If I were a financially responsible professional earning 6 figures and I'm told one day that I'll be forced to stock shelves for measly wages for the rest of my life, you bet your ass I'll hit the bottle.
Yea, people who were formerly rich will have better financial habits. If you were born into poverty, who is going to teach you those good financial habits in the first place?
Yea, that would probably be better diet. But do they even know how to eat healthy? Do they have time to cook? Are they even able to get to a grocery store?
Yea, you could probably get a decent suit at a thrift store for $30. But some people literally can not spare that money. $30 could be the difference between your kids eating or having a roof over your head.
I'm not expressing any animosity toward, or disdain for, people in poverty. I agree with the article that being poor inhibits people's ability to make good decisions for themselves, and that the best way to break the vicious cycle may be to provide them with enough income that they have more freedom to make decisions that will improve their circumstances.
I disagree with the parent comment's thesis that the poor don't make bad decisions in their lives. That doesn't mean I blame them for their poor circumstances or think that they deserve what they get.
> Yea, people who were formerly rich will have better financial habits. If you were born into poverty, who is going to teach you those good financial habits in the first place?
I agree. Your rhetorical question is correct.
> Yea, that would probably be better diet. But do they even know how to eat healthy? Do they have time to cook? Are they even able to get to a grocery store?
They probably don't know how to eat healthy - just like with the financial habits. I think it must be a pretty small fraction, though, that doesn't have access to a better diet than what they eat now. Cooking need not take more than a single-digit-number of minutes.
> Yea, you could probably get a decent suit at a thrift store for $30. But some people literally can not spare that money. $30 could be the difference between your kids eating or having a roof over your head.
It's true that some people's circumstances are so poor that they cannot survive an additional one-time $30 purchase and can't even set aside $1 per day for a month despite their best efforts. If such a person interviewed for a job that needed professional garb, I would hope that they would explain their situation to the interviewer and that the interviewer would give them special consideration. Maybe they wouldn't, but this scenario seems pretty rare to me and not especially relevant to the discussion at hand.
I don't have hard numbers, but I think you are overestimating people in poverty's disposable income and access to fresh groceries.
The article's thesis, with which I partially I agree, is that poverty is persisted, at least in part, by a poverty-induced inability to consider one's long-term welfare.
jimrandomh's comment seems (to me) to be saying that the poor are not making bad decisions, but instead behaving in an objectively logical/near-optimal way given how little money they have. See the beginning of his comment:
> This article tries to shift perception from "poor people make bad decisions because they're intrinsically dumb" to "poor people make bad decisions because poverty makes them dumb." But this is also wrong; the decisions poor people make are, for the most part, sensible decisions given the circumstances they're in.
What is a "bad decision" ? It's a decision that ends poorly. But poor people are not intentionally deciding to make bad decisions. No poor person goes "Oh boy, I hope I fuck up today!" They are making risky or ill-advised decisions, which then don't pan out. They may have been aware of the consequences, or even willfully ignorant of them. But there was still a cause and effect which started with a basic need. For most of those decisions, they are acted upon by considering the most immediate solution to the need.
Long-term goals are inherently prioritized lower than short-term goals. People with less money have less resources to achieve long-term goals. General welfare is often a secondary priority to the most basic needs of paying bills and feeding and sheltering oneself or one's family. But having a drink, doing drugs, the high of gambling, getting laid, and more are all much higher in priority than even those other basic needs, because they can be achieved the quickest and easiest and provide an immediate positive emotional gain, something sorely lacking for most poor people.
So in terms of decision making, first you'll buy booze, then you'll debate between buying food for your family or paying the electric bill, then you'll think about finding a job. But to get the booze or pay the bill you might have to steal a radio. If there are no other apparent options, these are simply the only choices.
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This is a pretty patronizing view. You led with an intention to get "the whole story," but you only went one step further. I'd like to take it another step or two further than that:
> you only need to borrow if you don't have money. > you can only save if you have money.
>> Certainly more income makes these easier. But consider the following impossible-to-conduct-in-reality-experiment: Set group A to be a set of 100 randomly selected poor folks who are only qualified to be cashiers or stock shelves. As group B, select a random set of people who currently earn 6-figure salaries and doom them to only ever work the same class of jobs as group A for the rest of their lives. I would not be surprised to find that the formerly wealthy would, in general, borrow less and save more.
