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this is a question from me to people who are rich (or at least richer than the poor people this article alludes to): what advice do you give to poor people who

this is a question from me to people who are rich (or at least richer than the poor people this article alludes to): what advice do you give to poor people who don’t want to be poor? is it out of their control? is there anything they can do?

missedthecue 6y ago
There are very few people in the United States who manage their personal finances well but stay poor their whole lives.
- MuffinFlavored 6y ago
  i'm not extremely political nor am i well informed but i feel like the right says "just work hard" and the left responds with "you need more than just hard work" i am kind of in the middle. hard work does not seem to be "enough" if the system is against you. curious to hear your thoughts, not trying to start any kind of nasty/loaded argument.
  - missedthecue 6y ago
    The fundamental factor that will determine the amount of lifetime earnings and individual makes more than any other factor is their education. In the US today - - 50% of inner city school kids will not graduate high school. - 66% of the prison population is functionally illiterate. - 75% of the prison population has not finished high school. - 19% of the US population is unable to read a newspaper, and nearly the entirety of them are earning near or below poverty levels of income. John Allison, the former CEO of BB&T, (the bank) talks about how they tried to open a customer service call center in a historically low income area of North Carolina, due to it being geographically near to their headquarters. That's an entry level job that would have paid good wages, and with a good career path (potential for promotion to management positions or transfer to HQ of the bank). Why couldn't it open? They literally could not staff the center because so much of the local labor pool could not read or write at a functional level. The Right is correct in the sense that if you are lazy, you won't have much success in life. The Left is correct in the sense that it's not the only factor at play. You can be the hardest worker in America but if you can't read you just won't be able to earn that much. If we want to boost social mobility among the lower classes, we need to get them to a level where they can actually perform higher paying work. Despite enormous expenditure (an average of $15,500 per student per year!!), the public schooling system in the US has failed a huge portion of our lower income population.
    - MuffinFlavored 6y ago
      why would you say it fails that lower income population?
      - missedthecue 6y ago
        ever been inside an inner city school?
  - rbanffy 6y ago
    > hard work does not seem to be "enough" if the system is against you "Student Success Comes Down to Zip Code" https://www.huffpost.com/entry/too-often-student-success_b_10132886 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/too-often-student-success_b_1...
  - cosmie 6y ago
    Hard work isn't enough. Hard work alone is like trying to drive a car in neutral - you can rev the engine all you want, but all that work the engine is doing is utterly irrelevant on if (and in what direction, and at what speed) the car is going to move. To convert that effort into results, you have to understand the basics of driving a car. At a bare minimum you have to know what a gear shift is, and that you have to put it in "D" before pressing the pedal to move forward and "R" to move backwards. What the steering wheel does, and what the left pedal and right pedal do. For people that grow up regularly exposed to cars, they likely pick up this base knowledge implicitly through observation and questions over time, such that by the time they're old enough to drive they already have a general enough idea of how it all works that they really just need a bit of practical experience to get the basics of driving down. If you drop someone into the driver seat of a running car in neutral who hasn't been regularly exposed to cars before (if at all), they will have absolutely no idea what to do. It wouldn't take long to realize that pressing the gas pedal makes the engine work hard, but beyond that it's completely up in the air what happens next. Left on their own, some may be able to intuit things well enough to become as proficient as the drivers in the above example, while others may never be able to get out of that state. Coming from a rich or poor background is very similar to the above analogy. Rich people grow up exposed to the system, and can acquire a crude understanding of the system passively through that exposure. And everyone in the tribe they've built up throughout life also has experience in the