8 ms·

>”By all financial measures, we were poor.” >”But here’s the thing: I never felt poor.” >”I had everything I needed and wanted. I had all the resources I requ

>”By all financial measures, we were poor.” >”But here’s the thing: I never felt poor.” >”I had everything I needed and wanted. I had all the resources I required to do well at school too, so I never felt underprivileged there either.” This is written by someone who doesn’t understand that they were not poor. Poor is only eating 3/7 days a week. Poor is not owning pyjama’s, underwear or socks. Poor is not having school books, and stationary. Poor is being excluded from community events and activities because you cannot afford to participate. Shit it irks me when people who haven’t lived poor try to explain how it’s just a matter of perspective. Even people who decide they’re going to be homeless for a while by choice to you know, have that lived experience so they can say they know what it’s like make me grr, like if it’s ever a choice on any level you just don’t know what it’s like.

wizerdrobe 3y ago
Here’s a question I’ve lived: what if you live in comically impoverished conditions such that the elements you’ve described are mitigated? Squatting in a half collapsed 1970 single wife trailer with raccoons sleeping on your futon couch. The schooling is there, the meals are there, but you’re living a life so embarrassing you don’t mention it. Is that poor?
- Quinzel 3y ago
  Yeah man, that’s poverty. The thing about poor/poverty is that it completely shapes your frame of reference. Sometimes you don’t even know how impoverished you really are, just like how privileged people often don’t understand how privileged they are. But I think, if you’re so embarrassed by your living conditions you don’t mention it, I’d say you’re poor, and you know you’re poor too, by virtue of the fact that you feel embarrassed - not that I think people should be embarrassed about being poor, it’s not a signal of some moral failing as a human being (in my opinion).
- Moto7451 3y ago
  There are a few definitions of being homeless depending on the frame of reference. For a number of years I lived in a busted up unrentable storefront and it was certainly not by choice. It certainly fit a few of the government definitions of poverty and/or homelessness that are out there. Being poor, being homeless, etc is a fuzzy thing in its nature. It’s not just being without everything. My personal definition of being poor is having to make trade offs between food, shelter, and safety where you’re going without one or more on a regular basis. I didn’t sleep in a bed, the place I slept in would pour buckets of water when it rained, it was cold in the winter, and the neighborhood could be unsafe at times. I didn’t go hungry since I always had the money for a $1 package of pasta and a $1.50 can of tomato sauce. I was able to go to school because my specific version of homelessness matched one that California recognized in order to waive tuition. Ultimately life worked out for me. 15 years later I feel stressed for money due to all the asks my family makes of me, but I never feel poor.
meowtimemania 3y ago
Poor is a fuzzy word that could mean many different things. I think what you are describing could be understood as "poverty" while what OP described could be understood as poor. I think OP's point is that wealth isn't requisite for a fulfilling life. If you have a good home life, a community, and enough money for the essentials, you can live a "rich" life.
- Quinzel 3y ago
  Sure wealth isn’t a requisite for a fulfilling life, but it’s pretty clear that OP wasn’t actually poor. If you have a good home life, a community and enough money for the essentials (and everything you want - according to OP) you’re not poor.
  - deaddodo 3y ago
    People seem to be using simple financial metrics to define poor/poverty. They don't seem to understand that someone with 1000usd/mo (in the US) that chooses that lifestyle (usually has a decently supportive family structure to fall back on) is drastically better off than someone earning 1500usd/mo, that has two kids to clothe/feed and has zero opportunities to escape the cycle whereby the beater car that is all they can afford breaking down is a make or break it situation.
    - yieldcrv 3y ago
      there's also no empathy "what!? I was able to save on 1000usd/mo... with a kid!" assets are either greater than your liabilities, or they're not. the dollar amounts aren't really relevant.
      - Aeolun 3y ago
        Being poor does not require being in debt. In fact it seems much more important to stay out of debt when poor.
        3y ago
zepolen 3y ago
Would you say a person like Bezos would remain poor if they were in that exact situation?
- hotnfresh 3y ago
  Someone with extremely valuable skills and knowledge? No, of course not. Even assuming he somehow didn’t know anybody from when he was rich, he’d know where to find people to talk to, and what to say, to start getting enough money to stop being poor pretty fast.
- ecshafer 3y ago