I very much doubt they would--that group is used to saving more, yes, but they are also used to spending more, in absolute terms, than the poor who are not saving. Old habits die hard?
But actually since it's not possible to know what the results would be, I'd like to assume you're correct about the hypothetical results, and further point out that the proclivity to borrow and not to save may be adaptive. Middle class+ people obviously do better when they save, but I'd be surprised if that were true for most of the poor.
The marginal value of each dollar is still quite high when a person makes minimum wage, so it's a big stretch to save, say, $100 per month. After a year of saving at that rate you'll have approximately $1,200.
First of all, it's worth noting that saving $100 month consistently is super unlikely just on the basis of stability of employment. At this level, jobs and hours are unpredictable. But let's say that somehow you have a unicorn job that pays you a consistently $1100 a month (don't short your hours, or fire you without notice, isn't seasonal, whatever).
Next, consider that in this unlikely scenario where you have consistent income and can live off only $1,000/mo, then at the end of the year you've saved $1,200. My daughter recently went to the dentist, her bill was around $2,000. I've gotten bills higher than $1,200 for car repair. Heaven forbid an ER visit that year--$1,200 would be a tiny fraction of that bill.
So now we're in a world where not only do we posit super unusual job stability, but also no emergencies happening or major expenses coming up (eg. never having to move). Back of the napkin, assuming the market doesn't tank at some point, someone doing this impossible thing would save about $38,000 in 30 years. That's enough for about 3 years of living expenses at their poverty level, $1,000 per month.
The reality is that they would never be able to save such an exorbitant amount.
The reality is that bills and emergencies do come up, and that's what puts poor people in the hole. And when you receive that $9,000 ER bill it doesn't make a damn bit of difference whether you had that $1,200 saved or whether you bought a flat screen with it, you're still deep in debt probably forever (or whatever, the 7.5 years it takes for the debt to fall off). Except it's obviously better to be fucked while you have a flat screen, instead of identically fucked without a flat screen.
The calculus here is that you are going to end up in an unrecoverable financial hole on a regular basis no matter what you do, so when you have some cash you spend it before the system takes it from you. I'm not so sure that way of thinking is wrong for those people.
On top of all that, many assistance programs aimed at the poor penalize you for savings, ie. if you have X savings you can't qualify for the assistance. But if you have a flatscreen and no savings you _can_ qualify.
All this can be true even if it's also true that saving is a good idea for middle class+ people.
> healthy food costs more than unhealthy food.
>> While an optimal diet does certainly cost more than a calorically-equivalent amount of cheetos, you can shop at walmart - buying only eggs, oatmeal, and bananas - with the probable result that your diet will be both healthier and cheaper than those of most low-income families.
I object generally to arguments in the shape of "if they just do something heroic and clever it'll be fine."
Let's assume generously that all people have the same basic time, energy, education, etc constraints around food. And let's further assume that the default outcome for middle class+ people is that that's fine because the money they have to spend on the problem buys basically fine food. So obviously the default outcome for poor people is not fine because the money they have to spend on the problem can only buy bad food that hurts them.
It's not ok with me on a systematic level to say to an entire population: this system is set up in a way that doesn't work for you through no fault of your own. All you have to do to route around that is educate yourself unrealistically, overcome ubiquitous social and media pressure, and put in special effort, time, and energy, and you'll be able to have food that is adequate nutritionally, barely. Probably.
Can an individual put in heroic effort to overcome systemic issues for themselves? Sure. Is that the last word in a conversation about systemic issues? Absolutely not.
> good attire costs money.
>> Maybe so, but anyone can get a dress shirt/jacket/slacks at a thrift store for probably less than $30 all told. It won't be high-end clothing, but will at least look professional.
Clothing is like accents--they mark your class pretty solidly. The thing is that if you grow up speaking a certain way, it's pretty hard to change your accent. Clothing is the same way. Your concept of what "professional" clothing looks like comes from a deeply ingrained cultural intuition. And for what it's worth, anyone with that cultural intuition can spot clothing in the uncanny valley of "trying to look professional, but obviously bought these clothes at a thrift shop" in a heartbeat.
I am a privileged white professional with this intuition and I promise that I would leave a Saks Fifth looking way more "professional" than I would leave a thrift store looking, even if I had an unlimited thrift store budget.