system, providing easy access to a wealth of potential instructors that can provide guidance and tips, answer questions, or provide warnings or assistance if you get stuck. And if they wreck the car in the process of learning, they have familial support to fall back on to get it fixed and keep going. Poor people have none of that. Nothing is done passively for them - no passively acquired knowledge through prior exposure, no passively available network of support to draw on to accelerate their learning, and no familial resources to draw on in case of need, nothing. So it takes a tremendous amount of focused effort simply to get the basics of driving down. But that's just the starting line - to actually drive you have to learn the rules of the road, a map of the system, an understanding of how to read that map, an understanding of where you are on that map and where you want to go, an understanding of the various routes you can navigate to get from one to the other, the ability to plot those those routes and evaluate their comparative risks/rewards, the resources required to navigate the path you choose, and a buffer of resources to absorb any potential damage you take while navigating that route. All of this is again fairly easy for a rich person to acquire, as they'll pick up some of it passively through sheer exposure and have their entire network of people to actively draw on for guidance/instruction/support when/if needed. Poor people, again, start with none of that and have to actively acquire the foundational knowledge required. And even asking for help/instruction/guidance requires active effort to identify and connect with resources/people that can provide such help. And you still have no idea how reliable or trustworthy that help is, and have to actively learn how to determine that reliability, without the benefit of having trusted resources to turn to if you have concerns about that reliability or trustworthiness. Hard work is absolutely a necessity, but you also need an active, reliable, and trustworthy support structure to help you navigate through the system of life. Rich people have an earthquake proof support structure from birth via their family, people who are not rich but also not poor start out with varying qualities of support structures, which acts as a seed that they can nurture and grow over time. But poor people, they start without any at all. No inbuilt support structure, no one in their network of people that can act as a seed to grow a support structure from, and potentially not even an awareness of needing one (due to being surrounded by people that similarly do not have one).
- Agathos 6y ago
  Most working poor have to manage their finances every day. I think about my finances maybe once a week, because I make developer money and I don't have to worry about it.
foxyv 6y ago
The advice is endless. There are so many traps out there to keep poor people poor it's insane. Mostly targeted at racial minorities but a lot target lower income people in general. 1. Avoid lotteries and gambling 2. Avoid fast food and expensive prepared convenience foods. 3. Focus on cheap or zero cost recreation like hiking, running, or cycling. Avoid expensive stuff like Movies, Restaurants, Bars, and Gyms 4. Minimize costs in your life as much as possible. 5. Spend spare time accruing valuable skills (Plumbing, Electrical, Software, Engineering) 6. Invest in index funds 7. Avoid cell phone plans 8. Avoid car ownership 9. Learn to cook low cost meals 10. Balance a budget and keep track of every transaction. Even then there are tons of traps like addiction, depression, ignorance, and peer pressure.
- MuffinFlavored 6y ago
  further down in the thread (other replies to my original post), the consensus seems to be that none of this matters. it basically boils down to "were you born poor or rich? what type of education did you receive growing up?"
  - vondro 6y ago
    Don't fall into that trap of "I cannot do anything about it if I wasn't born rich". The commenter above gave perfectly sensible and practical advice on how to reduce costs (e.g. choose your hobbies according to your income) and how to potentially boost your income (e.g. develop valuable skill such as plumbing or software engineering). You might not become millionaire or billionaire, but you can definitely learn how to live within your means or how to boost your income.
- esel2k 6y ago
  How do you come to the conclusion to avoid a car ownership? Is renting cheaper? Why not own a cheap reliable car and learn how to fix it?
juniper_strong 6y ago
I'm richer than the poor people the article alludes to, I grew up poor. I can't give you any advice until I know why you don't want to be poor. What would be different in the world where the poor person in question (you?) wasn't poor?

