There's much more windfall in poverty than in non-poverty; when you have stable and sufficient income, you don't have windfalls almost by definition, and middle

There's much more windfall in poverty than in non-poverty; when you have stable and sufficient income, you don't have windfalls almost by definition, and middle-income people don't get stock awards or huge bonuses either. When you work odd jobs, or get help from relatives, or whatever, it's all windfalls. I won't claim it's the majority, but I've certainly seen lots of people blow windfalls of all sizes on ridiculous things (from someone working crappy odd jobs like loading trucks for barely enough money for food and necessities getting a one-time construction gig for a fixed sum and blowing it on a huge party, to barely have enough money for food again in literally a week; to someone using a bonus AND running up credit card debt to go on a fancy vacation, probably far more expensive than my techie vacations, and then complaining to everyone how they have crippling levels of credit card debt interest payments). I can kinda understand where the psychological need might come from, but it has to be fixed regardless... just like drug addiction while explainable needs to be fixed. That is, if you care to reduce poverty. Oh an my favorite example from Russia is where someone's rainy day fund of ~$1000 in cash (in the 90ies/early oughts that was a lot of money) was stolen by their sibling and blown on restaurants and expensive clothing. When found out and confronted, the sibling was defensive and said well you were not using it anyway! That's the psychology of many poor as I see it (not the stealing, the "not using" part).