  Yes. Jeff Bezos parents gave him a loan of $245,573, in 1993 money to start Amazon. This indicates that he grew up if not very wealthy, but solidly on the upper side of middle class. Growing up poor he would've probably not had the opportunities to get into Princeton (statistically), so probably would have had a harder time breaking in the hedge fund industry, giving him less cash on hand, and probably wouldn't have started Amazon. Maybe growing up poor he could have, but its more likely as a smart ambitious poor person, he'd have gone to whatever school gave him a good scholarship, and then ended up as an Engineer or some other safe profession and landed middle class. Being born rich lets you take a lot more risks.
  - lkbm 3y ago
    > > Would you say a person like Bezos would remain poor > Yes. ... but its more likely as a smart ambitious poor person, he'd have gone to whatever school gave him a good scholarship, and then ended up as an Engineer or some other safe profession and landed middle class. So by yes you mean...no. Unless middle class is now poor?
    - MisterBastahrd 3y ago
      Anyone whose parents can give them a quarter of a million dollars as essentially fun money is so far divorced from reality than actual middle class people that it's hilarious to even attempt to make that comparison.
happytoexplain 3y ago
I think it's probably going to do more harm than good trying to gatekeep the status of "poor" against any but the most egregiously out-of-touch claimants. E.g. asserting near-literal starvation as a prerequisite is just antagonistic to no useful end.
- zmgsabst 3y ago
  I think that’s a useful metric. About 10% of US households experience food insecurity [0] — and that overlaps very heavily with the poorest US families, who have 32% experience food insecurity. I’m pretty comfortably saying that if you always had enough food as a family, you were lower middle-class, not poor. [0] - https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/food-security-and-nutrition-assistance/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistic...
- MisterBastahrd 3y ago
  If all your needs are being met and you aren't personally struggling, then you aren't poor. This isn't gatekeeping. It's simply not what being poor actually is.
- orwin 3y ago
  No. I was lower-middle class in a country with a social safety net, and the day my mother broke her car and had to fix it, we ate potatoes and were handed vegetable for months by a local producer, and we had to cut them because they were all partially rotten (but free!). Luckily my grandmother gave us eggs and milk regularly (yeah, countryside boy here, bite me), so we never missed on vitamins nor proteins, but each time we had cheese at school i was in heaven. The same thing happen in a city with less family support, and we would have been hungry (or at least would have suffered from deficiencies).
nobodyandproud 3y ago
Except for eating—and that’s only if it’s because of lack of means—every one of the listed criteria are relative to the community and culture.
redhale 3y ago
I understand the point you're making, but it's probably best to avoid gatekeeping, especially when it comes to an inexact term like "poor". "Living in poverty means not being able to afford medical care or access to basics such as electricity, shelter, and food. Improper nutrition can cause stunting and wasting, permanently impacting children’s development. Poverty in countries lacking access to clean water and sanitation leads to the spread of preventable diseases and unnecessary deaths, particularly of children." https://www.worldvision.org/sponsorship-news-stories/global-poverty-facts https://www.worldvision.org/sponsorship-news-stories/global-...
- zmgsabst 3y ago
  > Living in poverty means not being able to afford medical care or access to basics such as electricity, shelter, and food. Your own quote says the person you’re replying to is right — and the linked post wasn’t describing living in poverty.
vector_spaces 3y ago
Yeah the linked post rubbed me the wrong way too. I don't know anyone who grew up poor who didn't know they were poor. Not being able to afford vacations or nice things isn't a sign of being poor Being poor is dealing with housing instability, untreated mental illness, not calling 911 during likely medical emergencies, not being able to afford gas or bus fare to go to work, and generally catastrophe after catastrophe. People around you are also dealing with various catastrophes: abuse, imprisonment, alcoholism and addiction, and loss after loss after loss. Being poor is traumatic. Even after you claw your way out of that hole, into a comfortable life funded by a comfortable tech salary, you never feel quite secure. You keep waiting for that next catastrophe to hit, and to be back in another job where you have to ask permission to use the bathroom or plead for time off to attend a funeral.
- neilv 3y ago
