4 ms·

so what? are you saying the reason poor people stay poor is their fear of starving?

• Retric 19y ago
  At no point would he have felt trapped or hopeless because had no debt and he knew he could leave at any time. IMO, most poor people are not mentally stable and living on the edge tends to unbalance them even more. Take an educated person with zero mental of physical issues who is willing to do without TV, Drugs, etc and they can climb out of poverty quickly. However, for whatever reason many don't so saying they can leave does not let us understand why the bottom third of our nation is so marginalized.
• dmoney 19y ago
  > so what? are you saying the reason poor people stay poor is their fear of starving? I'm saying it probably doesn't help, and I can think of a couple situations where it would hurt. 1. You interview two relatively equally qualified candidates for a job. One is desperate for a job; he is broke and has a few days of food left. The other knows there are other opportunities out there for him, and has an emergency credit card in his pocket. As a result, the second is more relaxed and confident, and can talk to you as an equal. Maybe the first is a pressure player and would rise to the challenge, but assume he's not--you can tell he's desperate for the job. Who do you hire? 2. The same people now have similar minimum wage jobs. They make ends meet, but just barely. The situation sucks and they want to look for a better one, but taking time off for job hunting is likely to get them fired. In other words, it could land them back in situation 1. This is a greater risk for the first person than the second. I don't know whether this is a major or minor factor. It's probably a complex issue. Still, I don't see that the guy in the article overcame poverty. He just won in a poverty simulator.