If your answer to this is for individuals to put in special effort to be unrealistically enculturated such they somehow have the intuition for it, plus heroically willing to spend extra time and effort locating clothing that's both cheap and nails the signaling, then see my rebuttal above.
> based on whether they sound like something a poor person would write.
>> Idk about this one. What would a poor person write? Is this just a matter of whether they have good grammar? Nobody (almost nobody?) is conspiring to keep the poor stuck where they are. I don't think anyone would reject a qualified applicant just because they have no money.
This is maybe the most interesting response you made because the point seems to have bounced off you entirely. The person you're replying to is making a point about signaling social class. It's about our perspective from the lofty heights of privilege feeling from the inside like we can tell quality or lack thereof, when the reality is that it isn't about quality per se, but about signaling class. And in fact what we're calling a spectrum of "professional presentation ability" can just as readily be labeled by its opposite: "how poor this person sounds." That's not a fact about the universe, it's a fact about our culture.
If that doesn't make sense, I'm not surprised. Pretend like I just told you something profound, and sleep on it. If it clicks, I predict this whole thread will make a lot more sense to you.
(1) I think you have at least partially misconstrued my comment. It is not my intention even a little to dismiss the plight of the poor. I agree with the article that being poor inhibits people's ability to make good decisions for themselves, and that the best way to break the vicious cycle may be to provide them with enough income that they have more freedom to make decisions that will improve their circumstances. I certainly do not think asking them to dig themselves out on their own is the last word in a conversation about how to solve poverty.
(2) My bullet points about diet/clothing/saving/debt/etc were not intended to mean the poor have a way out and need no help. I was simply pointing out that there are ways that a more educated/energetic/encultured person can behave that will yield better outcomes. The parent comment's thesis seemed to be that nobody with those financial means could do any better, and that seems wrong to me.
(2.1) I have been convinced by some other comments plus some googling that I have overestimated the means of many of the poor. A one-child household that can only scrape together $5k per year in the USA is in dire circumstances indeed. Google suggests such households are rather more common than I thought.
(2.2) I included that thrift store bit in an attempt to cover all the parent comment's points. In actuality, I think that the fraction of jobs where the candidate's wardrobe budget is a serious factor in determining eligibility is so small that this is not worthy of in-depth discussion.
(2.3) While I can imagine situations in which your spend-all-the-money-because-ill-end-up-in-a-hole-anyway logic seems genuinely valid, I'm not sure how common they are, and I'm skeptical that anyone actually performs that particular calculus in their brains. It seems like regular thoughtless spending is probably more the norm, even when that calculus is offered as a rationalization after the fact.
(3) Who really takes signals about socioeconomic class into account when making hiring decisions? Is this different from rejecting less-educated candidates due to their inferior communication skills? Does anyone mind a secretary/cashier/barista/construction-worker/floor-manager who seems like they are poor (or even from some alien subculture with wildly different social sensibilities) as long as they are efficient and productive and communicate effectively? If so, that sounds like a pretty small-minded hiring manager to me.
(4) Thanks for your comment. I still think I mostly agree with the article's thesis, but I'm coming around to the idea that I'm not fully appreciating number of people who find themselves in economic situations where savings of any kind are nearly impossible.
(5) I realize that my point of contention with the parent post is somewhat irrelevant because, regardless of which of us is correct, the proper way to combat poverty probably does not change. We both believe (I think) that a large fraction of the population is not going to be stuck in poverty unless/until the rest of us provide them with an unconditional income substantial enough to let them turn their lives around.
I'm glad to hear we're basically in agreement. For whatever reason I still want you to understand how fucked some people are, through no fault of their own.
re: 2.2. I can trivially counterpoint. Hopefully this analogy works--maybe you've seen the show The Wire. Imagine basically any one of the kids from the ghetto, or how about Bubbles. [For reference, these characters are all poor and black.]
Let's say he got clean and didn't look literally like a crack head, but he was the same guy with the same means, now looking for a job. Recall that Bubbles is particularly charaismatic and likable [for a homeless drug addict]. Imagine what he sounds like when he talks. Imagine how he might feel and act around a "professional" white guy (think about things like body language and cultural signaling). Imagine the clothes he owns and wears daily.