  > Being poor is traumatic. Even after you claw your way out of that hole, into a comfortable life funded by a comfortable tech salary, you never feel quite secure. You keep waiting for that next catastrophe to hit, and to be back in another job where you have to ask permission to use the bathroom or plead for time off to attend a funeral. Excellent point. A related trait I've seen from some people who've made (or are making) an economic class leap up is that they're accustomed to soldiering through tough and unjust situations. For example, imagine some really awful situation that shouldn't be happening, in a workplace or school or housing or safety or bureaucracy or similar. Someone of more fortunate history might react like "WTF?! This is not OK! I don't even know what to do with this, other than get a lawyer!" But the person who's been through many situations they shouldn't have been through, is desensitized to the injustice, and just getting through it somehow is familiar, so that's where their energy goes. (I don't think it's only fear of the next catastrophe, though that might also be a factor.) The person with the "WTF?!" reaction, who demands their rights (and maybe has the family money to back it up) will probably have a better outcome from the unacceptable situation, and less stress and misery along the way.
- nobodyandproud 3y ago
  > Being poor is dealing with housing instability, untreated mental illness, not calling 911 during likely medical emergencies, not being able to afford gas or bus fare to go to work, and generally catastrophe after catastrophe. People around you are also dealing with various catastrophes: abuse, imprisonment, alcoholism and addiction, and loss after loss after loss. This take on being “poor” bothers me tremendously, because it equates being poor to something near sub-human or nearly irredeemable, and that’s an unfortunate take. Except for the warm home environment and blissful ignorance of circumstances, the environment I grew up in was in many ways similar to the OP. Medical issues were catastrophic, affordability of housing was at whim of landlords, and public transit was a real expense. The financial strain was palpable but that didn’t mean our family or our immediate circle were criminals or drug abusers; but it did strain the stability of the family considerably. > Being poor is traumatic. Even after you claw your way out of that hole, into a comfortable life funded by a comfortable tech salary, you never feel quite secure. It is, because I certainly live this trauma daily and in many of my life choices, but by your measure I wouldn’t have been considered “poor”. Tech had been good to me—I liked it when it was still a low-paying career and few considered Comp Sci as a major—but a more secure environment and I would have had a far more financially secure and comfortable life.
generalizations 3y ago
Sounds like a no true scotsman: "if you didn't feel poor, you're not poor enough to count."
- Quinzel 3y ago
  I think if you’re genuinely poor, you do feel it. It’s a level of instability that just fundamentally undermines your sense of security on multiple levels (food security, job security, health security etc). Sure there are those that cannot afford the frills in life, or they have to occasionally make sacrifices in order to make ends meet. Even wealthy people probably have times of financial difficulty if they have some unexpected financial loss, or a massive unforeseen bill forcing them to sacrifice a few of their luxuries or whatever, but when you’re actually poor, you have nothing left to sacrifice, you have nothing to fall back on, you end up walking a fine line of making difficult choices of whether to buy food to feed your kids, or pay the electricity bill to keep them warm (and you can’t have it both ways), and your mindset is about surviving the next week, there’s no planning for the next month, there’s no contingency planning for what if the car breaks down. I think that’s what people don’t get. I understand that the middle class can experience hardship, but I firmly believe there is a distinction between middle class hardship and being actually poor, and that’s not because I want to “gatekeep” poor or undermine other people’s experiences of hardship (because at the end of the day it’s all relative) but the OP who wrote this was not writing from a position of ever having truely been poor, because when all your needs are met, and you have the things you want, and you have the luxury of poor just being a matter of perspective, you’ve not really experienced poor.
  - Freebytes 3y ago
    People also attack people living in poverty for making poor decisions, but if you are poor, your entire brain is overwhelmed with thoughts of survival. Of course poor people are going to make poor decisions because they are not given the opportunity to think about anything else other than survival. I think we could consider poor as having all of your needs but none of your wants. And if you have all of your needs and all of your wants, then you are absolutely not poor. I agree with you. You cannot 'be poor but not feel it'. While it is true that children may not realize they are living in poverty, when they grow up, they look back and then realize the conditions. I can see the point of someone saying they never realized they were poor growing up, but if they look back, they must realize that they felt it but did not realize it at the time.
