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This article tries to shift perception from "poor people make bad decisions because they're intrinsically dumb" to "poor people make bad decisions because pover

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. Here's a list from the article: > "The poor borrow more, save less, smoke more, exercise less, drink more, and eat less healthfully. Offer money management training and the poor are the last to sign up. When responding to job ads, the poor often write the worst applications and show up at interviews in the least professional attire." Borrow more: because you only need to borrow if you don't have money. Save less: because you can only save if you have money. Showing up at interviews in poor attire: because good attire costs money. Eat less healthfully: because healthy food costs more than unhealthy food. Exercise less: because exercising requires the energy that poor diet and the other stresses of poverty sap away. Writing poor job applications: because applications are judged based on whether they sound like something a poor person would write. The only genuinely questionable decisions in the list are smoking and drinking, but even these have sensible explanations that don't involve moralizing. I think the real answer is that things have been labelled "poor decisions" not because they are strategically bad choices for the people who actually make them, but because seeing someone make them provides others with evidence that they're poor, which is stigmatized.

ygjb-dupe 10y ago
> Eat less healthfully: because healthy food costs more than unhealthy food. I hate this myth. It glosses over some of the most difficult choices that people in poverty have to make on a regular basis. "Quantity has a quality all it's own." - various sources This is anecdotal, and entirely based on my own experiences as I grew up in poverty (by Canadian standards, which is substantially better than most of the world). YMMV when evaluating this if you come from a part of the world that has more extreme cases of poverty. Eating healthy foods is not inherently more expensive than eating unhealthy foods, but it is a risk management decision. When you have a small budget and you have to make choices about where you will spend your money, you tend to make choices that insulate against risk. If you have a tight budget then you buy foods that provide the best economic value, not the best nutritional value. That means buying bulk, low cost food so that you can ensure that you have some food left at the end of the week, which might help reduce the amount you have to spend on food next week. This exacerbates the "healthy eating" myth because if you are buying foods that you hope last, you are disinclined to purchase foods that expire, so rather than buying fresh meat, produce, etc, you will instead purchase canned or frozen foods. Everyone that I grew up with that has elevated themselves above their roots has a similar perspective - it's not that we could buy better food, it just didn't make sense to do so back then.
- jimrandomh 10y ago
  That sounds like a slightly more nuanced way of saying the same thing? I agree that a lot of the cost differential between healthy and unhealthy eating is caused by shelf-life issues rather than a difference in sticker price, but it works out the same. Eg if eating a diet with fresh foods requires making shopping trips twice as frequently as a diet with frozen foods, then that's the same as if the fuel/time/car-wear costs of the extra trips were added to the cost of the fresh stuff. And if fresh stuff will sometimes spoil, that's like if it sometimes unpredictably cost extra.
  - ygjb-dupe 10y ago
    Again, all anecdotal, but here goes... Yes, it's nuanced, because poverty and decision making is a complex issue :) It's opportunity cost - you have the choice between eating fresh food, with the risk that it will spoil, or the choice of eating lower cost and frequently processed foods that have a longer shelf life. There are also alot of factors to this - in a given week of budget the price difference between a processed product and fresh product might be radically different, but fresh food is almost always available throughout much of the developed world. There is another hidden cost here - when I see something I haven't tried before I will buy it and learn how to prepare it, but when I was poor, I didn't - it wasn't worth the risk that I would ruin the food, or that I wouldn't like it, and throwing away even a small amount of food was an intolerable waste. Less of a risk these days when even most people living at or below the poverty line have the ability to access the internet to learn, but in the late 90s, I was loathe to take those chances. There may be nutritionally rich, low cost options, but if people are too poor to have had regular exposure, or come from a culture unfamiliar with the foods available at reasonable prices locally, then poor eating choices will continue to be propagated. The decision is not always a choice to eat the less healthy food over the more healthy food, it is a choice to marginally increase the level of food security you have by choosing less "healthy" options that have a longer shelf-life and offer a discount in bulk.
joslin01 10y ago
