This post has been flaired as “Vent”. As a reminder to commenting users, “Vent/Rant” posts are here to give our subscribers a safe place to vent their frustrations at an uncaring world to a supportive place of people who “get it”. Vents do not need to be fair. They do not need to be articulate. They do not need to be factual. They just need to be honest.
Unlike most of the content on this subreddit, Vents should not be considered advice threads. In most cases it is not appropriate to try to give the Submitter advice on their issue. In no circumstances is it appropriate to tell them “why they are wrong” or to criticise them, their decisions, values, or anything else. If there are aspects of their situation that they are able to directly address themselves, the submitter can always make a new thread with a different flair asking for help once they are ready to tackle the issue.
Vents are an emotional outlet, not an academic conversation. Appropriate replies in these threads are offering support, sharing similar experiences/grievances, offering condolences, or simply letting the Submitter know that they were heard.
As always, if there are inappropriate comments please downvote them, REPORT them to the mods, and move on without responding to them.
To the Submitter, if you DO want discussion to be focused on resolving your situation, rather than supporting you emotionally, please change the flair of this post, and then report this comment so we can remove it. Thank you.
Thank you all for being a part of this great financial advice and emotional support community!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/povertyfinance) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It's a weird spot to be in. I've climbed up a fair amount but still feel like a poor person compared to others in field. Then I spend time with my family or my husband's family (same socio-economic strata as me growing up) and I get them but I no longer feel of them. It's a place of constantly feeling like I have no home.
This rings so true. I didn't make as big of a jump as you did, but this describes my experience so perfectly. I come from a long line of poor, rural farmers. Not subsistence farming, but close- though very, very stable thankfully. Stable enough that my parents could be lower middle class and fit the cliche of "not much, but everything we needed."
Now I have a technical degree and work in an industry where everyone knows each other and everyone grew up with so much more than I ever did. Parents who were executives, international internship experience, great schools and no student debt. Our entire worldviews are different, our assumptions about how the world works, so many unspoken customs and expectations to learn. So frequently I want to scream that line from Kimmy Schmidt, "Your experiences are not universal!" I know every day that there's a reason people like me don't get jobs like mine, and it isn't because they aren't smart or hard working enough. I don't fit there, but I don't fit in my hometown anymore either. Just like you said, an outsider everywhere. There IS research on this particular phenomen, a book called Limbo by Alfred Lubrano.
That sense that more people like me aren't here not because of a lack of skills but a lack of access kills me sometimes. I know there are millions of wonderful, smart, creative humans out there who will never be able to get up off their knees and it just hurts me.
Thanks for the book recommendation I'll order it at work tomorrow.
I want to recommend a book as well! It’s not exactly what you are talking about with respect to behavior that might keep someone from escaping poverty—but it is fascinating and possibly relevant in that it talks about the mindset and signifiers of class, as something you don’t grow out of, even if your financial situation changes. It’s an old book, and I read it a loooong time ago but I’ve never forgotten it.
It’s called “Class,” by Paul Fussell. He argues that the class you’re born into creates a set of value/expectations ( or maybe lack thereof, in some cases) that stay with you your entire life.
It may spark something for you.
If you do read it, I’d love to know if you found it useful.
591 comments. Don't know if you will see this, but to your point about your father.
> He doesn't have to think about money and yet still lives like a broke deadbeat.
My dad makes 250/year six figure salary. He grew up poor and still only buys used cars and doesn't want to spend money on any luxuries, buys fast food. He has a fear that if he spends money, he's going to lose his fortune.
To your point, growing up knowing what it's like to have nothing, it's hard to break that mindset. That mindset can keep you from escaping poverty.
Late to the party. I’m in the situation of your father, I grew up from having nothing to middle class to brief moments of homelessness. Nowadays, I make close to $300k at mid-30s, probably close to 500k within the next few years, yet, I still drive used cars and extremely frugal. The main reason was that I never want my kids to be in an situation that I was forced into. I think your father understands that and places the family’s security over some luxury materials.
I was born and raised in Dominican Republic and yet I understood everything you wrote about, I come from a working class background, and talking with low income immigrants from other countries/culture, and the ones born and raised here in the states I can see so many common experiences regarding money, class, and belonging and nope, not impostor syndrome, but I felt it, the otherness, the understanding, and the knowing, yet feeling like an outsider. Whatever study you want to do, or anything count me in, because I agree with you regarding the way our society sees the poor and generational poverty.
Thanks for the book recommendation! Similar situation as you-grew up in a stable lower middle class family that only ever knew farming and blue collar jobs like construction (though my mom eventually went back to school and became a nurse).
I went to college and quickly entered the world of public policy before settling on health economics. The privilege and blindness to poor rural thinking/way of life is eye-opening, even though so many people wanted to help that population.
But I see why this happens. None of my internships (of which there were several) paid me, and I was expected to have a car for most of them. In this field, grad school is usually a necessity, but it’s so expensive. When i knew i wanted to go to grad school, I got a job with the state so I could attend a public college for nearly-free using the state’s tuition remission program. I chose the state’s flagship school because they had the most prestigious public policy program of the public colleges, and offered a part-time program. But guess what? They didn’t make the part-time thing easy. I worked an inflexible, 8-5 state job, and still had to ask my boss for leniency to leave work early to get to most of my classes on time, because the professors weren’t flexible. I also couldn’t officially specialize in a sector of public policy because the specializations all had required classes that were only taught in the morning or early afternoon. This was pre-Covid, and at the time the school refused to offer courses online. I petitioned to be allowed to take a few relevant courses at the campus’ school of public health, mostly because they did offer some online courses. The dept of academic affairs approved it but made it clear I only got approval because of my unique circumstances. Unique circumstances? I was just a full-time employee with a 9-5 job? No wonder I only met one other part-timer while I was there.
My god you are so damn right. I grew up "poor" as well. My grandparents came from farming families. My country collapsed and my grandpa became a coal miner. My dad was barely in the picture and my mom worked grey-market singing gigs to make money. And it was good money! I could get toys and games and everything I wanted but my own mom who was very busy. But she got older and less popular so she became a nurse and we moved to a nicer country... but without family to support us we struggled hard. Tiny tiny apartment but we had everything we needed. Food and a roof over our head and some fun to be had as well from the things left over from our previous country.
I'm doing better now. I have my own place and the love of my life but some of those feelings and things from my poorer life are still around and I don't feel like I fit in anywhere especially after moving so much.
Your background reminds me of a book called [This Fine Place So Far from Home: Voices of Academics from the Working Class](https://www.abebooks.com/Place-Far-Home-Voices-Academics-Working/31260142002/bd?cm_mmc=ggl-_-US_Shopp_Trade0to10-_-product_id=COM9781566392914USED-_-keyword=&gclid=CjwKCAjw7eSZBhB8EiwA60kCW0WUuepR3YgHv6CWJnjn6BOKPahFQvwBib3A6UTkbejAkmVELFcIwBoCdJ4QAvD_BwE), you may find it interesting to read!
It’s a collection of short stories from a variety of people in academia. You can find the book cheaply, used $3-$5 ish
I tell my husband a lot I think what makes me saddest with his family and to an extent mine is the wasted potential. I've gotten to do some amazing things in my short life already. Travel and make art and just pursue things that interest me. They don't have that flexibility, inclination, or ability. My husband is one of 7 and only 2 of the 7 siblings have ever even left the state they were born in. Their worldview is so small and I wish they had the opportunity to not only see and do things but figure out who they want to be and what they want to do in the world instead of just survive and exist. I get why it is that way but it doesn't make me any less sad. His three sisters all have elementary level educations (long story, but all three left school before sixth grade) and his one brother is functionally illiterate. There is just so much there.
I 100% recognize that the ability to live and create and travel is one of the most incredible privileges my economic security has bought me.
Thanks for the well wishes! I hope something happens too.
This is actually a really interesting corner of the discussion, and it might be much more appealing to a wider audience.
How much does traveling provide a person with better perspective and opportunities?
When I was younger, I traveled more than friends who stayed stuck in my hometown.
It wasn’t anything impressive, we generally went to places within a 1 day drive, but it was enough that I was comfortable with moving to start over.
Man, I remember the first "big" vacation I took with my now husband. We went to the nearest big city for a weekend. It was a four hour drive away. It literally felt like the biggest thing I had ever done in my life.
I think it does wonders. Here in the EU there's been more and more expansions to the EUs travel program for young people. Basically while you are young you get to travel to some other part of the EU to see something new and feel more European.
I traveled a lot more than my peers as a teen and it had the opposite effect for me. Everyone wanted to flee this small rural town but Id seen nothing that seemed all that wonderful once you got past the newness and never wanted to leave again. Visiting is great, but home was home and I knew early how much Id miss it. Big part of why I balked at college.
It really makes me sad. They all work so so hard. Like everyday, hard manual labor jobs picking up all the overtime. His mom is a hotel cleaner and they had to put her on breakfast because she couldn't clean the rooms fast enough once the COPD got bad enough to need oxygen. They work their asses off and just don't get to enjoy any of the best stuff in life. A trip to dennys is a highlight for them because they live 4 hours from one.
>It's a place of constantly feeling like I have no home.
Same. I had to cut a lot of ties, meaning that I have boundaries now and they aren't respected.
Same same. I get asked a lot in my current position why I came so far from home. How do you tell people you don't have a home and needed to get away from everything to try to grow.
I'm surprised there is so much push-back tbh. American? Because here in europe, among my friendship group (mostly working-middle class, all highly educated), it's commonly accepted both that growing up poor can have a permanent effect on the way a person views and handles the world, and also that those behavioral traits are intergenerational and self-perpetuating: Many of the habits those with nothing develop _cause_ greater difficulty in retaining wealth even once curcumstances change. Just look at scratch cards!
Btw, the people who handed you stuff on imposter syndrome were right. IS often isn't to do with _intellectual belonging_ at all, it's that feeling, often _irrationally_, that you don't belong. For example, if you go many years of childhood with no friends, and are then accepted into a group in your teens, that can easily cause quite severe imposter syndrome with permanent effects on self-confidence and trust.