LoganDark 3y ago
These comments make me so angry. I can't properly articulate why. But I hate "you don't know what it's like - there are people POORER THAN YOU - you are not allowed to speak of POOR if you have not gone days without eating". I can very well feel poor without being homeless and starving. I don't claim to know what it's like to be homeless and starving, but I sure as hell Feel Poor.
strken 3y ago
If you're eating 7/7 days a week, but what you're eating is mostly white rice and beans and your entire family lives in one room of an apartment shared with three other families, you're poor. Pure caloric intake is not a good way of judging poverty in the developed world because calories are so cheap relative to everything else.
- joe_the_user 3y ago
  The point of the gp imo isn't that poverty is only absolute calorie limits but that there are levels of poverty that aren't "relative" or "a feeling" but an objective, miserable situation. Poverty involves a chronic lack of basic human needs, these are often described as food, clothing and shelter but they also include health care, physical safety, the ability leave abusive situations and so-forth.
Aeolun 3y ago
The elitist poor. Now I’ve seen everything. Just because there’s grades of poor, does not mean the family eating rice 5/week out of a small apartment so they can afford school materials is not. Someone making $100/month is poor, and someone making $1000/month is also poor, even though they can afford wildly different standards of living, simply because 99% of people earn more.
jimmygrapes 3y ago
poor is not knowing you don't have any of the things that idebtify you as poor
Johnny555 3y ago
You can be poor while still having everything you need (even if others were more poor than you). I grew up poor, but didn’t realize it until adulthood, because we had everything we needed. I rarely got new clothes, mostly wearing hand me downs or thrift shop purchases. We had food 7 days a week, but in the winter when dad was laid off from his construction job and worked part time where he could, someone from the church would drop off a big food box every week (as a child, I thought everyone got that box). The same church sponsored a Santa Clause that delivered gifts to us at Christmas time (mostly practical things like clothing, shoes, etc). At school I got a packet of free lunch tickets every week from the teacher, while almost all of the rest of the class had to bring in a check or cash from home. We did have family vacations in the summer which were almost always a tent camping trip to a state park within driving distance, dad still went to work from that vacation spot. Eventually he worked his way up the ranks at work to a better paying year round job and we move firmly into the middle class, but until grade 6 or so, we were definitely what I’d call poor.
qingcharles 3y ago
And until I was homeless I didn't even know what being homeless was like. For instance -- people say "there are millions of shelters! why are people living in tents?!" -- and I wondered the same thing. But then you go to a shelter and honestly, it is horrible for most people in shelters. Not only are you absolutely surrounded by people who (sadly) suffer from a slew of addictions and mental illness and want to steal from you, or fight you, or drag you into their endless drama, but the rules and regulations at shelters are so onerous that it makes prison seem like a holiday camp. I now understand why people set up in a tent. They can support themselves, and be by themselves, and that agency is not to be under-rated.
Freebytes 3y ago
I absolutely agree with this. You do not need to homeless to be living in severe poverty, but poor people feel poor. To your point about 'choosing to experience homeless', going homeless by choice is called camping. People claim, "I did not feel poor even if I could not afford the designer clothing..." Like, we are not talking about designer clothing. We are talking about basic clothing. Shoes that do not fit. We are talking about food. Never, never, never going to the doctor unless you are literally dying -- perhaps a broken bone being the only exception... maybe. Interestingly, things are much better now than in the past for many. Even rural communities are often given the opportunity to have basic necessities. Some families act too proud to accept assistance, but they really should if they have children. They must humble themselves to accept the assistance that is provided because that is the whole point. They reap the benefits now to get themselves back on their feet so they can contribute to others that will also need it. I see so many people act like they are going to starve if they do not eat two or three meals PER DAY. Yet, they have never actually known true hunger in their life.