They smoke/drink more because they're stressed more since they have menial jobs coupled with poor financials. It's not crazy for the 47y/o waitress to feel like he's "stuck", and as a result, indulge in smaller forms of pleasure for temporary escape from the bleak reality of his life. It's for this reason that I believe unfair taxation upon cigarettes is morally corrupt. It's literally pushing them into a deeper hole.
- x0x0 10y ago
  It also reduces use (shown in peer-reviewed studies), particularly amongst children, of an addictive cancer-causing product.
  - joslin01 10y ago
    You pull the child-card to justify discriminated taxation against the poor, but I pull the 47y/o free-willed bummed out waiter card. Shall we start unfairly taxing sugar as well, which is probably a bigger epidemic than tobacco amongst children[1]? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
    - majewsky 10y ago
      This is actually being discussed by some politicians, and some are past the discussing step AFAIR.
    - Naritai 10y ago
      You forget that a sugar tax is increasingly popular in progressive circles.
  - coffeevradar 10y ago
    It reduces use, but the people stubbornly still using tobacco are likelier to be poorer. No peer-reviewed studies are required to demonstrate that it's a regressive tax, any amount of "Think of the children!" posturing notwithstanding.
mac01021 10y ago
I don't think that's the real answer. Each of your bullet points has some truth to it, but is far from the whole story: > 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.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  I hate to be "that guy" who takes exception to a tiny part of an admittedly arbitrary thought experiment, but... 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.
- random_upvoter 10y ago
  Maybe poverty is somewhat like a biological niche -- guaranteed to be occupied as long as human life remains a struggle for resources with other people who may be much smarter than you. In that sense, you can hardly blame the poor for occupying that niche. It's just human beings having their best shot at life under rather difficult circumstances.
rco8786 10y ago
> because healthy food costs more than unhealthy food. Gah, I hate this line of thinking. Buying healthy food and preparing it at your home is enormously cheaper than eating KFC 3 meals a day.
- humanrebar 10y ago
  If you're digging ditches in the sun all day, you have zero energy to shop for hierloom tomatoes, pick some basil from your herb garden, and whip up a nice little caprese. You're in "screw it, but I have to eat something now" mode. Your win for the evening was not telling your boss to stuff it as you were leaving the job site. KFC isn't that big of a deal by comparison.
  - mcphage 10y ago
    > you have zero energy to shop for hierloom tomatoes, pick some basil from your herb garden, and whip up a nice little caprese What are you even talking about? There are many foods that are inexpensive and healthy, the kind of foods that people have been eating for thousands of years. Rice and beans, for instance. Honestly I don't know why I'm even replying to you; making childish straw men arguments means you have no interest in an actual discussion.
    - humanrebar 10y ago
      I was trying to explain that many people in poverty are short on things other than money. Like time, flexibility, creativity, and willpower. Telling them "to cook more because rice and beans are cheap!" is missing the realities on the ground for many. Besides, you can get fat on rice an beans really easily. Again, willpower can be in short supply. Anyway, these aren't straw-man arguments. I've been there. My family is there. But I guess it's your right to think that people haven't thought about rice and beans before.
      - mcphage 10y ago
        > Anyway, these aren't straw-man arguments. rco8786 says that it's possible to eat cheaply and healthily, and you respond like he's talking about heirloom tomatoes and caprese salad. That is absolutely a straw man.
ecobiker 10y ago
I grew up with the kind of income that would qualify me as poor. However, my parents' financial discipline were off the charts for someone in their position. Both of them had a decent education for their time and knew what matters vs what doesn't. We never got anything fancy - two pairs of uniforms, one nice set of clothes, one pair of shoes and pretty ugly looking backpack for the whole school year - nothing more. Absolutely no pocket money. No movies, not even extra-curricular activities - basically anything that costed money. What we got was good healthy food, a great education - things that ended up making a difference in the long term. There were people like us all around us who we could clearly see not appreciating the value of some of the things we valued. I would go so far to say, it's not the money. People need education. People need discipline and self-control if they are really going to pull their weight. They need help along the way but it's not always money they need.
- AstralStorm 10y ago
  There are levels of poverty. Once you are low enough, you are pretty much unable to afford extra time for either education or probably even proper food. Or time to cook. I personally know a few people pulling 16h of work daily to make ends meet. What you describe as poverty would be called middle class in quite a few countries. No frills but not really poor. Especially if you managed to always pay all bills on time.

