The Washingpost had a pretty good article up about some of the “invisible” costs of being poor (which apparently has now been moved behind a log-in wall: sorry people. Hat tip Feministe.) And of course, like all articles about poverty, I waited for someone to tell me that the poor were poor because they were too stupid, or lazy, or all they needed was some good ole fashion bootstrapping and then they wouldn’t be poor anymore. I was pretty sure they were going to misread something in the article, or act like they skimmed it.
Lo and behold, about 4 comments in, I got it (with the bonus of being the “I used to be poor, and I worked my way out of it” crap).
I grew up in poverty and can relate to some of the issues in this article. Some I can not. An example:
Corner store:
Wheat bread: $ 3.79
Milk 4.99
Bologna 3.79
Butter 4.49
———-
Total: $17.06Safeway:
Wheat Bread $1.19
Milk 3.49
Butter 2.49
Bologna 2.50
——–
Total $9.67Difference: $7.39 for FOUR items. These four items each week is nearly $30 for a month. I would walk to the the store for that kind of money.
Lenwood Brooks says he paid $15 to cash a $300 check at a check-cashing shop because he lost his license.
I would have taken that $15 down to DMV and gotten a new license so that I could cash my checks at the bank for free.
Soda and prepared foods would never wind up in my food cart. Too expensive. Nor would I spend good money on caller ID even if it was to avoid bill collectors.
Harrison Blakeney uses the check-cashing store to pay his telephone bill. The store charges 10 percent to take Blakeney’s money and send the payment to the phone company. He pays this 10% because: “I don’t have time to mail it.”
WHAT?These are examples of people WASTING what little money they have.
Escaping poverty is difficult. It takes hard work and fierce determination. It takes sacrifice. But it can be done. The key is to look for solutions instead of excuses and to not become awash in apathy.
Let’s take this bad boy, point by point, and I’ll try and put the pieces together since people can’t easily read the article (I guess you’ll have to trust me a little bit that this is what the article did in fact say).
Corner store:
Wheat bread: $ 3.79
Milk 4.99
Bologna 3.79
Butter 4.49
———-
Total: $17.06
Safeway:
Wheat Bread $1.19
Milk 3.49
Butter 2.49
Bologna 2.50
——–
Total $9.67
Difference: $7.39 for FOUR items. These four items each week is nearly $30 for a month. I would walk to the the store for that kind of money.
The article points out that it is a 3 hour bus trip for people to go to the Safeway from the neighborhood where they price-checked the corner store. Nobody’s walking that far, particularly when time is at a premium and the article reiterates, over and over again, that there is a time crunch for working poor. For fuck’s sake, the last line of the article is “When you are poor, you wait.” Additionally, if you don’t have a lot of space in your apartment, you’re not going to be able to store food, so you’ll need to make these purchases again and again. You’re not going to be spending 6 a week just getting to and from a store.
Lenwood Brooks says he paid $15 to cash a $300 check at a check-cashing shop because he lost his license.
I would have taken that $15 down to DMV and gotten a new license so that I could cash my checks at the bank for free.
I think the gentleman in question lost his license as in the “had it taken away from him” sense, not the “misplaced it somewhere” sense. But, either way, let’s try and think about this. One, I can’t think of any state in the union that you get a license for $15. Even here in ND, it’s 20 bucks. Two, lines at the DMV are notoriously long (though I feel the urge to point out, not here in ND. I’m in and out in 20 minutes, with a printed laminated license while I’m there. Though, with a population a little over 640,000 for the whole state, 5 fully-staffed, full-time DMV’s, and a part-time DMV for every piddly little “city” in the state, no wonder it’s so quick). So, he’s got to take a day off work just to get a license (probably a non-driver license) and spend money he doesn’t have yet. And that still doesn’t mean anything, because finding a bank that’ll give a lower-income person an account, AND doesn’t charge a “minimum balance fee” is like finding the Holy Grail of accounts (I suggest credit unions: never had a problem with them).
Soda and prepared foods would never wind up in my food cart. Too expensive. Nor would I spend good money on caller ID even if it was to avoid bill collectors.
This is a reference to a guy having to put some items back because he could afford them all. Now, this guy did make the trip to the supermarket, not the corner store, but that’s not good enough- he has to exist on bread and water. I hate statements like this, because it’s sort of common-sense-y: when you’re on a budget, you cut out luxuries, and pop and hot chicken are “luxuries”. But, a liter of soda is going to be cheaper than a gallon of milk, anywhere you go, and it’s going to taste better to. That hot chicken means you don’t have to cook, so you’re saving the time anywhere you can find it. And, as previously pointed out; this guy did put this stuff back first, so this is a case of him doing the “right thing” and putting away luxuries when he couldn’t afford it. But I have to say, I agree with the charge- 9 bucks for chicken is bullshit: a whole rotisserie chicken at the grocery store I go to is 5.99 (on sale for 4.99 right now).