wizerdrobe 3y ago

Here’s a question I’ve lived: what if you live in comically impoverished conditions such that the elements you’ve described are mitigated? Squatting in a half collapsed 1970 single wife trailer with raccoons sleeping on your futon couch. The schooling is there, the meals are there, but you’re living a life so embarrassing you don’t mention it. Is that poor?

Quinzel 3y ago
Yeah man, that’s poverty. The thing about poor/poverty is that it completely shapes your frame of reference. Sometimes you don’t even know how impoverished you really are, just like how privileged people often don’t understand how privileged they are. But I think, if you’re so embarrassed by your living conditions you don’t mention it, I’d say you’re poor, and you know you’re poor too, by virtue of the fact that you feel embarrassed - not that I think people should be embarrassed about being poor, it’s not a signal of some moral failing as a human being (in my opinion).
Moto7451 3y ago
There are a few definitions of being homeless depending on the frame of reference. For a number of years I lived in a busted up unrentable storefront and it was certainly not by choice. It certainly fit a few of the government definitions of poverty and/or homelessness that are out there. Being poor, being homeless, etc is a fuzzy thing in its nature. It’s not just being without everything. My personal definition of being poor is having to make trade offs between food, shelter, and safety where you’re going without one or more on a regular basis. I didn’t sleep in a bed, the place I slept in would pour buckets of water when it rained, it was cold in the winter, and the neighborhood could be unsafe at times. I didn’t go hungry since I always had the money for a $1 package of pasta and a $1.50 can of tomato sauce. I was able to go to school because my specific version of homelessness matched one that California recognized in order to waive tuition. Ultimately life worked out for me. 15 years later I feel stressed for money due to all the asks my family makes of me, but I never feel poor.

meowtimemania 3y ago

Poor is a fuzzy word that could mean many different things. I think what you are describing could be understood as "poverty" while what OP described could be understood as poor. I think OP's point is that wealth isn't requisite for a fulfilling life. If you have a good home life, a community, and enough money for the essentials, you can live a "rich" life.

Quinzel 3y ago
Sure wealth isn’t a requisite for a fulfilling life, but it’s pretty clear that OP wasn’t actually poor. If you have a good home life, a community and enough money for the essentials (and everything you want - according to OP) you’re not poor.
- deaddodo 3y ago
  People seem to be using simple financial metrics to define poor/poverty. They don't seem to understand that someone with 1000usd/mo (in the US) that chooses that lifestyle (usually has a decently supportive family structure to fall back on) is drastically better off than someone earning 1500usd/mo, that has two kids to clothe/feed and has zero opportunities to escape the cycle whereby the beater car that is all they can afford breaking down is a make or break it situation.
  - yieldcrv 3y ago
    there's also no empathy "what!? I was able to save on 1000usd/mo... with a kid!" assets are either greater than your liabilities, or they're not. the dollar amounts aren't really relevant.
    - Aeolun 3y ago
      Being poor does not require being in debt. In fact it seems much more important to stay out of debt when poor.
      - 3y ago

zepolen 3y ago

Would you say a person like Bezos would remain poor if they were in that exact situation?

