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Why Poor People Stay Poor


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Excerpted from Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America by Linda Tirado. Out now from Putnam.

I once lost a whole truck over a few hundred bucks. It had been towed, and when I called the company they told me they’d need a few hundred dollars for the fee. I didn’t have a few hundred dollars. So I told them when I got paid next and that I’d call back then.

It was a huge pain in the ass for those days. It was the rainy season, and I wound up walking to work, adding another six miles or so a day to my imaginary pedometer. It was my own fault that I’d been towed, really, and I spent more than a couple hours ruing myself. I finally made it to payday, and when I went to get the truck, they told me that I now owed over a thousand dollars, nearly triple my paycheck. They charged a couple hundred dollars a day in storage fees. I explained that I didn’t have that kind of money, couldn’t even get it. They told me that I had some few months to get it together, including the storage for however long it took me to get it back, or that they’d simply sell it. They would, of course, give me any money above and beyond their fees if they recovered that much.

I was working two jobs at the time. Both were part time. Neither paid a hundred bucks a day, much less two.

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2014/12/linda_tirado_on_the_realities_of_living_in_bootstrap_america_daily_annoyances.html

I thought this article gives us an excellent look at the struggles of the working poor, just how easy it is to fall into that trap and how difficult the climb back out. I will likely purchase the book. 

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9 hours ago, Bigbens42 said:

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2014/12/linda_tirado_on_the_realities_of_living_in_bootstrap_america_daily_annoyances.html

I thought this article gives us an excellent look at the struggles of the working poor, just how easy it is to fall into that trap and how difficult the climb back out. I will likely purchase the book. 

Life isn't easy for many, that's for sure. 

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10 hours ago, Bigbens42 said:

They charged a couple hundred dollars a day in storage fees.

I've head my car ticketed, booted and towed, and not once did I incur anywhere near those astronomical charges. 

i'm not calling b.s. on the authenticity of the event, but just the portrayal of it anywhere near  a 'common' occurrence. 

But yeah, we make poor choices, and sometimes it costs us greatly.

 

 

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12 minutes ago, AURaptor said:

I've head my car ticketed, booted and towed, and not once did I incur anywhere near those astronomical charges. 

It's not an uncommon occurence. Towing companies in particular can be extremely predatory. The one time I had a car towed sucked and it cost me a good bit of cash, but it was money I could spare to get it out of the lot quickly. The longer I would have waited, the more it would have cost me.

12 minutes ago, AURaptor said:

i'm not calling b.s. on the authenticity of the event, but just the portrayal of it anywhere near  a 'common' occurrence. 

But yeah, we make poor choices, and sometimes it costs us greatly.

It speaks to how razor thin the margins are. When practically all of your income is spent just to remain employed, housed and feeding your kids Bologna while you live off bread, the slightest misstep, one that you and I could absorb with nothing more than some minor inconvenience, is a tremendous setback. It doesn't have to be getting towed. It could be getting a ticket, losing a job, forgetting to pay a utility bill. Any number of things.

Being poor sucks. It's extremely easy to fall into that trap and once you're in it, even more difficult to claw your way back out.

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1 hour ago, Bigbens42 said:

It's not an uncommon occurence. Towing companies in particular can be extremely predatory. The one time I had a car towed sucked and it cost me a good bit of cash, but it was money I could spare to get it out of the lot quickly. The longer I would have waited, the more it would have cost me.

It speaks to how razor thin the margins are. When practically all of your income is spent just to remain employed, housed and feeding your kids Bologna while you live off bread, the slightest misstep, one that you and I could absorb with nothing more than some minor inconvenience, is a tremendous setback. It doesn't have to be getting towed. It could be getting a ticket, losing a job, forgetting to pay a utility bill. Any number of things.

Being poor sucks. It's extremely easy to fall into that trap and once you're in it, even more difficult to claw your way back out.

Exactly.  They are literally living paycheck to mouth. Having no reserves won't even maintain status quo, as this story illustrates.