missedthecue 6y ago

There are very few people in the United States who manage their personal finances well but stay poor their whole lives.

MuffinFlavored 6y ago
i'm not extremely political nor am i well informed but i feel like the right says "just work hard" and the left responds with "you need more than just hard work" i am kind of in the middle. hard work does not seem to be "enough" if the system is against you. curious to hear your thoughts, not trying to start any kind of nasty/loaded argument.
- missedthecue 6y ago
  The fundamental factor that will determine the amount of lifetime earnings and individual makes more than any other factor is their education. In the US today - - 50% of inner city school kids will not graduate high school. - 66% of the prison population is functionally illiterate. - 75% of the prison population has not finished high school. - 19% of the US population is unable to read a newspaper, and nearly the entirety of them are earning near or below poverty levels of income. John Allison, the former CEO of BB&T, (the bank) talks about how they tried to open a customer service call center in a historically low income area of North Carolina, due to it being geographically near to their headquarters. That's an entry level job that would have paid good wages, and with a good career path (potential for promotion to management positions or transfer to HQ of the bank). Why couldn't it open? They literally could not staff the center because so much of the local labor pool could not read or write at a functional level. The Right is correct in the sense that if you are lazy, you won't have much success in life. The Left is correct in the sense that it's not the only factor at play. You can be the hardest worker in America but if you can't read you just won't be able to earn that much. If we want to boost social mobility among the lower classes, we need to get them to a level where they can actually perform higher paying work. Despite enormous expenditure (an average of $15,500 per student per year!!), the public schooling system in the US has failed a huge portion of our lower income population.
  - MuffinFlavored 6y ago
    why would you say it fails that lower income population?
    - missedthecue 6y ago
      ever been inside an inner city school?
- rbanffy 6y ago
  > hard work does not seem to be "enough" if the system is against you "Student Success Comes Down to Zip Code" https://www.huffpost.com/entry/too-often-student-success_b_10132886 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/too-often-student-success_b_1...
- cosmie 6y ago
  Hard work isn't enough. Hard work alone is like trying to drive a car in neutral - you can rev the engine all you want, but all that work the engine is doing is utterly irrelevant on if (and in what direction, and at what speed) the car is going to move. To convert that effort into results, you have to understand the basics of driving a car. At a bare minimum you have to know what a gear shift is, and that you have to put it in "D" before pressing the pedal to move forward and "R" to move backwards. What the steering wheel does, and what the left pedal and right pedal do. For people that grow up regularly exposed to cars, they likely pick up this base knowledge implicitly through observation and questions over time, such that by the time they're old enough to drive they already have a general enough idea of how it all works that they really just need a bit of practical experience to get the basics of driving down. If you drop someone into the driver seat of a running car in neutral who hasn't been regularly exposed to cars before (if at all), they will have absolutely no idea what to do. It wouldn't take long to realize that pressing the gas pedal makes the engine work hard, but beyond that it's completely up in the air what happens next. Left on their own, some may be able to intuit things well enough to become as proficient as the drivers in the above example, while others may never be able to get out of that state. Coming from a rich or poor background is very similar to the above analogy. Rich people grow up exposed to the system, and can acquire a crude understanding of the system passively through that exposure. And everyone in the tribe they've built up throughout life also has experience in the system, providing easy access to a wealth of potential instructors that can provide guidance and tips, answer questions, or provide warnings or assistance if you get stuck. And if they wreck the car in the process of learning, they have familial support to fall back on to get it fixed and keep going. Poor people have none of that. Nothing is done passively for them - no passively acquired knowledge through prior exposure, no passively available network of support to draw on to accelerate their learning, and no familial resources to draw on in case of need, nothing. So it takes a tremendous amount of focused effort simply to get the basics of driving down. But that's just the starting line - to actually drive you have to learn the rules of the road, a map of the system, an understanding of how to read that map, an understanding of where you are on that map and where you want to go, an understanding of the various routes you can navigate to get from one to the other, the ability to plot those those routes and evaluate their comparative risks/rewards, the resources required to navigate the path you choose, and a buffer of resources to absorb any potential damage you take while navigating that route. All of this is again fairly easy for a rich person to acquire, as they'll pick up some of it passively through sheer exposure and have their entire network of people to actively draw on for guidance/instruction/support when/if needed. Poor people, again, start with none of that and have to actively acquire the foundational knowledge required. And even asking for help/instruction/guidance requires active effort to identify and connect with resources/people that can provide such help. And you still have no idea how reliable or trustworthy that help is, and have to actively learn how to determine that reliability, without the benefit of having trusted resources to turn to if you have concerns about that reliability or trustworthiness. Hard work is absolutely a necessity, but you also need an active, reliable, and trustworthy support structure to help you navigate through the system of life. Rich people have an earthquake proof support structure from birth via their family, people who are not rich but also not poor start out with varying qualities of support structures, which acts as a seed that they can nurture and grow over time. But poor people, they start without any at all. No inbuilt support structure, no one in their network of people that can act as a seed to grow a support structure from, and potentially not even an awareness of needing one (due to being surrounded by people that similarly do not have one).
Agathos 6y ago
Most working poor have to manage their finances every day. I think about my finances maybe once a week, because I make developer money and I don't have to worry about it.

foxyv 6y ago

The advice is endless. There are so many traps out there to keep poor people poor it's insane. Mostly targeted at racial minorities but a lot target lower income people in general. 1. Avoid lotteries and gambling 2. Avoid fast food and expensive prepared convenience foods. 3. Focus on cheap or zero cost recreation like hiking, running, or cycling. Avoid expensive stuff like Movies, Restaurants, Bars, and Gyms 4. Minimize costs in your life as much as possible. 5. Spend spare time accruing valuable skills (Plumbing, Electrical, Software, Engineering) 6. Invest in index funds 7. Avoid cell phone plans 8. Avoid car ownership 9. Learn to cook low cost meals 10. Balance a budget and keep track of every transaction. Even then there are tons of traps like addiction, depression, ignorance, and peer pressure.

MuffinFlavored 6y ago
further down in the thread (other replies to my original post), the consensus seems to be that none of this matters. it basically boils down to "were you born poor or rich? what type of education did you receive growing up?"
- vondro 6y ago
  Don't fall into that trap of "I cannot do anything about it if I wasn't born rich". The commenter above gave perfectly sensible and practical advice on how to reduce costs (e.g. choose your hobbies according to your income) and how to potentially boost your income (e.g. develop valuable skill such as plumbing or software engineering). You might not become millionaire or billionaire, but you can definitely learn how to live within your means or how to boost your income.
esel2k 6y ago
How do you come to the conclusion to avoid a car ownership? Is renting cheaper? Why not own a cheap reliable car and learn how to fix it?

juniper_strong 6y ago

I'm richer than the poor people the article alludes to, I grew up poor. I can't give you any advice until I know why you don't want to be poor. What would be different in the world where the poor person in question (you?) wasn't poor?