As a hiring manager for a professional position, you wouldn't take his appearance into account? Even if he got himself a thrift store suit you could still "smell the poor on him." Think about how he talks--imagine considering him for a retail position at a suburban mall. Are you going to let him sell ice cream to white suburban moms? What about letting him do your taxes? Represent you in court? Maybe he somehow went to a dev bootcamp, are you going to take a chance on Bubbles, or will you give it to the bright young [white middle class] kid? (Bonus: how about hiring him to plumb your new home? Note how that one feels distinctly different from above.)
It doesn't even have to be racial. Imagine a lily white girl born and raised in a trailer park Appalachia. At 25 she decides she's tired of her generational poverty, and somehow overcomes the basically impossible barrier of moving from the boonies to a place with job prospects. No one she ever knew ever worked any jobs except menial labor, and one uncle who is a trucker, so she doesn't really know how to do it or what a resume should look like, but she does her best using google to help her. She has a kid, the dad's long gone. She can cover up all her tattoos except the one on her neck. She looks and sounds distinctly "white trash."
Are you going to hire her as your receptionist? Are you going to add her as the 3rd dental hygienist at your dental practice? What will your professional customers think of her tattoo?
re: 2.3. I think you'd be surprised how many people would explicitly use this line of reasoning, but that doesn't matter. I said it was adaptive, by which I meant there was an emergent sort of wisdom in doing what would irresponsible for a middle class person to do.
re 3, see 2.2 above. Also, I imagine that when you're thinking poor, you're thinking of someone who is like you, except delta. Poverty marks people deeply, in ways that are hard to escape. If you don't think you take this into account during hiring, then that is the water you're swimming in--it's not a fact about your virtue, but a fact about how filtering happens before you ever get to see the candidates who were privileged enough to have practical access to the system by which you hire.
re 4: (thumbsup)
I suppose you're pretty much right about everything here. But with my eastern-connecticut goggles stuck irremovably over my eyes I still have trouble accepting that it can be so hard to get someone to hire you.
I don't think I know anyone under 60 who would object to a girl based on her having a tattoo on her neck.
While in college, working various jobs to pay my tuition, I worked alongside a variety of poor individuals, both rural "white-trashy" types and urban people of various races (It's a pretty rural area, but a bunch of people would take a 1-hour shuttle ride from Hartford to throw boxes around at the Fed-Ex distribution hub). These people varied widely in intelligence, charisma, criminality, and work ethic. I got to know many of them and had a fairly good sense of what each was capable of. If I am ever in a position where I'm hiring a receptionist or a construction crew or a store clerk or a plumber for my own house, and I get an applicant that looks like one of those guys I used to work with, I will certainly give them a serious interview and determine as best I can whether they are both reliable and capable of doing the job.
Of course, the job will go to the most promising applicant and it doesn't seem unlikely that another candidate with a middle class upbringing would demonstrate better literacy or communication skills or critical thinking abilities (or maybe even work ethic?) and I don't deny that this places the poor at a disadvantage in a competitive job market. But it's not clear to me that this is the same thing as a systematic bias against those who "smell poor".
> you only need to borrow if you don't have money. > you can only save if you have money.
Certainly more income makes these easier. But consider the following impossible-to-conduct-in-reality-experiment: Set group A to be a set of 100 randomly selected poor folks who are only qualified to be cashiers or stock shelves. As group B, select a random set of people who currently earn 6-figure salaries and doom them to only ever work the same class of jobs as group A for the rest of their lives. I would not be surprised to find that the formerly wealthy would, in general, borrow less and save more.
> healthy food costs more than unhealthy food.
While an optimal diet does certainly cost more than a calorically-equivalent amount of cheetos, you can shop at walmart - buying only eggs, oatmeal, and bananas - with the probable result that your diet will be both healthier and cheaper than those of most low-income families.
> good attire costs money.
Maybe so, but anyone can get a dress shirt/jacket/slacks at a thrift store for probably less than $30 all told. It won't be high-end clothing, but will at least look professional.
> based on whether they sound like something a poor person would write.
Idk about this one. What would a poor person write? Is this just a matter of whether they have good grammar? Nobody (almost nobody?) is conspiring to keep the poor stuck where they are. I don't think anyone would reject a qualified applicant just because they have no money.
I have no hard data to back this up, but I suspect that most of the chronically poor's lack of success, and their poor decision making has much more to do with the fact that their upbringing has not instilled into them (at least not deeply enough) the idea that their current behavior can affect their future wellbeing.