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Hm... (1) I think you have at least partially misconstrued my comment. It is not my intention even a little to dismiss the plight of the poor. I agree with th

Hm... (1) I think you have at least partially misconstrued my comment. It is not my intention even a little to dismiss the plight of the poor. I agree with the article that being poor inhibits people's ability to make good decisions for themselves, and that the best way to break the vicious cycle may be to provide them with enough income that they have more freedom to make decisions that will improve their circumstances. I certainly do not think asking them to dig themselves out on their own is the last word in a conversation about how to solve poverty. (2) My bullet points about diet/clothing/saving/debt/etc were not intended to mean the poor have a way out and need no help. I was simply pointing out that there are ways that a more educated/energetic/encultured person can behave that will yield better outcomes. The parent comment's thesis seemed to be that nobody with those financial means could do any better, and that seems wrong to me. (2.1) I have been convinced by some other comments plus some googling that I have overestimated the means of many of the poor. A one-child household that can only scrape together $5k per year in the USA is in dire circumstances indeed. Google suggests such households are rather more common than I thought. (2.2) I included that thrift store bit in an attempt to cover all the parent comment's points. In actuality, I think that the fraction of jobs where the candidate's wardrobe budget is a serious factor in determining eligibility is so small that this is not worthy of in-depth discussion. (2.3) While I can imagine situations in which your spend-all-the-money-because-ill-end-up-in-a-hole-anyway logic seems genuinely valid, I'm not sure how common they are, and I'm skeptical that anyone actually performs that particular calculus in their brains. It seems like regular thoughtless spending is probably more the norm, even when that calculus is offered as a rationalization after the fact. (3) Who really takes signals about socioeconomic class into account when making hiring decisions? Is this different from rejecting less-educated candidates due to their inferior communication skills? Does anyone mind a secretary/cashier/barista/construction-worker/floor-manager who seems like they are poor (or even from some alien subculture with wildly different social sensibilities) as long as they are efficient and productive and communicate effectively? If so, that sounds like a pretty small-minded hiring manager to me. (4) Thanks for your comment. I still think I mostly agree with the article's thesis, but I'm coming around to the idea that I'm not fully appreciating number of people who find themselves in economic situations where savings of any kind are nearly impossible. (5) I realize that my point of contention with the parent post is somewhat irrelevant because, regardless of which of us is correct, the proper way to combat poverty probably does not change. We both believe (I think) that a large fraction of the population is not going to be stuck in poverty unless/until the rest of us provide them with an unconditional income substantial enough to let them turn their lives around.

pmichaud 10y ago
Hey, thanks for playing :) I'm glad to hear we're basically in agreement. For whatever reason I still want you to understand how fucked some people are, through no fault of their own. re: 2.2. I can trivially counterpoint. Hopefully this analogy works--maybe you've seen the show The Wire. Imagine basically any one of the kids from the ghetto, or how about Bubbles. [For reference, these characters are all poor and black.] Let's say he got clean and didn't look literally like a crack head, but he was the same guy with the same means, now looking for a job. Recall that Bubbles is particularly charaismatic and likable [for a homeless drug addict]. Imagine what he sounds like when he talks. Imagine how he might feel and act around a "professional" white guy (think about things like body language and cultural signaling). Imagine the clothes he owns and wears daily. As a hiring manager for a professional position, you wouldn't take his appearance into account? Even if he got himself a thrift store suit you could still "smell the poor on him." Think about how he talks--imagine considering him for a retail position at a suburban mall. Are you going to let him sell ice cream to white suburban moms? What about letting him do your taxes? Represent you in court? Maybe he somehow went to a dev bootcamp, are you going to take a chance on Bubbles, or will you give it to the bright young [white middle class] kid? (Bonus: how about hiring him to plumb your new home? Note how that one feels distinctly different from above.) It doesn't even have to be racial. Imagine a lily white girl born and raised in a trailer park Appalachia. At 25 she decides she's tired of her generational poverty, and somehow overcomes the basically impossible barrier of moving from the boonies to a place with job prospects. No one she ever knew ever worked any jobs except menial labor, and one uncle who is a trucker, so she doesn't really know how to do it or what a resume should look like, but she does her best using google to help her. She has a kid, the dad's long gone. She can cover up all her tattoos except the one on her neck. She looks and sounds distinctly "white trash." Are you going to hire her as your receptionist? Are you going to add her as the 3rd dental hygienist at your dental practice? What will your professional customers think of her tattoo? re: 2.3. I think you'd be surprised how many people would explicitly use this line of reasoning, but that doesn't matter. I said it was adaptive, by which I meant there was an emergent sort of wisdom in doing what would irresponsible for a middle class person to do. re 3, see 2.2 above. Also, I imagine that when you're thinking poor, you're thinking of someone who is like you, except delta. Poverty marks people deeply, in ways that are hard to escape. If you don't think you take this into account during hiring, then that is the water you're swimming in--it's not a fact about your virtue, but a fact about how filtering happens before you ever get to see the candidates who were privileged enough to have practical access to the system by which you hire. re 4: (thumbsup)

pmichaud 10y ago

Hey, thanks for playing :) I'm glad to hear we're basically in agreement. For whatever reason I still want you to understand how fucked some people are, through no fault of their own. re: 2.2. I can trivially counterpoint. Hopefully this analogy works--maybe you've seen the show The Wire. Imagine basically any one of the kids from the ghetto, or how about Bubbles. [For reference, these characters are all poor and black.] Let's say he got clean and didn't look literally like a crack head, but he was the same guy with the same means, now looking for a job. Recall that Bubbles is particularly charaismatic and likable [for a homeless drug addict]. Imagine what he sounds like when he talks. Imagine how he might feel and act around a "professional" white guy (think about things like body language and cultural signaling). Imagine the clothes he owns and wears daily. As a hiring manager for a professional position, you wouldn't take his appearance into account? Even if he got himself a thrift store suit you could still "smell the poor on him." Think about how he talks--imagine considering him for a retail position at a suburban mall. Are you going to let him sell ice cream to white suburban moms? What about letting him do your taxes? Represent you in court? Maybe he somehow went to a dev bootcamp, are you going to take a chance on Bubbles, or will you give it to the bright young [white middle class] kid? (Bonus: how about hiring him to plumb your new home? Note how that one feels distinctly different from above.) It doesn't even have to be racial. Imagine a lily white girl born and raised in a trailer park Appalachia. At 25 she decides she's tired of her generational poverty, and somehow overcomes the basically impossible barrier of moving from the boonies to a place with job prospects. No one she ever knew ever worked any jobs except menial labor, and one uncle who is a trucker, so she doesn't really know how to do it or what a resume should look like, but she does her best using google to help her. She has a kid, the dad's long gone. She can cover up all her tattoos except the one on her neck. She looks and sounds distinctly "white trash." Are you going to hire her as your receptionist? Are you going to add her as the 3rd dental hygienist at your dental practice? What will your professional customers think of her tattoo? re: 2.3. I think you'd be surprised how many people would explicitly use this line of reasoning, but that doesn't matter. I said it was adaptive, by which I meant there was an emergent sort of wisdom in doing what would irresponsible for a middle class person to do. re 3, see 2.2 above. Also, I imagine that when you're thinking poor, you're thinking of someone who is like you, except delta. Poverty marks people deeply, in ways that are hard to escape. If you don't think you take this into account during hiring, then that is the water you're swimming in--it's not a fact about your virtue, but a fact about how filtering happens before you ever get to see the candidates who were privileged enough to have practical access to the system by which you hire. re 4: (thumbsup)