hotnfresh 3y ago
Someone with extremely valuable skills and knowledge? No, of course not. Even assuming he somehow didn’t know anybody from when he was rich, he’d know where to find people to talk to, and what to say, to start getting enough money to stop being poor pretty fast.
ecshafer 3y ago
Yes. Jeff Bezos parents gave him a loan of $245,573, in 1993 money to start Amazon. This indicates that he grew up if not very wealthy, but solidly on the upper side of middle class. Growing up poor he would've probably not had the opportunities to get into Princeton (statistically), so probably would have had a harder time breaking in the hedge fund industry, giving him less cash on hand, and probably wouldn't have started Amazon. Maybe growing up poor he could have, but its more likely as a smart ambitious poor person, he'd have gone to whatever school gave him a good scholarship, and then ended up as an Engineer or some other safe profession and landed middle class. Being born rich lets you take a lot more risks.
- lkbm 3y ago
  > > Would you say a person like Bezos would remain poor > Yes. ... but its more likely as a smart ambitious poor person, he'd have gone to whatever school gave him a good scholarship, and then ended up as an Engineer or some other safe profession and landed middle class. So by yes you mean...no. Unless middle class is now poor?
  - MisterBastahrd 3y ago
    Anyone whose parents can give them a quarter of a million dollars as essentially fun money is so far divorced from reality than actual middle class people that it's hilarious to even attempt to make that comparison.

happytoexplain 3y ago

I think it's probably going to do more harm than good trying to gatekeep the status of "poor" against any but the most egregiously out-of-touch claimants. E.g. asserting near-literal starvation as a prerequisite is just antagonistic to no useful end.

zmgsabst 3y ago
I think that’s a useful metric. About 10% of US households experience food insecurity [0] — and that overlaps very heavily with the poorest US families, who have 32% experience food insecurity. I’m pretty comfortably saying that if you always had enough food as a family, you were lower middle-class, not poor. [0] - https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/food-security-and-nutrition-assistance/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistic...
MisterBastahrd 3y ago
If all your needs are being met and you aren't personally struggling, then you aren't poor. This isn't gatekeeping. It's simply not what being poor actually is.
orwin 3y ago
No. I was lower-middle class in a country with a social safety net, and the day my mother broke her car and had to fix it, we ate potatoes and were handed vegetable for months by a local producer, and we had to cut them because they were all partially rotten (but free!). Luckily my grandmother gave us eggs and milk regularly (yeah, countryside boy here, bite me), so we never missed on vitamins nor proteins, but each time we had cheese at school i was in heaven. The same thing happen in a city with less family support, and we would have been hungry (or at least would have suffered from deficiencies).

nobodyandproud 3y ago

Except for eating—and that’s only if it’s because of lack of means—every one of the listed criteria are relative to the community and culture.

redhale 3y ago

I understand the point you're making, but it's probably best to avoid gatekeeping, especially when it comes to an inexact term like "poor". "Living in poverty means not being able to afford medical care or access to basics such as electricity, shelter, and food. Improper nutrition can cause stunting and wasting, permanently impacting children’s development. Poverty in countries lacking access to clean water and sanitation leads to the spread of preventable diseases and unnecessary deaths, particularly of children." https://www.worldvision.org/sponsorship-news-stories/global-poverty-facts https://www.worldvision.org/sponsorship-news-stories/global-...

zmgsabst 3y ago
> Living in poverty means not being able to afford medical care or access to basics such as electricity, shelter, and food. Your own quote says the person you’re replying to is right — and the linked post wasn’t describing living in poverty.

vector_spaces 3y ago

Yeah the linked post rubbed me the wrong way too. I don't know anyone who grew up poor who didn't know they were poor. Not being able to afford vacations or nice things isn't a sign of being poor Being poor is dealing with housing instability, untreated mental illness, not calling 911 during likely medical emergencies, not being able to afford gas or bus fare to go to work, and generally catastrophe after catastrophe. People around you are also dealing with various catastrophes: abuse, imprisonment, alcoholism and addiction, and loss after loss after loss. Being poor is traumatic. Even after you claw your way out of that hole, into a comfortable life funded by a comfortable tech salary, you never feel quite secure. You keep waiting for that next catastrophe to hit, and to be back in another job where you have to ask permission to use the bathroom or plead for time off to attend a funeral.