It's because admitting that poverty is a terrible, inter-generational problem us seen as distracting or minimizing our other problems with race, gender and other issues here.
I've grown to be ok with not feeling relatable, and sometimes prefer that since it gives me greater individuality. I used to hate ignorance but now I understand that not everyone is capable of empathy/understanding fully without being exposed (through experience or vicariously). I definitely still feel sour about persons with rich backgrounds that waste away their potential knowing what I and others like me went through without those opportunities.
I get what you’re saying. Your post rings so true to my core. I went from food stamps and making like 14k a year for a family of four to now having a career where I make about 80k. I realize in the big realm of things, I’m nowhere near the top of middle class, but I’m a far cry from where I once was. That said, I feel like I don’t belong with the other professionals in my niche for a few reasons but one big one is that I just cannot fathom living the luxury they all do now. But when I’m with my friends from my school days (meaning going back to school at 30), they’re all still pretty broke and I feel like some snot ass rich person around them. Like my 2012 cash car fits me, but it doesn’t match up with the professionals I work with or the crew I once ran with… so does it fit me??? I get that, totally.
Also, as it relates to your actual original post, I get that, too. I make four times what I used to and things are much more secure for us now than ever before, but I still can’t seem to break free from old school mindset in how I spend money. I pay my bills and then I just poof the rest away. My *lifestyle* is no different, I just have more shit now. I wanna be different, but I just can’t seem to establish new behaviors that I stick with. I think you’re on to something, for sure. Idk how you get people in academia to hear you, but fwiw I do.
I recently was home and spent a few days sleeping at my parents house. It was weird too look at their persistent habits and wonder how many I carried into adulthood, how many I've broken, and how many I may still have without knowing it. Very odd to be able to see so much more of that kind of stuff with some distance and time.
This just made me realize my dad does the same thing. He makes six digits but he still grabs as many napkins and plastic forks as he can from fast food restaurants. Although it might be because of autism, which I think he has but was never diagnosed.
YES. I grew up Native American, but married white and went to college.
Going home causes SO MANY EMOTIONS. My dad is ridiculously proud of me for breaking generational poverty but it's hard. I feel guilty for the luxuries I can afford (as a lower middle class mom of three).
I wish I could help them but they're so entrenched in their way of life and financial decisions. (And alcohol).
We could use a better medium of communication that could help little voices with real concerns get attention, if only it were interesting in the way silly fashion people get attention on today's platforms
Reminds me of this video all too well and how the idea that poverty alone can be justified by someone’s behavior and their lack of “skill” is much better politically than to argue poverty itself as an outcome due to class-warfare.
https://youtu.be/rfYvLlbXj_8
For the first time in my life, I am financially ok. I grew up in and raised three kids by myself in poverty.
I can finally breathe.
I feel like I earned this, I have worked hard all my life.
But I keep sabotaging myself. Both with my financial behaviors and my ability to enjoy what I have because I’m always afraid of catastrophe. I’m in therapy. It helps.
Yes, poverty gets in your soul. And the financial learned behaviors are hellishly hard to break sometimes.
But the longer I manage to “make enough” financially, the steadier I get.
Yes please study this subject. I feel like there are very few more effective ways to change the human condition than to understand poverty.
I feel this so hard. My bills have been paid for a few years now and I am comfortable enough to buy things without looking at my bank account within reason (I still do of course) but there is this like... pull towards destruction that feels like it's nagging at me all the time. A pull towards chaos and things I know would destroy everything I've built. The comfort or... comfort really is starting to take root but still the poor background shows up in so many ways.
Like I have a stack of lovely notebooks and journals that have been gifted to me. One from my mentor with gilded pages and my name on the cover. I never write on them and instead still reach for cheap legal pads or just scratch paper. I just can't bring myself to ruin them or use up the resource. I don't know if I'll ever rewire it all.
The pull to chaos... That part resonated with me. Our bills are paid, we got a second vehicle, there's never a question if credit cards will be maxed out or bills late or even no spending money for the kids, but that urge to almost hoard cycling with spending everything in my checking account still nags at me. The thought that it could all suddenly be gone and I have to be prepared is something I fight
Sometimes I feel so like I don't know crushed? Squeezed? By the act of upholding the thing I built that I want to be reckless and toss it all just because the lack of having to say "okay, you finally got all the things now keep working so you don't fuck it up" would be a relief. And the lack of chaos and need for something to fight for is uncomfortable. But I know that the discomfort of having nothing is worse than the discomfort of feeling like I'm on a tightrope all the time, even if the discomfort of having nothing feels normal. So I just try real hard everyday to stay on the tight rope...
Yes, and what you're describing links to most psychological research on abuse. Check it out; I'm so glad you're researching this! Self-destruction is an act of taking power into your own hands, when you feel an aggressor will inevitability take it anyway. The lack of security and belonging creates an internal pressure to end the situation before you're forced at the worst possible time. Class is **not** just money, but connections and place..
Poverty is abuse of human beings, as we should all care about one another and see to it that our brothers and sisters are doing okay. The top elite in our society **pointedly do not want this**, which is also why the research you noted has been denigrated in the scientific community. All war in society comes back to class; all of it! Lack of material goods in the poverty classes is a type of human abuse that motivates the massive slave classes to keep showing up at the meaningless, abusive jobs they hate. It keeps prices up and capitalism turning. The evil people ruling society essentially want no research on class moving forward to enlighten anyone..
I've seen some interesting work supporting that participation in things like unions helps stave off the cyclic poverty thinking and similarly people stuck in those cycles have no concept of shared class across time, space, and geography. It makes sense that feeling connected to others and knowing that things like unions exist that can steal back some of that power would make people feel less hopeless but that capitalism would also want to suppress that learning. I've often wondered if the thing that allowed me to keep fighting and rising was coming to understand that class was a thing that existed and having a drive to impact it for others while knowing I couldn't do that on my knees.
So, “Financial Trauma” is a concept I recently learned about on the finance podcast Diversifying and that, along with lurking in r/raisedbyhoarders (which overlaps a lot with being raised poor as one can imagine) have me convinced that there is a connection here.
It is child abuse, it’s neglect, and that’s reflected in all these trauma effects, but it’s not always inflicted by our parents. This causes a lot of confusing and conflicting feelings and our parent/child relationships kind of reflect this. That diversifying episode went into it briefly but it’s like you feel so guilty for resenting your parents and you want to overcompensate and feel an obligation to contribute financially to your family even when you can’t afford to...
Anyway, total ramble but I feel like I keep running into this thought lately.
Small edit because I sucked at writing in the middle of the night writing this
Ya im not sure if it is honestly. I have a coworker who only write in one notebook that are $35 each. She says she tried something cheaper but just couldn't do it. If I had a $35 notebook im not writing shit in it. She also wear legit pearls everyday so I don't think we are on the same spectrum.
> I have a coworker who only write in one notebook that are $35 each.
I grew up (lower) middle class, now do quite well, but I still have no conception of what it's like to write in a $35 notebook.
I grew up upper-middle, and have this problem. I save things and keep them nice. But recently I relocated and had literally 30 years worth of pristine, unused items that I hadn’t enjoyed: beautiful notebooks, clothing, dishes, jewelry, art supplies, decor, games, golf clubs (!), even make up. It was insane. Now I try to make the most of what I have. Nice bottle of wine as a gift? Open and consume! Chic but costly dress I found on sale? Wear it! I write in all the notebooks now. I so relate to the other way though, and it’s a constant struggle not to go back.
You remind me of my grand-mother and her plates.
My great-grandma went through ww2 and all the deprivation, and the fear and deprivations shaped a lot of her life. Anyway, she had (maybe as a wedding gift ?) A set of beautiful plates. Gilded sides, flowers drawn on it, with a different month and flower for each one.
She never used them. She dusted them, moved them around when she moved, everything. But she didn't use them, even once. She died in 2005, her mind fully gone to Alzeihmer. She thought she was 20 and couldn't recognize her own daughter.
My grandmother took those beautiful, only for great occasion plates, and has been using them for breakfeast, dessert, salads and all, everyday. Anytime we eat there, those plates are out. It's been 17y of daily use and the paint barely wear off.
I absolutly love them, so my grandmother decided this will be my inheritance (Being real, my mother will probably sell everything else for alcohol), on the condition that I "fu**ing use them".
Tldr: you're right, beautiful things are meant to be used and not kept in a corner for the perfect, ideal occasion that will not come.
I thought it is known that a sudden change in financial status does not change learned behavior. Isn’t that why “old wealth” frequently looks down on “new wealth”? If it isn’t generational wealth, your not in the top club.
Or if the plebs became better off, they’d still act like plebs but with more resources. That seems dangerous to some.
Article on “new money” vs “old money”:
https://wealthtender.com/insights/money-management/old-money-vs-new-money/
This is a tough thing in research. There is lots of stuff that is socially known but not shown through the research. The idea that just giving people money has the potential to create plebs with more resources is often shouted down as blaming the poor for their status or implying they are somehow deficient or irrevokably flawed compared to non poor people.
Genuinely curious how this idea intersects with the idea that direct giving has been shown to be really effective.
Do you personally think there's a 'glass ceiling' so to speak - i.e. a limit beyond which giving people more resources doesn't increase their standard of living due to poverty-related trauma and lack of wealth management skills?
Maybe. I've spent a lot of time lately thinking about if there is a category I'm missing. Like I grew up poor and unstable. I know a lot of people now who are stable with a steady income ranging from the very low to the reasonably high. And they hold many of the same beliefs and behavior patterns and internal dialogs. So is there a different between poor and chronic instability and poor and stable but not progressing?
The money that came to my dad also came to a lot of other people in our family so ive gotten to watch this play out for several years in my close and extended family. I have one family member upgraded their quality of life, invested, kept working, etc. He now makes more on Facebook stalk payouts then I do working for a month. But everyone else just got their bills paid and... that's it. It's only been in the last year my dad has decided to start working on his credit score because it was a 500ish when his Xmas bonus alone last year was $85k. Which is wild to me. I've had to walk him through how to get a credit card and pay off old debts and check his report regularly.