And the "system" is biased against these people in many ways.  In some cases, the are targeted for what are essentially very poor propositions - like the company that promotes maintenence insurance for your vehicle.   And of course, the more of anything you buy, the cheaper it is. People in this position can't stock up on cheap bulk purchases at their warehouse store.   So they wind up paying more for almost everything than more wealthy people do.  It's a vicious cyle.

Throw in drugs and it becomes impossible.

Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance is an excellent read on the subject.

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Neal Boortz said that, when it comes to selling cars, the louder the ad, the poorer the target group. I suspect it's like that for most products. 

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Reminds me of the time I had a car stolen.  It ended up in D.C.  The police found it when they arrested some Russian prostitutes.

The police informed me the car was recovered and gave me the number for a towing company to contact.  The towing company informed me that I owed them for a tow, $250.00 plus, I was incurring storage fees at the rate of $150.00 per day.  Felt more "robbed" when the car was found than I did when it was stolen.  

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Gvt. Keep them poor....you control them. 

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2 minutes ago, autigeremt said:

Gvt. Keep them poor....you control them. 

 

It can definitely be argued that there is truth in that statement.  That said, where does one look for an alternative to change that?

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10 minutes ago, autigeremt said:

Gvt. Keep them poor....you control them. 

I don't blame the government for keeping anyone poor.  However, I do not like it when the government allows someone to become wealthy by preying upon the poor, the aged, or the ignorant, the powerless.  I have never cared for the idea of profiting from the misery of others.

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9 minutes ago, icanthearyou said:

I don't blame the government for keeping anyone poor.  However, I do not like it when the government allows someone to become wealthy by preying upon the poor, the aged, or the ignorant, the powerless.  I have never cared for the idea of profiting from the misery of others.

 

That reinforces my question, where does one look for an alternative to that?

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1 hour ago, Strychnine said:

 

That reinforces my question, where does one look for an alternative to that?

I'm not sure there is one when the government will sanction corruption.

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10 hours ago, icanthearyou said:

I'm not sure there is one when the government will sanction corruption.

 

I think it has progressed beyond merely sanctioning corruption, and is instead actively encouraging it.

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Poverty has many factors. Family history, divorce, substance abuse, felony convictions, illegitimacy , lack of education and lack of marketable job skill.

Some of those in poverty just can't seem to get a break, but others continue to make bad decisions that keep them in poverty.

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3 simple rules for staying out of the poor house.

1. Graduate from HS

2. Don't reproduce before getting married 

3. Stay out of jail. 

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1 hour ago, AURaptor said:

3 simple rules for staying out of the poor house.

1. Graduate from HS

2. Don't reproduce before getting married 

3. Stay out of jail. 

I might replace #1 with: Don't be a junkie.

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I heard a presentation last year , where the speaker said you had a 98% chance of not being poor if you did the following;

1. Graduate from high school 

2. Get a job

3. Don't have children until after you are married 

4. Don't abuse drugs or alcohol.

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1 hour ago, PUB78 said:

I heard a presentation last year , where the speaker said you had a 98% chance of not being poor if you did the following;

1. Graduate from high school 

2. Get a job

3. Don't have children until after you are married 

4. Don't abuse drugs or alcohol.

A lot of opportunities for life changing decisions made by teenagers. Teenagers of parents  with means can often bail their kids out of bad decisions.

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29 minutes ago, TexasTiger said:

A lot of opportunities for life changing decisions made by teenagers. Teenagers of parents  with means can often bail their kids out of bad decisions.

True. Had a friend who would tell one of his sons , who couldn't get on track at the time,  "You are doing all the right things to live in a trailer one day".

Fortunately he did get his head on straight, finished his degree at Troy and is pretty successful today. Teenage and early twenties boys can be a challenge at times, they need some firm guidance and advise from their parents , and hopefully good peers, to make proper decisions.

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2 hours ago, PUB78 said:

I heard a presentation last year , where the speaker said you had a 98% chance of not being poor if you did the following;

1. Graduate from high school 

2. Get a job

3. Don't have children until after you are married 

4. Don't abuse drugs or alcohol.

I did all of these things.  I'm in good shape.  I have a lot of friends who failed on a couple of them.  Being mostly in a middle to upper-middle class upbringing, the ones who messed around and had kids out of wedlock or abused drugs or alcohol in HS or college had families with means who could help them.  The pregnancy wasn't the end of the world, though it delayed their progress a few years.  They eventually wised up on the partying, either growing out of it naturally or having families with the means to provide intervention.  

