree, even if its not at a FAANG company and doesnt pay as well

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

#706

Post by sorisos » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #579

swiley wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what's ridiculous about much of the zoning and building codes here. People don't want poor people living in sub-optimal housing, so instead they force them to sleep outside or live with abusive people.

> People don't want poor people living in sub-optimal housing, so instead they force them to sleep outside or live with abusive people. People don't want poor people to live near them. That is the root of most of the zoning issues, it's not because they are actually worried about the quality of the housing stock that the people would live in.

I've seen some research on "relative income happiness" that suggest having poor(er) people nearby should increase happiness. Perhaps it doesn't apply if the income cap is to large...

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

#707

Post by SMAAART » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

throwaway-0987 wrote: post #174

Throwaway because I don't want my co-workers to know. I was poor. My father left home when I was a kid in middle school. My mom worked part time cleaning houses and left us when she found a new husband. I dropped out of high-school in the 9th grade and went to work. Low paying jobs. I lived with my aunt on the bad side of town. Fast-forward 35 years. Today, I make about 200K per year. I got a GED, went to trade schoo…

My story is somewhat similar to yours, grew up poor AF and in a toxic environment. I escaped in my late 20's, moved cross country and put myself through college and then MBA part time while working full time.

Fast forward to today I am doing well, like you I have no debt whatsoever, decent cash flow, and decent net work.

A couple of interesting things:

1. 1/3 of homeowners in the US are mortgage free

2. Read the book "The Millionaire Next door"

Third anecdotal note: I have recently switched job, and I work in a company where there are about 25 people. Well I have noticed that the amount of $ spend on lunch is inversely proportional to the pay: the highest paid employees pack their lunch from home; the lowest paid go out and buy lunch most days, and more expensive lunches.

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

#708

Post by musingsole » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 9:34 PM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #76

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.…

The reason you spend money as soon as you get it when you're poor is 1) because when you're poor you accumulate debts, both formal and informal, and 2) when you're poor you know other people who are poor and who need things. Thinking poor people like being poor because they value what's really important - friends and family - is like poverty version of the "magical negro" trope. Poor people value friends and family b…

> People with no money problems don't need anyone.

> Poor people know who to trust because they've had to trust them before.

I feel like this is what's been contributing to collapsing communities in the US more than political tensions or whatever other specter one could point to. The lack of real, repeated need of others. A relative abundance on wealth leads to using money-based services to fix issues instead of relationships (which have cumbersome overheads). That leads to the creation of more services and until we've generally forgotten how to have a community, only services and consumers.

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

#709

Post by robotnikman » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 9:35 PM UTC

throw0932439 wrote: post #532

throwaway-0987 wrote: post #174

Throwaway because I don't want my co-workers to know. I was poor. My father left home when I was a kid in middle school. My mom worked part time cleaning houses and left us when she found a new husband. I dropped out of high-school in the 9th grade and went to work. Low paying jobs. I lived with my aunt on the bad side of town. Fast-forward 35 years. Today, I make about 200K per year. I got a GED, went to trade schoo…

Just want to say I hate the "yeah but luck"/"yeah but you're still privileged because x" going on in the comments and I found your comment inspiring, in case you ever doubt it. I'm poor, but not extreme poverty poor only because I'm "lucky" that I've had my parents be able to support me. I have several health problems which border on being disabilities (for which actually getting support would be very hard). Without…

It requires both hard work and luck, and neither will really come without the other. To discredit either one playing part in success seems to be looking at only half of the picture

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

#710

Post by jimbokun » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 9:36 PM UTC

whack wrote: post #377

throwaway-0987 wrote: post #174

Throwaway because I don't want my co-workers to know. I was poor. My father left home when I was a kid in middle school. My mom worked part time cleaning houses and left us when she found a new husband. I dropped out of high-school in the 9th grade and went to work. Low paying jobs. I lived with my aunt on the bad side of town. Fast-forward 35 years. Today, I make about 200K per year. I got a GED, went to trade schoo…

> I made it and you can too. Poverty has no color. It impacts everyone. You can't tell just by looking at someone. I love your story. There's also a ton of people who will delight in cherry-picking your story, as justification for not expanding the social safety net. "throwaway-0987 did it, and you can too! You just need to stop being so lazy" A few factors to consider: - You had an aunt you could live with - As a yo…

I don't like your take, either, as it suggests we shouldn't push young people to make good decisions where possible.

I think what both approaches miss, is the biggest underlying problem is Cost Disease:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost...

Reeling in out of control price increases on the most important expenses like health care, education and housing would do more to improve the lot of the poor than any redistribution scheme.

Now, redistribution may be a necessary part of lowering costs. Like establishing government run health care to control cost increases and investing in public universities to radically reduce or eliminate tuition.

This approach helps everyone, but disproportionately helps the poor. And controlling costs will help the poor more in the long run, I believe, than any redistribution scheme that doesn't address skyrocketing costs.