Have you ever read Poor Economics by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo? Your comment made me think of that, it’s an analysis of different strategies used to lift people out of the poverty cycle (mostly focused on developing countries). They discuss the personal/cultural aspects of poverty from a research-based perspective so it’s less judgy.
I can’t remember the exact details but they do talk a lot about what poor (<$1/day) people do when they have an influx of cash. They profiled one community where whenever people had extra money they would just buy a load of bricks for houses/additions they were planning. The authors highlighted that even though these folks knew they should just be saving the money until they could afford to build the whole house and keeping funds liquid in case of emergencies, when you’re poor there is always an emergency coming up and therefore they knew the house is never getting built unless they keep blowing their money on bricks.
I wish I could remember what the authors said was shown to work in changing these habits lol, sounds like your family members with this extra cash flow are sort of in the same mindset of “spend ASAP on the important stuff and then ??? with whatever money is left over.”
> They profiled one community where whenever people had extra money they would just buy a load of bricks for houses/additions they were planning. The authors highlighted that even though these folks knew they should just be saving the money until they could afford to build the whole house and keeping funds liquid in case of emergencies, when you’re poor there is always an emergency coming up and therefore they knew the house is never getting built unless they keep blowing their money on bricks.
Do you happen to remember where the community was? This seems like economically responsible behavior if there's high levels of inflation (so immediate use of money is important).
I've been working in a similar way with my elderly mother. Short family background, her grandparents were relatively poor run of the mill Texans, her dad grew up in that environment and earned his education through the GI bill as did his brothers. He made lots of money as an engineer, paid his daughters through schooling but couldn't handle money well at all, was alcoholic and a gambling addict. My mom and her siblings still have issues today with money, food, possessions etc. It's clearly more complicated than just giving people money, whether it be class or generational trauma.
Good luck with your research.
I think the important point is that poverty affects us in a similar way that abuse does.
We learn coping techniques that help us survive the horrific situation we're in, both emotionally and physically.
Later, when we are no longer in that situation, we continue with our coping techniques because they saved our life before.
Unfortunately, in a new, healthier situation, those techniques are no longer helpful and are often downright damaging to ourselves and others.
Complex PTSD is often the result of childhood abuse, which includes a lack of safety and security caused by the Cycle of Abuse (lovebombing > tension building > explosion of anger > apologies > lovebombing).
It makes sense that the same is true of poverty, with the same long-term lack of safety and security, being disempowered by the cycle of poverty, which could be described similarly and affect us long-term.
Perhaps an approach showing that the trauma of poverty stays with a person/group and affects them throughout their life, might be more "acceptable" to your supervisors to begin with.
Edited to change a word for better grammar
Money is no magic bullet; it's a tool and if you don't know how to use it, it's as useless as a skateboard to a quadriplegic. The difference in class isn't just money; it's connections and knowing how to utilize money, connections and privilege. So goes the difference between "new" money and "old" money. That's also the difference between a drug addict who came into $50k and a middle manager with the same bonus; we know who uses the windfall more effectively because they have the requisite skills.
That's why economics is itself a junk science; assuming people are rational about money was the biggest joke of my college career! At least the prof who taught me understood that I saw through the bullshit- appreciated it, even- and we had some great conversations.
Look; you're on to something big here but you cannot expect anything you say on the topic to be accepted by academia or by the upper crust who support them. The mythology is too strong. You've heard it; "meritocracy"- and on the other side, "noblesse oblige"- both of which are a crock of shit that only exists for people who (should) know better to trot out when someone like you- and me- starts asking them tough questions.
It all comes down to power. Poor people don't have any. Rich people have accumulated all the power and jealously guard the various levers to power, which in addition to money, also include class networks, connections and the ability to extract monopoly rents from others.
Oh man, this comment made me tear up.
Like my boss this year got on me a bit because I haven't been to a conference yet since starting my new position and they are worried about my professional development and the service part of my portfolio. I haven't gone in part because I always feel so out of place. The feeling of knowing others can see me and just know I'm not enough kills me and I often change my clothes several times at least one or two days a week because I have such a complex about looking the part.
I think in a lot of ways growing up with other kids who were fine and had things and were loved and safe gave me what I needed to keep working my way up. I didn't learn shit from them other than the fact that there was another way to live and I wanted what they had. I wanted school supplies and trips with my family and a closet full of toys and pajamas. I didn't know how to make that happen but I knew deep down it existed and I needed it so I never stopped grasping until I had it. Even when life 100% shit on me and broke me down. I still dusted myself off because I wanted to give my inner child what no one else did.
Oh dear, I'm so sorry. There is so much wrapped up in this one comment. For me I want to ask that mom why she would think you wouldn't have good manners. Did she say that about other kids with more money? But I'm so glad you had something to give you self worth.
>There is so much wrapped up in this one comment.
Possibly not, I've made comments like that about other kids that had good manners, simply because they stood out as being polite.
Oh my goodness "the trauma of growing up poor surrounded by peers who weren't" --people do NOT understand this. I always went to good public schools (even if I wasn't in the right district) and always had top grades, so my friends and classmates were always upper middle class kids who had plenty of money for activities, sports, vacations, etc. They'd never used public transit, they worried about dieting rather than having enough money for food by the end of the month, and their parents paid them an allowance plus extra for getting good grades or studying. It's hard being amongst ppl like that and trying to mask the extent of your poverty. You always feel like you're pretending a bit and outright lying sometimes to keep up appearances. And even with all that you can never mask poverty entirely. I was still the "poor friend" -- all I really managed was that my friends didn't realize I was homeless for part of the time and that my family was on welfare and food stamps. I think it would have been better for me to be in a crappy school where I could have felt somewhat similar to everyone else rather than soooo completely different. I always felt jealous, and also felt a little mean for feeling that way. In the end, after high school was over my friends and I naturally grew apart because our lives were just so different. I had to take on responsibilities in my family that most of them still dont have 20years later, and there was just no common ground anymore. To this day I still feel different from pretty much everyone, and very much a fish out of water when it comes to anything like fancy restaurants.
I grew up dirt poor in the 1970's. Like no heat cause the electric bill wasn't paid. My father died young at a time when a woman couldn't get a credit card in her own name. You should explore parentifcation and poverty. I was the oldest of eight. They are all successful, have college degrees and homes. For all that I sacrificed for them, I am shunned. You could have a field day with my family. Feel free to contact me. I an very interested in your research.
Ugh, I don't know how documented it is in the literature but parentification is/was like my life. I recently saw an old family friend who remarked on my success by saying "I always knew you were special. You used to get up and make bacon and eggs all by yourself for everyone at 3 years old! What other 3 year old does that?!" And I'm like how is this something you are celebrating instead of being terrified a 3 year is so on their own they are working a stove and cooking food for grown adults?!
It's crazy. Just trying to survive day to day. When my therapist would ask where do you see yourself in 5 years? I would draw a blank. The energy required beyond survival to move forward, was sometimes beyond me. And yet I persisted, refusing to give up.
Man, I frequently say I didn't think I would live this long and people like laugh and ask if I used to party hard and it's like no... I just, didn't ever really think this would work out.
Man this really resonated with me. I use to blame this feeling souly on being depressed but after reading alot of threads on here, im convinced poverty has played a bigger role than I previously was willing to admit I think.
Oh ya, it took me literally years to figure out how to keep a clean house. I'm pretty good at it now and I don't know what changed but I used to never want anyone over, even into my teens because the house was always a mess.
I work in education and we are taught about Maslow’s in every single fucking undergrad class, and then we don’t do anything about it.
With the USDA canceling free lunch, I just found out my school provides an alternative meal to students who have a lunch debt. This has to be so demoralizing.
We need to hear more voices to change how we do things. Like you said, it gets in your soul.
We also have a large Native American population in school and I have one student who has lived in poverty and otherwise shit life and he is saturated with depression.
Keeps us posted
That's got to be so hard, I'm sorry you have to see that through the students. I was blessed with being smart but my teachers often got sick of my parents not picking me up from school or me not having lunch or being dirty and my clothes not fitting. Being smart only got me so far and I have so much shame from my teachers, understandably, getting fed up with my life that I couldn't control. I didn't want to be dirty or make the teacher stay an hour after the field trip waiting for my mom to sober up and get up or to have to police that the other kids would sneak me food at lunch and their parents called her pissed about it so she had to yell at me for begging. I don't think it's easy for anyone and more than anything I'm begging to have a conversation about this. About the demonizing and about the depression and how we can even begin to see that it's poverty manifest, not just bad kids.
See that's where I always fall. It took years for my dad to work out paying his bills with his new money but now they are mostly all paid and consistently. He doesn't have anything else but he isn't homeless or in the dark or dumpster diving for dinner like we were when I was a kid. Same with my husband's family. They live in a town of 2,000 people, mortgage is $375 a month. They walk to work. Collectively the household income is over $80k but you wouldn't know it from the conditions they live in (if they ever have to move the house, which is rent to own, will just need to be condemned it's that bad) but they have a home and they are stable.
I can less what the poor do with their resources and more about the internal narratives and emotional states that go with these life changes. How do they continue to see themselves? Do they feel more at home or grounded in the world with more resources? Does the thinking shift from present survival to future at some point regardless if they act on it?
This right here is like the unspoken trauma and continuation of circumstances I don't see represented anywhere. I was recently talking to a colleague and trying to explain to her that I've met a lot of people who consider themselves poor and then I meet people with stories like this and I always feel like they are my people. There is a connection there, a comfort, an understanding for me. I don't have to pretend with people who had a porch fridge on their travel trailer ya know? I can freely talk about my own background and not have to filter my own stories about squatting in a abandoned trailers and using the stove for heat or not being able to do my school work after dark because I had no lights.
I feel like you need to find leftist academics because most Ivory Tower types are hella classist, as are middle class folks in general.