In other words, kids who are born into good families that screw up royally have margin for error.  They can recover from stupid choices.  Hell, they can even prolong the amount of time spent making stupid choices because they are shielded from the most devastating, permanently life-altering consequences many times.  Kids unlucky enough to be born poor get no such slack.  They don't get the shielding and the opportunity to learn before their life is veering off course.  Getting out of the ruts that poor decisions make for people is a Herculean effort by comparison.

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Poverty is a vicious cycle. You live in neighborhoods where you have to buy food from a mom and pop store where the cost his higher and the quality is lower because grocery chains won't build in that area. The school systems are not up to standard, Kids often raised by single moms or a grandparent, in many cases a parent into drugs or in jail. Role models are street hustlers because they have money.

We learn our initial life lessons from our parents things like right and wrong, work ethic, pressure to get good grades in school.  When that presence isn't there or doesn't push the agenda of school and a good job the kid is already behind before he gets started.

It is easy to say graduate from HS, get a job, don't have children until after you are married, don't abuse drugs or alcohol. To those raised in a loving family that taught you these things but in some parts of this country these lessons are not taught at home or if taught are overridden but the bad influences in the neighborhood. There is no simple solution. There is a place for government help but not in the way it is currently done.

Tax Incentives for Grocery chains in blighted areas, a community police station attached to the Super Market this cuts down on the cost of chain grocery as they wouldn't have to pay for extra security. Having a local police presence also makes the area safer. Community policing is paramount in making neighborhoods safer. I live in a well to do town in Texas we have two or three community Police stations in addition to our main station it is both cost effective and effective in keeping the area safe.

At one time we had usury laws in the US we need to re-instate these laws so no more payday loans, title loans, etc. at exorbitant rates that are designed to take advantage of the poor.  We have allowed to many businesses to take advantage of the poor because of allowing practices that should be illegal.

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22 hours ago, AURaptor said:

Neal Boortz said that, when it comes to selling cars, the louder the ad, the poorer the target group. I suspect it's like that for most products. 

That's true. Those predatory lending practices relate directly to AuburnNTexas's point here:

1 hour ago, AuburnNTexas said:

At one time we had usury laws in the US we need to re-instate these laws so no more payday loans, title loans, etc. at exorbitant rates that are designed to take advantage of the poor.  We have allowed to many businesses to take advantage of the poor because of allowing practices that should be illegal.

 

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13 hours ago, Strychnine said:

 

I think it has progressed beyond merely sanctioning corruption, and is instead actively encouraging it.

I think you are correct.  In fact, I believe most of our problems have nothing to do with ideology, immigration, ISIS, Russia, taxes, spending, entitlements, social programs.  Our biggest problems are the product of outright corruption.  Corruption tends to serve the corrupt.

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16 hours ago, Strychnine said:

 

I think it has progressed beyond merely sanctioning corruption, and is instead actively encouraging it.

Exhibit A:

The "detention bed mandate law" in which congress mandated  ICE to jail a minimum of 34,000 per night, for which private prisons are paid $120 per head at a cost to taxpayers of more than 2 billion/year.

https://www.immigrantjustice.org/eliminate-detention-bed-quota

http://www.npr.org/2013/11/19/245968601/little-known-immigration-mandate-keeps-detention-beds-full

http://www.immigrantjustice.org/staff/blog/immigration-detention-bed-quota-timeline

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/controversial-quota-drives-immigration-detention-boom/2013/10/13/09bb689e-214c-11e3-ad1a-1a919f2ed890_story.html?utm_term=.b82024cca9e7

 

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On 3/12/2017 at 0:41 PM, AURaptor said:

Neal Boortz said that, when it comes to selling cars, the louder the ad, the poorer the target group. I suspect it's like that for most products. 

I hadn't heard that before.

And it's shocking to realize how true it is :lol:

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