ygjb-dupe 10y ago

> Eat less healthfully: because healthy food costs more than unhealthy food. I hate this myth. It glosses over some of the most difficult choices that people in poverty have to make on a regular basis. "Quantity has a quality all it's own." - various sources This is anecdotal, and entirely based on my own experiences as I grew up in poverty (by Canadian standards, which is substantially better than most of the world). YMMV when evaluating this if you come from a part of the world that has more extreme cases of poverty. Eating healthy foods is not inherently more expensive than eating unhealthy foods, but it is a risk management decision. When you have a small budget and you have to make choices about where you will spend your money, you tend to make choices that insulate against risk. If you have a tight budget then you buy foods that provide the best economic value, not the best nutritional value. That means buying bulk, low cost food so that you can ensure that you have some food left at the end of the week, which might help reduce the amount you have to spend on food next week. This exacerbates the "healthy eating" myth because if you are buying foods that you hope last, you are disinclined to purchase foods that expire, so rather than buying fresh meat, produce, etc, you will instead purchase canned or frozen foods. Everyone that I grew up with that has elevated themselves above their roots has a similar perspective - it's not that we could buy better food, it just didn't make sense to do so back then.

jimrandomh 10y ago
That sounds like a slightly more nuanced way of saying the same thing? I agree that a lot of the cost differential between healthy and unhealthy eating is caused by shelf-life issues rather than a difference in sticker price, but it works out the same. Eg if eating a diet with fresh foods requires making shopping trips twice as frequently as a diet with frozen foods, then that's the same as if the fuel/time/car-wear costs of the extra trips were added to the cost of the fresh stuff. And if fresh stuff will sometimes spoil, that's like if it sometimes unpredictably cost extra.
- ygjb-dupe 10y ago
  Again, all anecdotal, but here goes... Yes, it's nuanced, because poverty and decision making is a complex issue :) It's opportunity cost - you have the choice between eating fresh food, with the risk that it will spoil, or the choice of eating lower cost and frequently processed foods that have a longer shelf life. There are also alot of factors to this - in a given week of budget the price difference between a processed product and fresh product might be radically different, but fresh food is almost always available throughout much of the developed world. There is another hidden cost here - when I see something I haven't tried before I will buy it and learn how to prepare it, but when I was poor, I didn't - it wasn't worth the risk that I would ruin the food, or that I wouldn't like it, and throwing away even a small amount of food was an intolerable waste. Less of a risk these days when even most people living at or below the poverty line have the ability to access the internet to learn, but in the late 90s, I was loathe to take those chances. There may be nutritionally rich, low cost options, but if people are too poor to have had regular exposure, or come from a culture unfamiliar with the foods available at reasonable prices locally, then poor eating choices will continue to be propagated. The decision is not always a choice to eat the less healthy food over the more healthy food, it is a choice to marginally increase the level of food security you have by choosing less "healthy" options that have a longer shelf-life and offer a discount in bulk.

joslin01 10y ago

They smoke/drink more because they're stressed more since they have menial jobs coupled with poor financials. It's not crazy for the 47y/o waitress to feel like he's "stuck", and as a result, indulge in smaller forms of pleasure for temporary escape from the bleak reality of his life. It's for this reason that I believe unfair taxation upon cigarettes is morally corrupt. It's literally pushing them into a deeper hole.