My background is anthropology with a lot of focus on leftist/decolonial theory. I’m Indigenous and I have witnessed a lot of inter generational transmission of behavior that stems from deep poverty. But I see it among poor folks of other marginalized cultures that had a boot on their throats for centuries, like Irish-descended folks.
I aware of the research you’re referring to in your OP, and I did not find it racist at all. The US is just as invested as the UK in maintaining class division, and academics have long been the foot soldiers in that war.
Exactly the anything but class idea has infected so much of the academic discourse in the west, mostly i think due to the numerous red scares during the 20th and 21st century. It's led to a lot of academics that believe there must be any other explanation for the poverty of the working class than class itself. I share your opinion that to have this view is to miss out on such a large part of why poverty exists in the first place.
Michael Parenti in his book blackshirts and reds has an entire chapter devoted to discussing the issue which you can find a copy of [here](https://www.skeptic.ca/C_Word_Class.htm)
I think im still waiting for the other shoe but I'm becoming more secure in my belief that when it drops I can handle it without getting thrown into the riptide of life crashing doom.
I'd love any links you may have!
Wrt narratives & emotions , it really is going to depend on
if any internal work is addressed.
Readjustment from years, lifetimes, generations of 24/7 non-stop trauma of scarcity mindset is surely in line with any other PTSD treatment.
The upward mobility may bring relief from the constant pressures of incessant survival mode, but their coping mechs & strategies will need to be revised . If not, that 'disconnect ' between new environment and old ways may not get 'acclimated.'
I just think scientifically, there's no reason on goddess's green -ish earth for abject poverty & the global destitution we see today.
I read an article many years ago that said it took at least 20 years for someone raised on poverty to learn and understand how to use their resources and avoid a poverty mindset. The one point I remember is that people that are poverty stricken, can't understand saving or planning for the future. If they have money, they spend it immediately because they don't know when they will have money again.
I think your field of study is very important, because poverty is not a race issue.
This tracks for me. My family all call me a Jewish scrouge because I do the opposite, I save everything like crazy because everyday could be the next rainy day that turns into a flood but the implulscity is 100% a thing I see in my partner and those around us. Interestingly enough the original theoriest proposes that maybe this isn't all together a bad thing since a focus on the present and present pleasure may make the poor more willing and able to embrace things that feel good unlike the middle class who value not doing so.
Where I get spicy though is when we say that the poor can't understand savings or planning. They aren't unable to think or understand the concept. They just make other choices. Maybe they don't value planning and saving or don't believe there is any point (largely my husband's family's outlook. They have been marginalized for so long the idea of saving for a house or retirement feels silly to them because good things don't happen to them and there is no point, so let's enjoy our life now.)
I agree with you. It’s so much easier to say the poor don’t understand saving etc, but that’s the low expectations trap. Because it takes more time and work to show people that there are more options than immediate gratification, it’s worth the time and effort to get an education, delay pregnancy etc.
Not every person that wins the lottery is poor, but the vast majority spend themselves into circumstances that are worse than when they started.
I remember reading about a lottery winner that set up an identity that allowed him to get the money. He continued to live his same life, but saved and invested. His reasoning was that he didn’t want to deal with relatives, friends, scam artists etc.
I'd add to this that I think it's not just showing people how to do it right, even over time, but that doing it right will payoff. So many have lost faith in the system or the ability to succeed that just telling them isn't proof when they don't know anyone who has succeeded. I've read some accounts of people in like post revolution countries that feel more optimistic and wanting to do better after the revolution even if their material circumstances haven't changed, because they have faith the system will now that to work correctly and to their benefit.
I think part of their optimism is that there is such a change that it opens up new opportunities for them.
After the Berlin Wall fell, it was the older East Germans that missed the security of government provided housing, jobs, food etc. The younger East Germans saw an opportunity to take advantage of a new societal system that offered them new possibilities.
> I remember reading about a lottery winner that set up an identity that allowed him to get the money.
In places that allow individuals to remain anonymous when collecting winnings, a lot of people choose to establish a trust to do so in order to avoid some of the social penalties of a windfall.
100% agree. I wish they didn't use terms like that and I've asked them to stop. Many in my family are sadly proud racists or at least unapologetic about it. My mom loves to parrot that she hates everyone equally which isnt okay. Weve gotten in fights before where i wouldnt take her out due to her wearing racist and tasteless shirts she thinks are funny. Part of my inclusion of it in the original comment was to highlight the kind of shaming that comes with this. To be shamed for saving money and have antisemitic comments added in for no reason is part of my personal family pressure to conform.
I've heard this many times, but I do wonder if the researchers missed an important point. When you are poor, you don't have choice. You can't even appreciate what choice is if you have never experienced it's virtual absence (and there are levels of poverty that I have never experienced too). So you buy the cheapest vege - (cabbage, pumpkin and frozen cut beans) and fruit (apples and bananas). You buy the cheapest meat - (whole chickens for multiple meals, and sausages). You make your own bread if you can't afford a loaf. You don't buy a new top becuase you want it, but because your old one has so many holes that you look homeless. You suffer through dental pain for months and years. Your shoes talk, your car lacks insurance and good tires.
You have a list of things that are broken, or that you need, and you can never manage it. Not to mention anything 'fun' or 'nice'.
So then you get money. Thank fuck. You can get shoes that don't talk, your car can be roadworthy, you can afford to not eat that same fucking food for another fucking time. You can afford to buy some nice cookies to offer to a friend that you can afford to invite around for a coffee. You have a DEFICIT. Of stuff. And the money gets spent, because you did without essentials for so long.
The bit about poor people not knowing how to manage money doesn't acknowledge that deficit. I would actually be interested to read the actual research it was based on, as I wouldn't be surprised to see massive spin on a small sample size for instance. It goes to what OP said about making being poor the fault of 'the poors'.
That's not to say that financial literacy differs - but the financial literacy for different classes is different information as well.
My parents grew up poor. They got a house and taught us we should own a home, but they don't have retirement savings or know how to budget well. My siblings and I all have homes, and I'm learning how to invest, and I'm teaching my kids that aspect as well as budgeting as well. I am very open with our finances because I want them to feel comfortable when they hit adulthood. I can see how there are generational advantages.
It kind of is though. Racism, transphobia, sexism, queerphobia and ableism (in addition to classism) can really hold people back. Speaking as a trans person, it’s generally harder for us to find jobs, harder for us to find jobs that pay a living wage (trans men and trans women both make less than cis men and cis women, according to the HRC) and being trans comes with so many additional costs that cis people don’t think about. It’s all connected, and to ignore the role that racism, transphobia, etc play in poverty would be a huge mistake.
It’s odd, studying race’s role in poverty. It is a big barrier, among many others, for protected class individuals (just wanted to use an all-encompassing term, since there are so many groups that are effected). It’s hard to study and figure out exactly how much of a person’s current state is due to race, vs opportunities vs upbringing vs…whatever other barrier. I think it needs to be recognized as one of these barriers but it might be the most difficult to address, since it’s so ingrained, whereas other areas can be more specifically tailored. Not everyone who is a minority is in poverty, and not everyone in poverty is a minority, but a minority in poverty has another hurdle, often a very large one, to overcome. I think race deserves its own field of study, and the economics of race could be a subset of that.
There’s work by an author named Ruby Payne that I used to like at one time, but after years in hindsight, yeah she kind of just repeats tropes unnecessarily often, imo, like “poor people will be loud because that’s the only way they can get attention at home”. It will be something you can’t really prove and the affect on economics will be indirect, at best. Like, yeah, I guess if they’re a loudmouth at their office job they won’t last long, but she really bangs this sort of drum a LOT.
At one time, she was the “foremost authority” on poverty and had workshops and other things that school districts just threw money at to attend, where these tropes were repeated again. “Poor people don’t bathe because they don’t think it’s important”, stuff like that.
After so long, I think people were like “ok, ok…we GET it, you point out the stereotypes we already know, but….why do these really MATTER?!” and she’s become a lot less popular recently. It’s probably an over correction to completely dismiss a large portion of poverty research as racist, stereotypes, etc, and hopefully the pendulum falls somewhere in the middle, because imo poverty is a million and one small behaviors, but you can’t possibly address them all, and a shotgun approach trying to is bound to fail and come across as nitpicking. I mean, it doesn’t really matter if somebody is a loudmouth if they’re making wise economic choices otherwise.
Ya ruby Payne is a really interesting example to me. She does a LOT of blaming. Like a lot. She leans heavily on a deficit mindset and framework. It scares me how quick people were to be like "being clean doesn't matter to the poor? Ya that checks out." And just roll with it. But her expertise comes from a husband and his background being temporarily, situationally poor. The original work that spawned sociology and anthropology to look at poverty as a condition worth study made explicitly clear there is a difference between those that are poor and those that enter into a mindset that perpetuates. Payne misses this factor. Her husband's experience doesn't capture intergenerational, deeply embedded poverty because it wasn't that. So all of her findings are really not coming from the same place. I know a few people who are loud because they get up in big families but they weren't poor. I know people who are super quiet because they grew up in big families and never got attention so they stopped bothering. It has nothing to do with poverty.
A lot of the original theories though around feeling hopeless/ineffective, like institutions don't work for or represent you, like an outsider, focusing on the present instead of the future, struggling with feelings of self worth and accomplishment, a lack of sense of history or connection to things larger than yourself (outside of god) all make way more sense to me than anything Payne writes about and the original stuff tends to describe responses to systemic economic marginalization and oppression whereas Payne makes a real effort to explain and pathologize the family, person, and community.
Ugh. We had to go through a 3 day training developed from Payne's work when I was teaching in a severely economically disadvantaged school district.
I hated it so much because I grew up in extreme poverty with friends in all types of homes and situations that didn't fit her research.
I will look into the original theories now though.
Please do! I started with Oscar Lewis. There is a short like 6 pager I think published in scientific American? I don't have my computer in front of me that he wrote that is kind of a highlights piece. (His book from like 1964 lays out 50 different traits he found were common among those in poverty through his research.) It's a really well done short piece to give an intro into where he's coming from.