neilv 3y ago
> Being poor is traumatic. Even after you claw your way out of that hole, into a comfortable life funded by a comfortable tech salary, you never feel quite secure. You keep waiting for that next catastrophe to hit, and to be back in another job where you have to ask permission to use the bathroom or plead for time off to attend a funeral. Excellent point. A related trait I've seen from some people who've made (or are making) an economic class leap up is that they're accustomed to soldiering through tough and unjust situations. For example, imagine some really awful situation that shouldn't be happening, in a workplace or school or housing or safety or bureaucracy or similar. Someone of more fortunate history might react like "WTF?! This is not OK! I don't even know what to do with this, other than get a lawyer!" But the person who's been through many situations they shouldn't have been through, is desensitized to the injustice, and just getting through it somehow is familiar, so that's where their energy goes. (I don't think it's only fear of the next catastrophe, though that might also be a factor.) The person with the "WTF?!" reaction, who demands their rights (and maybe has the family money to back it up) will probably have a better outcome from the unacceptable situation, and less stress and misery along the way.
nobodyandproud 3y ago
> Being poor is dealing with housing instability, untreated mental illness, not calling 911 during likely medical emergencies, not being able to afford gas or bus fare to go to work, and generally catastrophe after catastrophe. People around you are also dealing with various catastrophes: abuse, imprisonment, alcoholism and addiction, and loss after loss after loss. This take on being “poor” bothers me tremendously, because it equates being poor to something near sub-human or nearly irredeemable, and that’s an unfortunate take. Except for the warm home environment and blissful ignorance of circumstances, the environment I grew up in was in many ways similar to the OP. Medical issues were catastrophic, affordability of housing was at whim of landlords, and public transit was a real expense. The financial strain was palpable but that didn’t mean our family or our immediate circle were criminals or drug abusers; but it did strain the stability of the family considerably. > Being poor is traumatic. Even after you claw your way out of that hole, into a comfortable life funded by a comfortable tech salary, you never feel quite secure. It is, because I certainly live this trauma daily and in many of my life choices, but by your measure I wouldn’t have been considered “poor”. Tech had been good to me—I liked it when it was still a low-paying career and few considered Comp Sci as a major—but a more secure environment and I would have had a far more financially secure and comfortable life.

generalizations 3y ago

Sounds like a no true scotsman: "if you didn't feel poor, you're not poor enough to count."

Quinzel 3y ago
I think if you’re genuinely poor, you do feel it. It’s a level of instability that just fundamentally undermines your sense of security on multiple levels (food security, job security, health security etc). Sure there are those that cannot afford the frills in life, or they have to occasionally make sacrifices in order to make ends meet. Even wealthy people probably have times of financial difficulty if they have some unexpected financial loss, or a massive unforeseen bill forcing them to sacrifice a few of their luxuries or whatever, but when you’re actually poor, you have nothing left to sacrifice, you have nothing to fall back on, you end up walking a fine line of making difficult choices of whether to buy food to feed your kids, or pay the electricity bill to keep them warm (and you can’t have it both ways), and your mindset is about surviving the next week, there’s no planning for the next month, there’s no contingency planning for what if the car breaks down. I think that’s what people don’t get. I understand that the middle class can experience hardship, but I firmly believe there is a distinction between middle class hardship and being actually poor, and that’s not because I want to “gatekeep” poor or undermine other people’s experiences of hardship (because at the end of the day it’s all relative) but the OP who wrote this was not writing from a position of ever having truely been poor, because when all your needs are met, and you have the things you want, and you have the luxury of poor just being a matter of perspective, you’ve not really experienced poor.
- Freebytes 3y ago
  People also attack people living in poverty for making poor decisions, but if you are poor, your entire brain is overwhelmed with thoughts of survival. Of course poor people are going to make poor decisions because they are not given the opportunity to think about anything else other than survival. I think we could consider poor as having all of your needs but none of your wants. And if you have all of your needs and all of your wants, then you are absolutely not poor. I agree with you. You cannot 'be poor but not feel it'. While it is true that children may not realize they are living in poverty, when they grow up, they look back and then realize the conditions. I can see the point of someone saying they never realized they were poor growing up, but if they look back, they must realize that they felt it but did not realize it at the time.