Harrison Blakeney uses the check-cashing store to pay his telephone bill. The store charges 10 percent to take Blakeney’s money and send the payment to the phone company. He pays this 10% because: “I don’t have time to mail it.”
WHAT?
Again, if he’d read the article, he’d find that the guy didn’t have time to mail it, because he gets paid the same day the bill is due. If he didn’t do this, he’d get charged an even larger late fee for not paying his telephone bill on time. This guy’s not to great on reading comprehension, but at least he didn’t say that the telephone was a luxury.
These are examples of people WASTING what little money they have.
No, these are examples of people doing the best they can with what they have and still trying to find a little joy in their life. That’s not a waste. What’s a waste is you not getting off your high horse for five seconds and maybe thinking of a world where people who work full time get that little amount of money, and then see all that money disappear into the hands of predators. What kind of profit margin is that 10% anyway? The article points out that the Pay-day loans charge 806% interest- is that fair?
Escaping poverty is difficult.It takes hard work and fierce determination. It takes sacrifice.
At least you said something right, but you’re missing a key component. It also takes luck. It also takes someone to catch a break somewhere, not just a series of problems.
But it can be done. The key is to look for solutions instead of excuses and to not become awash in apathy.
It can be done, but how likely is it? Is it justice if only the exceptional can escape poverty, while the mediocre or incompetent (but born into privilege) never have to worry about it at all? And, again, did you not read that part about depression and poverty, and the pretty strong link between the two of them? Why would you struggle and sacrifice if you never thought you were going to get the hell out anyway? What’s a dollar for a soda going to mean if every time you save up enough money, you get robbed, or every time you get a little bit ahead you have an emergency that puts you back to square one, or you lose all of your government assistance so you’re stuck treading water again? I sure as hell know I wouldn’t be putting the effort into it- I’d be taking my escapes where I could find them and if that meant a soda while waiting for the bus that was late AGAIN, that’s what I’d do.
But hell, let’s take your own advice, but instead of an individual exaltation, let’s call “it” “the abolishment of poverty” entirely. It can be done. The key is to look for solutions instead of excuses and not become awash in apathy.
Ooh, nice post. I’m trying not to jump on the bandwagon right next to you but I’m probably going to fail. Expect a rant in the near future.
Apparently class outrage just doesn’t cut it against porn and how one washes oneself
.
This sort of reply has been around since George Orwell was writing Goodbye to Wigan Pier. Seriously, it’s almost identical to the smug self-congratulatory attitude that people took to the working poor in the depression. Orwell points out that actually little luxuries like a lipstick or some hot chips is one of the few joys you have which gets you through the endless grind and the fact that you can see no escape from the poverty trap.
Which resonates with my experience- I’ve been involuntarily poor and I’ve also been earning quite a chunk of money and saving most of it. It feels different- one is imposed and the other you choose. In the first I *did* spent money stupidly by the letter-writer’s standards, and even mine, BUT when you are POOR 1- the options aren’t there and 2- the mental state induced by this realisation is. It’s a different world and people who’ve never been there don’t understand.
Escaping from poverty can be done — one bit that might help is a country that doesn’t allow obscene predation on the poor, like payday loans and phone companies and credit card companies and cable companies that send out bills due on the last day of the month (counting on poor folk being flat out of money at that point) and then charging (ha-ha-ha) obscene late fees when the poor can’t pay on time.
And oh, yeah — what about a health care system that made sense? Just while we’re on it.
Thanks for this post, Antigone. The attitude you describe is so common and so frustrating; it’s nice to see you pick it apart.
Thirstygirl, are you thinking of “The road to Wigan Pier”? Jack London also wrote about the scorn poured on the destitute poor in Britain in 1902, in “The people of the abyss”. He points out that the poverty and degradation he wrote about wasn’t the result of recession or hared times, but took place in a very prosperous period.
If I had the capital, I’d like to try an experiment and see if I can completely hose all the payday loan places in town (I can think of four off the top of my head, in a town of about 60,000, with many blue-collar factory workers). I’d institute a decently steep Annual Percentage Rate, say about 10% or maybe 15%, but over a four-week period given $100 borrowed that wouldn’t be more than a few dollars, rather than the $20 that the place I have borrowed (out of necessity, purely) from. I’ve always wanted to put a company out of business, after all, and this would let me feel like a good person while denying some poor schmuck’s family income as well, so all’s the better.
TRH
Wow you took that down perfectly.
Every example here is like a page from my childhood and early on in my life as a parent.
It’s one thing to look back and see how you lucked out of poverty, and it is another thing altogether to look back smugly and forget just how lucky you got.
[...] 1June, 2009 by Ouyang Dan Via The Red Queen I find this post from Antigone at Punkass Blog. [...]