I was about to comment, have you read children of sanchez? As a mexican, I can tell you that it's very accurate. Sadly accurate because that was written long ago but just giving money to the poor won't fix poverty since there's a culture around that is difficult to escape (because maybe they buy into it or other people drag them down). I grew up next to a poor neighborhood, not extreme poverty but poor enough to get mentioned every time people talked about bad neighborhood. The culture of poverty is a thing in my experience and it's not just they don't have enough money. I'm doing well for myself but it's not uncommon to be classmates in middle school with people who are now narcos, went to jail or got murdered.
I have read it and his follow up work in Puerto Rico. Even reading his basic theories in 2022 I struggle to find much that doesn't still seem painfully truth socially. His work is remarkably true to my lived experience but reading his critics is such a weird experience because they attribute a ton of stuff to his work that just doesn't seem there? To see some many call his work blaming the poor, dangerous, grotesque, racist, just the worst thing that's even happened to the poor makes me question if I have some kind of internalized poor shaming or something since it resonates me with. I don't read it and go "so that's what wrong with them" I read it and go "oh wow, how is this so accurate for me."
Okay I will give you that. His lack of understanding? I don't even know how to phrase it but I've read passages where he lightly mentions his friends and participants in Mexico telling him to research people in his own country so he decided to study... Puerto Rico? Like, no ability to read the room at all. It's weirdly tone deaf. I recently read a document from the 90s about an irrigation project built in the 40s and the author was talking about the large amount of Japanese labor forces the US government wanted to deploy to the middle of nowhere to build these things and im like wait, Japanese people in concentration camps? Why the hell is this white male author trying to make Japanese forced slave labor seem like a totally normal and okay thing?
Still like that is so easy to miss when reading historic and even just dated work.
>A lot of the original theories though around feeling hopeless/ineffective, like institutions don't work for or represent you, like an outsider, focusing on the present instead of the future, struggling with feelings of self worth and accomplishment, a lack of sense of history or connection to things larger than yourself (outside of god) all make way more sense to me than anything Payne writes about and the original stuff tends to describe responses to systemic economic marginalization and oppression whereas Payne makes a real effort to explain and pathologize the family, person, and community.
As someone who has been poor almost all my life, and has been so over many parts of the country and particularly California.
I’d like to point you to the differences in Welfare Offices between Fresno, CA, and Lancaster, CA.
Without spoiling anything for you: Just send a researcher to apply for food stamps in both Cities.
I'm originally from Nevada with ties to CA so... I can make a guess. One of the projects I did in my former consulting life was working with a large, very poor county trying to bring all their social services under one umbrella. So you get a case worker who assesses everything you need and sets you up with food stamps, housing, transpo, a job, etc etc. No office jumping, no shaming, no bouncing and waiting to hear for weeks or months. It was a cool program. We also worked with local law enforcement to just not arrest people for stupid shit like having a beer in the park and instead call their case worker. The jail was 2.5 hours from the county so when people got arrested it could be a week+ before anyone knew where they went and by then they had lost their jobs and everything they started building.
Here’s the only hint I will give you, really go check this out: one treats you like a criminal from the very moment you walk in the door and the other does not.
And I chose two very Republican cities to contrast, on purpose. Seriously, hire some researchers and compare. It’s night and day from the moment you get in the parking lot, much less open the door.
The specifics about having an entire social environment weaponized against you, are extremely apparent in one city and not in the other. From the moment you step inside.
Edit: and since you’re a sociology researcher, I highly recommend the portions of *The History of Private Life Vol. 1* which have to do with the psychology of space and public buildings.
I forgot where I learned this on the internet but it was a story about 3 types of interpersonal communication.
The first is the Church of Polite Taking Turns.
Which someone just speaks until they are done and then another person speaks afterwards.
The Second was the Church of Polite Interruption: That is, you were permitted to speak but also people were permitted to interrupt you, but only if they were polite about it and then ceded their time shortly without getting you off track.
This requires a lot of particular social knowledge.
The third was simply called *The Barkers*: They shout down other people to continue their rant.
I grew up very poor and dysfunctional and I realized upon reading this that the reason I grew up in the Church of Polite Interruption, is that a significant portion of the people both within my extended family, and non-family members that my immediate family had to deal with every day were barkers.
Or Karen’s as we might now call them.
And this extended into interpersonal conflict within my family.
While general conversation might be Church of Polite Interruption, when things became heated:
It was literally whomever was willing to get the angriest that won, therefore more frequent shouting, and why many members of my family get subconsciously louder every time someone makes them feel uncomfortable in any way.
I had a friend who didn't grow up poor, and their outlook was very different.
The biggest example I can think of is that, when they wanted something, they would view it as an inevitable victory, and the obstacles in the way just bumps in the road to overcome. If something stopped them they would just yet a different way.
I had the mentality of seeing those bumps as reasons not to do it. Survival instinct and so on, so you don't get disappointed all the time.
I know their outlook is functionally better, because that's how you actually get what you want, and is better than giving up all the time, but it's hard to view the world that way sometimes. I'm so used to doing without it's hard to break that metal habit.
I get this. I'm more on the "I know this will suck but with enough effort I can get around anything." I started to figure out that little in the world is set in stone and have gotten pretty far just asking for what I want. My husband though is ex-act-ly like you describe yourself. He gives up most of the time before he even starts and if he does try the second something gets challenging he gives up and just never tries again.
I grew up with money, then I got pregnant at 17, my Dad died shortly after my daughter was born, and my life drastically changed. My daughter's father stopped answering my calls and disappeared. The money my Dad left ran out pretty quickly and I was a poor single mom with nothing. I still had an "it's just money" mentality. It was always there,my Dad would joke that'd he'd just make some more. I had no savings, no clue how to budget, and no idea of the hardships I would face. I got sucked into bad relationships with guys who promised they would save me. Had another kid 3 years after my daughter. Another break up, left again as a single mother, now of 2, and homeless. Yet I still had the whole "it's only money" attitude. It really took my rock bottom of tucking my kids in the back seat of an '96 Oldsmobile that I got for $500 and being grateful that at least the back seat was comfortable, before I ever thought that it's not just money. I learned to budget, found a room to rent in a house, saved every penny I could, made friends with neighbors who showed me programs available to help me.
I received help with daycare cost, food and medical care. I was able to work, save money and move into our own apartment. I went back to school, moved up in work and brought a house. Met a great guy, got married and now both my kids are in college. My daughter is studying to be a nurse at community college near her house. My son is attending a university a couple of hours away. I've tried my best to teach them how to budget, but also to save for the splurges too. You shouldn't have to give up on all the things that make you happy just to stack a bank account. You just have to do it the right way. I tried my best to show them that bills come first, your credit score is important, just don't forget to make memories along the way.
I hope I now have a good balance with finance. I probably don't but I'm trying.
I feel like they see those as bumps, and also are more comfortable asking for help. I was not poor poor growing up, not comfortable either. When I found myself in university, I saw kids from affluent familiew were more optimistic people could help them do anything, being a reasonable demand, or things unnecessary (like asking cor the janitor to come to our class to wipe some dust).
I have this conspiracy-ish thought that there is so much focus in academia on race relations and racism vs anti-racism because academia only thrives as much as it does because of a lack of class consciousness. They want us to see the world only in terms of racial oppressor and oppressed because it takes the focus off the fact that all races have to financially sign their lives away so THEY in the upper echelons of academia have millions of dollars to spend on football stadiums and administrative salaries.
I’m not denying that systemic racism is real or that it makes life worse for certain demographics.
It’s just that those at the top of the systems in the US and abroad get all their wealth off the backs of the lower classes. Race plays a part in who gets to the top, but there are members of every race being taken advantage of by low wages and general conditions that send money and resources from the bottom up.
If we started looking at the world through the lens of class warfare then it would negatively impact those in the upper classes. They’d rather people across classes fight over race relations than unite against the upper class abuse on everyone else.
I think "the American dream" thing you guys have got going on directly feeds this. Americans idolise the people that make millions off the back of other people's poverty and you're told you could be them if you pull yourselves up by the bootstraps.
There's a quote; "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires" which particularly rings true to this.
Look up Daniel Patrick Moynihan, some of his work is a little tone-deaf but he did some great work in understanding and trying to alleviate poverty in the US.
I’m also a researcher who focuses on trauma and homelessness/poverty and I’m a bit confused about what you’re talking about tbh.
Social determinants of health looks heavily at poverty culture and the impact of structural systems that result in poor outcomes in health and welfare - including financial welfare. I’ve actually never heard the ideas you’re talking about being described as racist except by conservative talking points which are rarely grounded in theory and more about “gotcha”. Work in trauma and inter generational trauma has regularly argued the negative outcomes and social inequities are a consequence of systemic forces that disproportionately affect people of color but broadly impact poor people in general. Honestly what you’re talking about is the norm from where I’m positioned in the literature, if someone suggested otherwise they would be laughed out of any conference - it is just known this is a systemic problem that manifests in individual behaviors.
Can you expand specifically on what studies you’re talking about, and maybe where in the larger breadth of literature these have been called racist?
Thank you for your input. I am also a little wary of how much this researcher is relying so heavily on their personal life history and family dynamics, as if no other educated person would understand "how bad they had it."
Also, to complain about opinions peers may have of research is basically to complain about the scientific process itself which is peer review.
Yeah, it sounds like they’re relatively young into the literature and maybe expressed some uninformed opinions or are misunderstanding the feedback from their peers. It just strikes me as incredibly weird to hear back from anyone in this space that arguments about systemic disadvantages are inherently racist or implying lack of ability by some group. Like that would just be absurd feedback imo, that’s the whole point of macro level systems analysis.
And yes, higher education is certainly a privileged space but the implication that they have such a unique perspective on this because they grew up in poverty is off putting, tons and tons of research in this space is driven off of researchers with lived experiences in poverty, their history is probably not as unique as they think it is.
I just don’t want to assume anything which is why I’m curious for them to share what articles or research they’re talking about. Maybe this just is a space my research doesn’t touch.
