> Poor people: save money and pay off credit card debts.
So, "poor people, get surplus income".
Or, equivalently, "poor people, stop being poor".
> And saying poor people couldn't save even a dollar is nonsense.
If you can reliably meet the requirements of life without charity or depletion of reserves, you arguably aren't meaningfully poor. Poor people can save sometimes, but that's mostly saving a reserve for the bad times that will come (usually fairly soon and frequently), not net savings over the long term.
No. Poor people cut out non-essentials, be more efficient, and save money. A lack of nice things now will help later.
Buy cheaper clothes, stop smoking, stop drinking, eat out less, don't have a fancy car...etc. Don't live beyond your means and consider your means what allows you to save 20%. Exactly what I'd have to do if I wanted to save more money. Stop pretending like poor people are all dizzy starving idiots that can't do a damn thing to better their condition. People tend to live up to their expectations.
I could not agree with you more had I said those words myself.
A year ago I had a great job as a sysadmin, then I got laid off. Shit happens. I got a job doing landscaping for $10 an hour til I could find something better, and when winter came I worked in a restaurant serving people in the city.
What did I do? I stopped eating out and put my cooking skills to use saving money by eating in. I cut out cable, lowered my Internet speed and got Netflix. Got more conscientious about power usage.
What did I learn? At that job I both cooked and took orders in a 24/7 setting in a large city. I saw wealthy executives and immigrant Somalians alike buy food. The one thing I took away from that is that poor people stay poor by making poor decisions. Pun. Intended. When you walk around buying lottery tickets and junk food, wearing bling bling, smoking a pack a day, and clubbing every night, of course you're going to hit a financial hurdle.
My advice? Exercise that section of your mind we call common sense. Shop smarter. Do some math. Skip the club. Stop smoking. Put that on a 4x6.
You didn't learn much at all then. To think that being poor and having a tendency to make bad decisions, is just a matter of having developed negative personal habits throughout your life is just plain naive and ignorant.
Poor people are not just personally poor, they were raised by poor parents who taught them different values, albeit seemingly dumb ones (though I know a lot of poor people who are wayyy happier than a lot of wealthy people I know following the note card). They were taken to crappy schools, if their parents took them, or made them go at all. They were fed all sorts of unhealthy food their whole lives. They're lied to relentlessly by businesses saying things are healthy, will help them, or are good decisions (always campaigns run by wealthy people taken advantage of poor people).
They have everything around them working against them, and some dumb, naive, asshat, born to the middle class, thinks (s)he was poor for a little while and it was kind of enlightening and fun, ignorant guy telling them to put money in a 401k. Will it put rims on my car, because that would make me happy? When I'm 65? Fuck that.
Try earning federal minimum wage and providing for 2-3 people. You cut the crap out early. But your car that you need to get to work still breaks down. Your SNAP (don't know what they are? you've never been poor) benefits still run out too soon. And you and your kids still get sick.
That notwithstanding, what advice would you naysayers like to see on this card for poor people? Is there anything that simply knowing is going to help them?
This card contains all the major points of advice a poor person can use about finance. Whether that is enough to save them is a completely different question. Raising it is not a valid criticism of this card.
#1 Convince all the rich people to do the last item on the card from the original article
#2 Try to get your kids to do something different than you, if you're earning $20k/year with no savings, no spouse and have kids it's probably too late for you to save anyway
It is being poor. If you want to define 'poor' or poverty as the UN defines it, then fewer people than you would suppose would be classified 'poor'.
When one loses one's source of income, one loses one's security. One is then eligible for state and federal benefits --for most intents and purposes, one has become poor --though perhaps not a destitute pauper.
Don't forget to tell them to let their babies die, those things are expensive. Parents too. Taking care of your aging folks can be expensive. Stop taking care of your parents. Any happiness you have now is because you're in the thick of a poor decision that is making you stay poor. Stop smiling, dumb shit makes you smile. Stop going to the doctor. Stop paying for vegetables, can food is cheaper. Stop the tendencies you developed by being raised by worthless, stupid poor people. Stop hanging out with your poor friends. Stop hanging out with your poor ass family. Stop being a fucking human being, open your poor, dumb fucking eyes and make a dollar.
Don't let your babies die, but really try not to have them if you can't afford them.
I never said people's poor decisions made them poor, I'm saying they can help get out of poverty by making good ones.
And if you have kids, yes, make a dollar. You brought life into this world and you have a responsibility. You can let your kids get stuck in a cycle of poverty by feeling like a victim or you can bust your ass to try and get them out of poverty. If I had a child in poverty I wouldn't be smiling, because I'd know that I brought life into this world at a disadvantage and I'd work my ass off until I did what was right. So you can keep telling poor people that they're helpless, or you can, like I do, believe they have a great perseverance and aptitude that they need to tap into and provide a better life for their children.
