Well of course they pay less in absolute terms, they have less money. They absolutely pay more for an equal amount of equal quality items. Let's say a pack of

Well of course they pay less in absolute terms, they have less money. They absolutely pay more for an equal amount of equal quality items. Let's say a pack of cigarettes is $7. In poor areas you can often find "singles" or "loosys" for sale at $.50-$1. They're exactly what they sound like, single cigarettes. Usually the store owner just opens up a pack and sells each cigarette individually. Poor people with little money will buy the singles and thus 20 singles will cost $10-$20. This isn't something I'm making up, this actually happens in poor areas. Often times there's not even a store owner and it's just an individual trying to make some quick money and turn a profit (this is what Eric Garner was trying to do, sell loosies at a markup). You can go on endlessly with this kind of thing. If you can imagine a packaged product, it's probably being split up and sold as singles at a higher price with respect to the packaged price, and almost always in poor areas. I've even seen stores that seem to make a racket out of buying stuff in bulk from Costco, breaking up the package and selling singles for 2-5x the original price. Shelf after shelf of Kirkland signature bottled water, toilet paper, detergent etc. Poor people don't have Costco memberships even if getting the membership and just buying non-perishables in bulk would save them money in aggregate. The store had a whole repackaging operation in back where the singles would be rewrapped in new shrinkwrap, but they didn't bother removing the label.