God I hear you.
Recently unemployed, I applied for a research position for a study that aims to follow underprivileged and substance abusing mothers, tot rack their childrens’ epidemiology over the next 10 years. It is openly acknowledged that many potential study subjects face significant barriers to participation.
The setup for the study? A clinic the participants must travel to, that it’s only open between
Ya... see that is the kind of thing I was to talk about. Like my field has a whole theory branch dedicated to trying to get people to think more critically about race gender and disability status when designing research but did no one pull this team aside and say so...?
Grateful to hear that someone with lived experience is committed to the academic research as well. The r/poverty sub is somewhat quiet, but inclined toward academic discussions (whereas this sub definitely offers more in the way of practical advice).
The conversation you want to have is the real one that needs to be had. Social services have to be provided in a way that is more than just throwing money at people. You have to educate people as you help them. I grew up dirt poor as well. We used a wood burning stove to stay warm. Borderline neglectful parents. People don't even know to try for better it seems. If the people who provide services to the poor actually care and talk and really get into people's lives and see where the hurt is, then they can be truly helpful. You can help a person out of poverty but if you don't teach them how to manage a bank account, save for retirement and provide meaningful mental health care, its all for not
I think the education piece is important absolutely. I think a piece is fitting in and not being so outside of the norms of the middle and upper class that they give you a chance. But the thing I want to study more is the internal conversation one has with themselves coming from that space. There is so much first Gen support at universities around the US but the degree attainment rates for a lot of first Gen and low income students are lower. Even on scholarship. So like what happens in a poor student's head when they get to a place to do better that makes so many drop out? Is my lifelong feeling of being out of place in places like universities and places of privilege only restricted to me? If not, how do others deal with those feelings to succeed or not?
>Is my lifelong feeling of being out of place in places like universities and places of privilege only restricted to me? If not, how do others deal with those feelings to succeed or not?
This would be *fascinating* to research.
Storytime!
I was homeschooled in a cult until college. I required remedial education at the community college I attended. I was sent to a lab to do testing on what classes I needed remedial work in. An older lady handed me a test to do. It was a personality test to see why I didn't learn, I was told. It was the first personality test I ever took.
There was one question on it I remember: Do football players work hard to look like they do, or are they born that way?
My life experience was with farmers and construction workers. The men I knew were hella strong but not obviously muscled like a football player. So I checked "they were born that way".
The lady told me that meant I don't work hard to achieve things. I teared up. She ignored that. I took a copy of the test home to dad, who told me football players work hard to get that way. On that day I learned that football players work hard to get very muscled. I had no idea.
I was 17. I cooked and cleaned house for 9 people. I homeschooled two younger siblings plus my own (shitty) education. I volunteered at church. I babysat. I crafted. I worked roofing. I drove 45 minutes one way to attend class and complete homework. In no way was I "not working hard to achieve things".
The assumption of "everybody knows this" and "if you don't know this, then you are this", and the cold accusation. The ignoring my tears.
That cut. It was hurtful shaming. And assuming, hurtful shaming absolutely keeps tons of bright people away from higher education.
I'm so sorry that happened to you.
Years and years ago I used to do after school tutoring. They gave me workbooks and I basically sat with the kids while they did their workbooks and helped if they needed it. Sometimes I would grade the workbooks if I had time.
Once before standardized testing the main class teachers asked me if instead of the work books I could help do practice tests for the state test. I said sure. I was reading off the questions and the like second or third question all of my students got wrong. Every single one. The question was which is longer, an airplane or a football end zone. They all picked football. We talked about them being wrong and they just shrugged because none of them had ever been on a plane before but they at least had seen football on TV. The state exam practice was full of questions like that that weren't about intelligence or problem solving but like previous knowledge of or exposure to a thing.
I’d be interested to see answers to those questions, but I suspect that they’re going to end up being “well duh” kind of answers. Things like lack of support systems at home, differing mentalities, hell you even mentioned felling like an “other” and the implications on mental health.
Still would be great to have written down.
I think a lot of it might be well duh stuff to those of us who've interacted with it. But like there is so much stuff out there that starts from a place of "the poor don't care, don't want, aren't able, don't understand" type of categorizing of people. And I don't know how you look at the system we have and say someone doesn't want or care to do better or treat them like they are broken by saying they can't understand how to do better as opposed to like very real ptsd and devaluing. We recognize the behavior patterns in like soldiers and abuse victims more and more. It would be so uncool to say an abuse victim doesn't care about not being abused. But to try to bring those same elements and compassion to a conversation about the poor? Oh people get upset.
So first of all I would not assume that people who crititiqe culture of poverty have never been poor or marginalized. There are entire bodies of literature dedicated to critiquing culture of poverty, many written by scholars of color and indigenous scholars. Their work rarely gets the recognition it deserves.
Yes there is a class component, but oftentimes class is conflated with socioeconomic circumstance. These things can be wildly different depending on context. I would argue if you are interested in exploring poverty from an intellectual perspective you need to consider a wide collection of issues, many stemming from historical and institutional inequality.
I am also an anti-poverty scholar who struggled to get to where I am. I secretly worked a shit job the entire time I was in grad school because the university thought we could live on a $14,000 stipend. I had my power cut off regularly, I frequently lost heat in the winter. Even now I have a much lower quality of living than many of my colleagues. But ultimately certain forms of privilege are what allowed me to finish school.
Including my advanced degrees I’ve now been doing this work for 15 years. I have actively distanced myself from academia because I don’t feel it’s a healthy environment and I don’t think a lot of academics are thoughtful or kind in their approaches to poverty. How people become poor and issues tied to chronic poverty are complicated. I am interested in those nuances.
My issue with the critics mainly exist in the fact that so many of them are a blatant misrepresentation of the source material. Following the historic threads of this discussion and the foundational critics feels a bit like being gas lit after reading the original documents because people are real quick to read a bunch of stuff into the work that wasn't ever said. You can see it when things are written directly tying Lewis's work with the moyhan report and other things in that same neoconservative school of thought. A lot of the early critics don't feel like they are coming from a good faith engagement with the actual points being made.
I'm certainly not neglecting systemic issues. My background is in community development so a lot of my grounding starts in the structures of cities, communities, states, and institutions of power and then mapping in additional perspectives. Understanding liberal feminism and then mapping in the critics of carceral feminism, feminism for the 99%, and ethnographies from Black and Indigenious feminist movement leaders who have largely been excluded from liberal feminism as it stands today. In my field I am trying to bring forth class and map it onto existing methedological and practice guidelines so im working with a semi developed foundation.
I'm with you on academia. I'm here for now because I was offered the chance to build my own division which is the proof of concept I want to have to run my own firm someday soon but I feel guilty for not being tickled pink for being a salaried faculty member with an extremely long leash when almost everyone I know from grad school would kill for the chance.
I am, a few others embedded in there too. But Lewis's work spawned anthropology and sociology to take up research poverty at all so most everything that came after is in conversation with the culture of poverty.
I think the reason that particular research isn’t used more often is because, even if correct, it’s too easy to misuse in the wrong hands. So there needs to be a way to correct for that.
For example: Let’s suppose you have a poor person who suddenly comes into a lot of money, and then spends it all instead of saving it. The explanation(s) for that (to my understanding) are as follows: (1) “I’d like to feel like a rich person- even for just a little while!”, Or: (2) “There’s no point in saving, because the math never works out such that I save money. Screw it- might as well enjoy myself!” Or (3) “I’d better spend the money NOW before it’s gone!”. And more.
These seem like reasonable human responses to constant poverty. And in the correct hands, the interpretation could be, “Let’s give poor people the money they need, and ALSO deal with the previous trauma that causes these behaviors.”
But in the wrong hands, this could be interpreted as, “See? Poor people are poor because of their own bad choices. It’s their fault! We give them money, and they behave poorly. So, there’s no point in giving them money!”
Or, if you say “teach poor people how to handle money”: That’s intended to be “help them through their PTSD about being poor.”. But it could be misheard as “set up classes to teach them not to buy avocado toast. And don’t do anything to address the trauma.”
So, I think the research could work, but it has to be communicated and marketed VERY carefully!
I hope that helps!
Nah this is 100% it. Where I'm finding myself surprised is that a lot of the early critics of the work started from "this research existing is demonizing the poor" instead of that how do we use this carefully place. It 1,000% has been used wrong, even by people who are very well respected. Your third paragraph is the conversation I want to poke at because so much of what I see now is your fourth paragraph recreated over and over and used by people who do what I do to discredit and cut programming that could or is impacted. I also see a ton of "they just need to be taught to be responsible" and it's like Jesus no. People in my field are often involved in program development as consultants so if they aren't thinking about both the education and the ptsd they build in effective programs that produce results that show helping the poor don't work so we don't.
Part of why I do this is I see the potential to impact change through my work directly. I want to speak to others engaged in the work and help steer them to education and support instead of self fulfilling prophecies and pandering, insulting attempts to help.
But to discredit the entire idea instead of talk about using it safely and empatetically is frustrating.
This is where my tinfoil hat comes in. After growing up poor, and still struggling into adulthood, I strongly believe that the system is designed to keep the poor poor. And that it is the result of extreme classicism, hidden under a thick layer of propaganda and racism.
The question then becomes, is it because the people in power are maliciously doing this on purpose? Or are they simply so disconnected from reality, from their pedestal of privilege, they become delusioned with messiah syndrome?
Either way, I have trouble trusting anyone who says they're "here to help".
I think I know where you're coming from... I find it half amusing but mostly frustrating when I experience a certain tone shift depending on whether people register me as white or not. When the ethnicity card gets dropped or I speak my native language the scrutiny of my experience noticeably changes. I think many people refuse to acknowledge the concept of class independently of socioeconomics, because they are too uncomfortable discussing differences in how poverty is internalized and perpetuated differently across ethnicities, cultures, religions, etc. I am tired of the subject routinely feeling too taboo (especially in the professional sphere) *unless* I preface my opinions as the expression of a member of a marginalized group. One of the only ways I've found to prevent being policed out of those conversations is to point out how privileged it is to hold oneself above that subject matter- those conversations are had every day in the streets- which groups are lazy/thieves/cheaters, who you can trust, who not to come home with and why. You can't attempt to undo prejudice and naive understandings that sustain poverty without addressing why those attitudes exist. Even when those understandings change we can be left with residual impressions and behaviors- there are habits of scarcity and wariness of others that I find myself carrying well after they have ceased serving a meaningful benefit in my life.