I'm not saying they need to do it alone; quite the opposite - we as a nation need to believe in the ability of our disadvantaged to become productive members of society and promote programs to help them get there. But we do not need to act like any nudge towards taking matters into your own hands is an implication of blame. It is not. It is a suggestion that betting your children's future on government intervention is a colossal mistake. I'll vote for legislation that enables the poor, I'll pay higher taxes and donate to 401cs and get the word out, but there is no single greater factor in the equation of your children's happiness than you yourself.
Now that sounds more sensible, and I agree completely that ultimately you can only help someone who wants to be helped.
Your earlier comments were showing that you don't understand the poverty problem at all and you don't know how to motivate people at all. The problem is not that poor people are constantly choosing to be poor, or making no choice and allowing themselves to fall into poverty, but that they are raised in poverty. Being raised poor means all sorts of things: you are taught poor values by your parents, you likely get a terrible education, you likely only have access to be friends with fellow poor people, you probably eat poorly, and worst of all your poor parents and poor friends have reinforced your entire life that these poor decisions you're making are actually good decisions.
You will never accomplish anything (or sound smart or practical at all) by slapping individuals in the face and telling them to make better decisions. They're told that these good decisions us well off people make, by their friends and by the vast majority of us well-offers, are actually making us terribly unhappy people (and in a lot of cases they're not wrong). The only way real change can happen is by addressing the cultural cycle of poverty, and by supporting, positively teaching, and motivating these people to make better decisions.
> Don't let your babies die, but really try not to have them if you can't afford them.
This is outrageous. Parenthood is one of the most (if not THE most) meaningful parts of being human. Financial issues should NOT take this away from anyone.
I don't think it's outrageous at all. I agree with you that
> Parenthood is one of the most (if not THE most) meaningful parts of being human
But we cannot ignore the fact that raising a child is extremely expensive, and children raised in poverty often have very negative outcomes. He's not saying poor people aren't allowed to have children, he's saying it's a good idea to try not to, because of the likely poor outcome of a child born in poverty.
Poor outcomes such as the child being unable to graduate from high school, or go to college. Repeating the cycle by having a baby in high school, dropping out and probably to raise a high school dropout as well. No one is saying this is always what happens, or that poor people aren't allowed to have children. We're just saying it is not a good idea to have a child unless you're financially stable enough to raise a child with a better outcome. There are obviously plenty of exceptions to the idea that a child born in poverty will have a bad outcome, but the majority outcome is negative (in terms of economic achievement, social mobility, etc).
Then you'd be amazed at what the government defines as "poor" now. Using data from the Census Bureau, the Department of Energy, and many other federal agencies, see this detailed report (tons of charts, numbers, and links to sources).
Yes, the last items are luxuries, if you're going to complain about poverty. Heck, I'm middle class and I don't have any of those three.
Let's talk about food, too. From the report:
Temporary food shortages have increased during the current recession but still remain atypical among poor households. During 2009, less than one poor household in five experienced even a single instance of “reduced food intake and disrupted eating patterns” due to a lack of financial resources.[26] Strikingly, only 4 percent of poor children experienced even a single instance of “reduced food intake and disrupted eating patterns” due to a lack of financial resources.[27]
Regrettably, most discussions of poverty in the U.S. rely on sensationalism, exaggeration, and misinformation ... an effective discussion must be based on an accurate assessment of actual living conditions and the causes of poverty.
----------
This is all to say, with concrete data, that people we consider "poor" tend to have the essentials and then some.
> Then you'd be amazed at what the government defines as "poor" now.
What the government defines as "poor" is irrelevant to the substance of the criticism being raised here. Words have different meanings in different contexts.
Is someone who decides to live in the wilderness poor? No steady source of income, access to medical care is remote and non-trivial. But, on the other hand, they may have a small savings account.
I think it's still being poor, given the insecurity. Even if it's a conscious and choice they made but could work out of.
As a direct example, my parents are both poor. They are retired and their total pension is about $400 a month... which they mostly spend on smoking and coffee. Oh, and they also have four TV sets (my father has an obsession).
Ok, so I can afford to supplement that income somewhat; but saying that they couldn't save is absurd.
So, "poor people, get surplus income".
Or, equivalently, "poor people, stop being poor".
> And saying poor people couldn't save even a dollar is nonsense.
If you can reliably meet the requirements of life without charity or depletion of reserves, you arguably aren't meaningfully poor. Poor people can save sometimes, but that's mostly saving a reserve for the bad times that will come (usually fairly soon and frequently), not net savings over the long term.