x0x0 10y ago
It also reduces use (shown in peer-reviewed studies), particularly amongst children, of an addictive cancer-causing product.
- joslin01 10y ago
  You pull the child-card to justify discriminated taxation against the poor, but I pull the 47y/o free-willed bummed out waiter card. Shall we start unfairly taxing sugar as well, which is probably a bigger epidemic than tobacco amongst children[1]? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
  - majewsky 10y ago
    This is actually being discussed by some politicians, and some are past the discussing step AFAIR.
  - Naritai 10y ago
    You forget that a sugar tax is increasingly popular in progressive circles.
- coffeevradar 10y ago
  It reduces use, but the people stubbornly still using tobacco are likelier to be poorer. No peer-reviewed studies are required to demonstrate that it's a regressive tax, any amount of "Think of the children!" posturing notwithstanding.

mac01021 10y ago

I don't think that's the real answer. Each of your bullet points has some truth to it, but is far from the whole story: > 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.

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
I hate to be "that guy" who takes exception to a tiny part of an admittedly arbitrary thought experiment, but... 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.
random_upvoter 10y ago
Maybe poverty is somewhat like a biological niche -- guaranteed to be occupied as long as human life remains a struggle for resources with other people who may be much smarter than you. In that sense, you can hardly blame the poor for occupying that niche. It's just human beings having their best shot at life under rather difficult circumstances.

rco8786 10y ago

> because healthy food costs more than unhealthy food. Gah, I hate this line of thinking. Buying healthy food and preparing it at your home is enormously cheaper than eating KFC 3 meals a day.

humanrebar 10y ago
If you're digging ditches in the sun all day, you have zero energy to shop for hierloom tomatoes, pick some basil from your herb garden, and whip up a nice little caprese. You're in "screw it, but I have to eat something now" mode. Your win for the evening was not telling your boss to stuff it as you were leaving the job site. KFC isn't that big of a deal by comparison.
- mcphage 10y ago
  > you have zero energy to shop for hierloom tomatoes, pick some basil from your herb garden, and whip up a nice little caprese What are you even talking about? There are many foods that are inexpensive and healthy, the kind of foods that people have been eating for thousands of years. Rice and beans, for instance. Honestly I don't know why I'm even replying to you; making childish straw men arguments means you have no interest in an actual discussion.
  - humanrebar 10y ago
    I was trying to explain that many people in poverty are short on things other than money. Like time, flexibility, creativity, and willpower. Telling them "to cook more because rice and beans are cheap!" is missing the realities on the ground for many. Besides, you can get fat on rice an beans really easily. Again, willpower can be in short supply. Anyway, these aren't straw-man arguments. I've been there. My family is there. But I guess it's your right to think that people haven't thought about rice and beans before.
    - mcphage 10y ago
      > Anyway, these aren't straw-man arguments. rco8786 says that it's possible to eat cheaply and healthily, and you respond like he's talking about heirloom tomatoes and caprese salad. That is absolutely a straw man.

ecobiker 10y ago

I grew up with the kind of income that would qualify me as poor. However, my parents' financial discipline were off the charts for someone in their position. Both of them had a decent education for their time and knew what matters vs what doesn't. We never got anything fancy - two pairs of uniforms, one nice set of clothes, one pair of shoes and pretty ugly looking backpack for the whole school year - nothing more. Absolutely no pocket money. No movies, not even extra-curricular activities - basically anything that costed money. What we got was good healthy food, a great education - things that ended up making a difference in the long term. There were people like us all around us who we could clearly see not appreciating the value of some of the things we valued. I would go so far to say, it's not the money. People need education. People need discipline and self-control if they are really going to pull their weight. They need help along the way but it's not always money they need.

AstralStorm 10y ago
There are levels of poverty. Once you are low enough, you are pretty much unable to afford extra time for either education or probably even proper food. Or time to cook. I personally know a few people pulling 16h of work daily to make ends meet. What you describe as poverty would be called middle class in quite a few countries. No frills but not really poor. Especially if you managed to always pay all bills on time.