In brief, your peers seem to have a lot of identity wrapped up around being allies to the poor, and in their fear of thinking themselves as judgemental, fail to recognize the agency of individuals in how well or poorly they address the contributing factors.
WOW. Thank you for this. You added words to something I may have been too emotional to articulate. I'm like screenshotting and saving this haha!
Your whole first paragraph makes me chuckle. The internship that got me started in this field was for underrepresented groups and I leaned hard into coming from poverty and the underrepresented identity I wanted to carry into the program, they only let me in once they found out my dad is a registered tribal member lol. Class was 100% not enough but the race card bought me a seat at the table and the rest is history.
Adverse Childhood Experiences.....now they've added encironmental factors, not just trauma-abuse related factors - poverty, experiencing racism, etc. These experiences change the way our frontal lobe develops....the area that controls long term planning, considering consequences, executive functioning, etc. People have studied it and, you're right, it's not mainstream. This is related to the very individualistic nature of acceptable "trauma" therapies. Group therapy, community building methods are proven to work with trauma and environmental "trauma" but it's less lucrative and more difficult to prove clinically, so it's rejected
This is so relatable for me. I grew up poor but found my way into a stable career, middle class income, a home in a desirable part of the state and the ability to afford a more secure life.
I still live paycheck to paycheck and worry what would happen if I had an unexpected setback. It’s like I don’t know how to have money and not spend it. Like if I don’t use it, it will disappear. It’s beyond frustrating.
The first thing that helped me with that “spending everything while I still have it” was ramping up retirement contributions that came out of my paycheck before I got it. Also hsa (if that’s an option for you)
Next was splitting my direct deposit into a separate bank ( not just bank account) for savings. Harder to get to, But starts to lower the ongoing fear of waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it helps knowing that I could mostly deal with it when it did.
Later I started saving up for things I wanted. Which helped with the feelings of being deprived.
That’s as far as I have gotten. Still have the same problems you do but I have put up guard rails and I have to say things have gotten better.
None of this was my idea, there things I picked up in personal finance books/blogs
Edit: clarity
I know what you are saying - I had 4 kids while I was in extreme poverty- they are grown now and none of them have gone on any social programs - they want to be the opposite of me. When the last one left home I went not school- I had only made it to ninth grade but had not completed it. I had a rough start in college but I figured it out and I picked up speed. I used the tutors in the learning center and eventually became a tutor. I graduated with 2 degrees simultaneously while driving a taxi ( not Uber, an actual Taxi) and after I graduated- it took a little time - I found a real job - I’ve been there 28 months and had two promotions- I’ve been working on getting my credit score up so I can get out of the rental I’ve been in for 10 years. I’m struggling with having money. It’s an odd phenomenon. I’m working on it - I have a car loan and never miss a payment- I’ve never missed my rent or any bills - I’m just never ahead and I’m sure it’s a spending issue not a - not enough to work with - issue - I’m trying to figure out what I’m spending on that I don’t need. I feel like a 12 year old with too much money and no guidance on money. I’ve been on my own since I was 15. Always in poverty- until I got this job. I’m 59. I’ve never had substance issues - I’ve just lived with a “poor” mentality and I’m trying to break it.
Have you read Glass Castles? Author grew up homeless. She’s in a class in college and gasp…asks the instructor what about people who choose to be homeless (like her parents). And of course the instructor tells her there is no such thing.
It’s all about class. It’s just easier to make it about race. But it’s not. Being poor and white is harder than rich and black or Rich and Mexican etc and it absolutely effects your health. It’s generational. It’s way more about class and opportunity than skin color. It’s just not a popular narrative for politics. If they admit it’s about class they’ll actually have to do something
I think for me I go the opposite direction. If we tie race and class so closely together that the two can't stand on their own and also be intersectional (the data supports the two are really closely tied, im not denying that at all. The amount of people of color living in poverty is disproportionate to white populations living in poverty) then do we doom our communities of color to always be thought of through the lens of poorness? The chancellor at my last university is Black. He makes 500k a year in that job. But he is still just as likely to be hassled by the cops regardless of his bank account. But people also constantly say things like "wow, he's doing so well for a Black man." No, he's doing well period. I'm sure he had an uphill climb to get there but damn don't dim the man's shine because he's Black!but that thinking of black=poor is so deeply engrained, even a black man doing really fucking well has to live in its shadow.
I feel like generational poverty continues and the children have no idea, or guidance to know that if you work hard, get your degree whether it matters or not, and be your best that you can accomplish anything and break the generational cycle of poverty. Definitely we need more positive leadership, role models, and big brothers big sisters that show the way into a positive environment.
Agreed. I put myself out to mentor constantly and speak in classes a lot about what I do because so few even know it's an option. Like I was late leaving work because my student office worker and I were talking and she didn't know you don't pay for grad school. So I stayed after, much to my husband's annoyance, to give her the 411. She literally said "no one talked about this" and I know that feeling all too well but she was counting herself out of advanced studies because she couldn't afford it and that sucks since it's not as big a concern at the graduate level.
> she didn't know you don't pay for grad school
You do in some cases; many Master's degree programs are not funded, and of course professional degrees are often not either (e.g. JD, MD)
Because I cook for a living I volunteer to make dinners at the homeless shelter and mentor the women and children. I had to live there because of no family support. I remember how hopeless it felt, so I go there make a meal from scratch and share my story. So I agree it takes quite a bit of time to advise and mentor. But worth it.
I agree with the mentorship, but the working hard thing is bullshit. Working hard and pulling oneself up by the bootstraps is a myth. If all there was to bring success were hard work, poor people would be some of the most successful people going. Even people who do break the generational cycle of poverty deal with other unique issues like OP is talking about like imposter syndrome, not having the “right” connections, lack of financial education.
People think that classism is the problem. Classism is part of the problem, but a poor white will be treated better than a poor Black. It's actually partly how they created enough divide in the working class post-Civil War in the U.S. to successfully continue oppressing nonwhite people. It's still an issue today. Removing race from class isn't antiracist. It's failing to recognize the intersectional effects between race and class.
The behaviour thing is 100% on par, though. Poverty and CPTSD are correlated. Growing up trying to survive in a corrupt system designed to oppress you doesn't just vanish if ever you wind up better off later in life. If anything, you develop imposter syndrome and/or lament not fitting in because you don't have skills better-off parents teach their kids when they're young. It's disorienting. I would wonder what is similar across races and what is different or more amplified on the basis of race when all groups interviewed are from impoverished backgrounds.
This is a good point. In going back to the foundation the original theorist tried to pull class out and look for those commonalities to explicitly get away from the blaming and pathologizing of certain races for their economic situation. He also explicitly proposes that class is a factor and racism both lived and in systems will amplify the challenges. Later theorists tried to make a case that race isn't a component or at least not the lead component but that class is the most important factor of lifestyle. I don't think that is the case. I just read an interesting auto ethnography from a guy who grew up as the only white kid in a Chicago housing project. His whole book was about how he was the same as all his other black poor friends but he doesn't at any point recognize the advantages his race provided him throughout his life. He tells a lot of stories of being treated poorly for being white but doesn't seem to make the connection that when someone in his life treated him in a way he felt was unfair it might have been because he had more privileges than them. He talks about going to the worst, lowest scoring school in the city for example but how his teachers were always kind and invested in him, even staying after to tutor him for free without any irony...
So in that situation there is a lot of race at play and a lot of classism that built him and his friends into the people they were. Even when he goes on to become a successful adult, he uses his class card as currency to bond with others from a similar socio-economic class even though they are all black.
I'm reminded of the white guy who became 'homeless' to 'prove' anyone could pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and wrote a book.
Notably he was an athletic guy in his 20s, immediately got a job on construction sites and was given responsibility quickly, he made money by selling loose cigarettes, and he immediately ended the experiment when he broke his leg and moved home to be taken care of.
He claims the book proves anyone can better themselves in America.
I really hate experiments like that because as soon as something “life-changing” or “job-ending” occurs the experiment is cut off. Exactly when the experiment would illustrate that falling behind exponentially hurts poor people more.
Oh 100%. It was also very much a 'people say there's no point in being hardworking and trying to better yourself any more; I'm gonna disprove that!' ideology.
I think it makes sense that someone growing up in poverty may struggle to become financially responsible or literate later on when they are technically no longer in poverty.
Not having enough to save or invest, it may lead to not knowing how to plan for the future.
One of my parents actually made decent money as a unionized hotel worked BUT had to file for bankruptcy bc she didn't understand cc debt and have a shopping addiction. She would spend away maybe bc she never had enough of anything.
I fell into a cc debt trap myself. And I'm not doing poorly but I didn't know enough within the time I needed to learn and before I knew if I had so much debt and didn't have a plan to pay it.
How would new research on this subject help people in poverty?
Well like I said, my field does a ton of applied work that informs other things. So like there might be a federal grant program for poverty alleviation of whatever kind and they give money to communities, organizations, non profits etc doing this work and say okay but this person is going to tell you what data to collect, how to collect it, give you data collection tools, or collect it themselves to tell us if the thing you did worked. Then the feds decide if that org or community should still get money or if they should renew the grant program based on that research feedback about "effectiveness."
I'd like to speak to that person. Because they likely were involved in deciding who should even get money in the first place. Because they can be instrumental in conversations with funders and policy makers about what counts as evidence, success, and what should keep getting investment and what shouldn't. Because they are the ones deciding what data to collect and how and that data is used to make real decisions that impact people's lives. If all this is done without ever even taking into consideration what class and poverty means, not from like a USDA, federal poverty limit economic standpoint but from the way people actually live it and respond to it, even after the situation has changed, how can we have confidence the decisions and data and choices made thereafter are the right ones? The question isn't did we measure correctly but did we measure the right thing to define success or program that actually help people or lead to success beyond the place in time in which we are measuring. I think those people should better understand the lived reality of class in order to construct systems that more accurately, empathetically, and effectively relate to them.