LoganDark 3y ago

These comments make me so angry. I can't properly articulate why. But I hate "you don't know what it's like - there are people POORER THAN YOU - you are not allowed to speak of POOR if you have not gone days without eating". I can very well feel poor without being homeless and starving. I don't claim to know what it's like to be homeless and starving, but I sure as hell Feel Poor.

strken 3y ago

If you're eating 7/7 days a week, but what you're eating is mostly white rice and beans and your entire family lives in one room of an apartment shared with three other families, you're poor. Pure caloric intake is not a good way of judging poverty in the developed world because calories are so cheap relative to everything else.

joe_the_user 3y ago
The point of the gp imo isn't that poverty is only absolute calorie limits but that there are levels of poverty that aren't "relative" or "a feeling" but an objective, miserable situation. Poverty involves a chronic lack of basic human needs, these are often described as food, clothing and shelter but they also include health care, physical safety, the ability leave abusive situations and so-forth.

Aeolun 3y ago

The elitist poor. Now I’ve seen everything. Just because there’s grades of poor, does not mean the family eating rice 5/week out of a small apartment so they can afford school materials is not. Someone making $100/month is poor, and someone making $1000/month is also poor, even though they can afford wildly different standards of living, simply because 99% of people earn more.

jimmygrapes 3y ago

poor is not knowing you don't have any of the things that idebtify you as poor

Johnny555 3y ago

You can be poor while still having everything you need (even if others were more poor than you). I grew up poor, but didn’t realize it until adulthood, because we had everything we needed. I rarely got new clothes, mostly wearing hand me downs or thrift shop purchases. We had food 7 days a week, but in the winter when dad was laid off from his construction job and worked part time where he could, someone from the church would drop off a big food box every week (as a child, I thought everyone got that box). The same church sponsored a Santa Clause that delivered gifts to us at Christmas time (mostly practical things like clothing, shoes, etc). At school I got a packet of free lunch tickets every week from the teacher, while almost all of the rest of the class had to bring in a check or cash from home. We did have family vacations in the summer which were almost always a tent camping trip to a state park within driving distance, dad still went to work from that vacation spot. Eventually he worked his way up the ranks at work to a better paying year round job and we move firmly into the middle class, but until grade 6 or so, we were definitely what I’d call poor.

qingcharles 3y ago

And until I was homeless I didn't even know what being homeless was like. For instance -- people say "there are millions of shelters! why are people living in tents?!" -- and I wondered the same thing. But then you go to a shelter and honestly, it is horrible for most people in shelters. Not only are you absolutely surrounded by people who (sadly) suffer from a slew of addictions and mental illness and want to steal from you, or fight you, or drag you into their endless drama, but the rules and regulations at shelters are so onerous that it makes prison seem like a holiday camp. I now understand why people set up in a tent. They can support themselves, and be by themselves, and that agency is not to be under-rated.

Freebytes 3y ago

I absolutely agree with this. You do not need to homeless to be living in severe poverty, but poor people feel poor. To your point about 'choosing to experience homeless', going homeless by choice is called camping. People claim, "I did not feel poor even if I could not afford the designer clothing..." Like, we are not talking about designer clothing. We are talking about basic clothing. Shoes that do not fit. We are talking about food. Never, never, never going to the doctor unless you are literally dying -- perhaps a broken bone being the only exception... maybe. Interestingly, things are much better now than in the past for many. Even rural communities are often given the opportunity to have basic necessities. Some families act too proud to accept assistance, but they really should if they have children. They must humble themselves to accept the assistance that is provided because that is the whole point. They reap the benefits now to get themselves back on their feet so they can contribute to others that will also need it. I see so many people act like they are going to starve if they do not eat two or three meals PER DAY. Yet, they have never actually known true hunger in their life.