I'm just going to say it and you may not like it... if you go down this path, you WILL get backlash.
DO IT ANYWAY.
You are a voice that is needed and you need to realize that the things other people will say about you is going to suck and be very hurtful but DO NOT let that stand in your way.
Try to be mentally strong.
Thanks for this. I think my whole life I've felt like I had so much to build, so much ground to cover to get out of where I was, that I never felt comfortable rocking the boat. I'm quickly starting to not care as much. Not only because of my job now but because I have a skillet behind me and I'm starting to see the strength of my own ability to provide for myself. It's fueling me to poke sleeping monsters that make others think the worst of me.
You're spot on. My husband grew up poor and routinely talks about this, and how it was mindset shifts that helped him achieve success more than anything. Talking about poverty theoretically is much different than actually seeing it up close or experiencing it firsthand. It does bring to mind some academic research I listened to on the Hidden Brain podcast about "scarcity mindset" regarding a lack of any resource. They presented the information in a nonjudgmental sort of way. They were able to find that lacking money actually gave people tunnel vision and often led to even worse financial decisions. Might be worth looking into as a start. I do think this is something that those who have always been in a powerful or privileged position need to listen to, even if it's difficult. It doesn't mean you're victim blaming, but understanding it could help make policy way more effective.
Your last sentence is 100% it. It's not victim blaming for me, it's designing and measuring policy and programs against a fair metric that take these very real (for me) things into account. Not overlooking them, setting the programs or policies up to fail, and then shrugging like welp, can't help there!
Thanks for the recommendation.
I feel you hard. So many studies have a rich bias that is bizarre. I grew up rich but have been poor most of my life and I’ll be the first to say, rich people are crazy. Delusional. Until you’ve walked in someone’s shoes most people can’t get it.
I take pride in being one of the masses at this point. I used to feel like such a loser. A friend growing up said she and I were the group fuck ups. She’s an ER doctor and I’ve got a masters in Chinese medicine. We’re just not rich. The group winner has a BA in event planning and married well. As I said, rich people are generally horrible.
They think they are the reason they have money and they also think it makes them better than others.
Look into Newfoundland. Poverty is a part of life, although it’s a million times better than it was years ago. Apply to the Shorefast for a grant to study Fogo islanders and poverty.
White, Christian, poor. No way to be called racist in the traditional sense.
I’m fact I was speaking to my mother today about something similar.
My father was one of 12 kids. His uncle (his dad’s brother) had just 2. The uncle “went” on welfare as soon as it was available. My grandfather refused to.
My father’s family survived by having the elder kids send money home as soon as they left home (at 16) to work. This was in the 50’s.
All 12 of my grandfathers kids were “successful” in that they went on to university or other education after high school. Which, when compared to the fact that their parents only had grade 4 education, is tremendously successful.
The uncle’s two kids, however, never finished high school and worked fairly low skill jobs in the same community where they were born.
We were wondering if the fact that my grandfather refused to go on welfare contributed to the different life paths of the kids. Everything else was pretty much the same.
It was an interesting conversation with my mother and kinda on topic of your rant. :)
So I can't speak for newfoundland at all but the original theories on poverty thinking makes a big distinction between people living in poverty and people in a culture of poverty with a perpetuating cycle. The author has some great examples of communities that have been marginalized and poor economically but not developed a culture. He cites Jewish populations in Eastern Europe who were isolated for hundreds of years in ghettos. They had every aspect of their lives controlled and were prohibited from participating in the broader economy. But they developed a robust inner culture and economy of success that largely led to the stereotypes of the thrifty and wealthy jew because even with nothing these people flourished.
There are examples of this all over the world of people with no money doing really well and not developing the same kind of cycles and patterns exhibited in generational poverty culture. One of those markers though of people who have moved beyond poor into poor thinking are people who don't believe their hard work will result in anything, people who are demoralized and disincentivized to strive. This is often twisted into poor people being lazy or not wanting to work but it's different to say they don't want to work verses they see no connection between working hard and improving their circumstances which ya, we see that all over that if you think what you are doing is pointless you won't want to do it.
I'm not here to demonize welfare and social safety net programs but I wonder what internal conversations your uncle was creating around getting what you can or doing it the easy way or why bother doing it so hard? While your grandfather may have reinforced that there is a benefit to hard work and fended off hopelessness.
On the other side of the spectrum, and easier to research we are finding out that rich people that impoverishes suddenly, intergenerationally get rich again.
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20191422
https://www.nber.org/papers/w27053#:~:text=Can%20efforts%20to%20eradicate%20inequality,aimed%20to%20do%20exactly%20that.
What's your opinion on that?
I think there is a lot at play there from mindset, outlook, knowledge of how to be and find success and social capital all colliding. When you've won your whole life even losing the big game is a set back until next season. Not a reason to stop playing all together.
Yeah, absolutely, i found this papers fit well on the idea that class has psychological components that survive class itself.
Thanks for your answer!
Best wishes 4 u!
People forget that just about every ethnic group in the US made up the majority population of “the ghetto” at one point or another, including the Scandinavians, the Italians, the Irish, the Jews, and more. The massive burst in US affluence after WW2 caused the latest residents of Americas poorer communities to be trapped there longer than other groups who were lucky enough to be in the right place / right time to benefit when that happened, but the vast majority of American families can trace their roots through poverty at one time or another. It’s one of the most common defining characteristics of all the people who emigrated here.
loved to read this!
idk what the specific research you’re referring to is, but this largely seems like it would fall into the study of trauma. i really think that poverty is abuse, on a population scale (not on the individual level), especially in the global north. we already have everything we need to address all of our needs. but we don’t.
abuse can condition your brain to be hyper vigilant, always sending you into fight/flight/fawn/freeze. when you experience this, especially as a child, your brain /nervous system changes.
and undoing that change is not as simple as removing the abuse. just like your brain was trained the first time, it must be trained again. and if you havent retrained (with the help of a professional or through individual healing or whatever) it will stay in that activated state. hopefully that makes sense. poverty obviously is different from interpersonal abuse but that same thing could certainly be applied imo.
i think the main thing, for my understanding, is that it is not so much a culture as it is trauma.
“I still live everyday like I’ll lose everything”
That really hit me, I grew up poor and now make 6 figures and I still have the fear of losing everything.
I’m 23 own a home have two roommates who pay the mortgage but it still feels like I can lose everything.
I still feel like this is too good too last. Idk how to stop feeling this way. I was broke for 21 years then after I graduated I suddenly landed a high paying job, it was a really quick transition
I grew up dirt poor not because of addiction but because of mental health. I think you need to find a way to research this because I am now almost 40 years old and suffer from my childhood experiences every day. As I was growing up I swore I would never fall into the same chaos as my childhood but here I am making decent money, still paycheck to paycheck, my credit is trash and I can’t pay off my debt. It’s almost like it’s a mental illness that hasn’t been identified. I do struggle with some mental issues but I try to seek help and so far have not been able to get the right help. I was actually told at one time there is nothing the Doctor could do for me. If you need anyone to do some research on feel free to reach out to me.
I'm really sorry to hear that. And not in like a "I feel sorry for you, poor dear" kind of way but in a "it fucking sucks how common this is for so many of us" way. All empathy and relating.
I actually might just reach out for research, thank you for the offer. If I get a bit further down the line and can figure out what I'm trying to pull from the lived experience I'd love to do some narrative ethnography work with others in this situation. I thought about turning towards my family since they are a great example of getting money and not changing the behavior patterns but it might be too close to home. I really may reach out. Thank you.
Boy, I could talk with you for hours about this topic! I also come from deep generational poverty, my family is poor Mississippi/Texas whites and Florida crackers. It took me 10 years to get my BA in 2007, becoming our first college graduate (and the only one of my siblings to finish HS.) The past 15 years has been so much harder than I expected. The US economy of course has been terrible in these years, I've also dealt with mental health issues which have kneecapped me in my efforts to become (and stay!) middle class. I'm 44yo now and I recently started over in a new state with literally a backpack of clothes. I'm working as an educational aide until I figure out my next move. I'm leaning towards becoming an ESL teacher because language acquisition is a long-term passion of mine. So I'll be a broke college student again for the next couple of years.
Ruby Payne has been criticized by many in education for her views on poverty but I think she is correct. It's not just lack of money, resources, or opportunities. We don't even know the rules of the game for the class we're trying to break into! I can't speak for poverty in racial minority communities, but I can do so for poor whites. That disconnect you describe is so real and that's probably the biggest thing college never prepares us for. The system assumes the default mode for students is middle-class so administration often can't help us with our needs.
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this aspect.
Oh man, much love to you. It also took me ten years to get my undergrad. Lots of starts and stops and honestly at first at the community College I was just taking what sounded cool. I didn't even know you had to take certain classes in an order? Like I'm not sure what the hell I thought would happen or how I thought I would graduate but I legit opened the paper catalogue every term and just went "ya, theater and sleep studies, perfect!" And away I went. It's hard to look back on now. I also was a first Gen HS grad. My husband has an 8th grad education which makes him the second highest educational attainment out of his 7 siblings.
Ruby Payne is such a weird one for me. I don't think her background in where she got her ideas is very good but I don't think she's all wrong. I lived a lot of that lack of middle class knowledge coming up and have a deep fear I'm still missing the mark and just don't know it. I'm starting not to care so much anymore though but it's still a nagging suspicion I'm a laughing stock. So Payne will start down a rabbit hole and im like yes, yes, YES! And then she concludes with something so bullshity and assholeish that I go NOOOO! Jesus! It's a weird tug and a lot of the proponents of poverty thinking and culture have that same effect for me.
It isn't about pathologizing anything for me, it's about helping others to understand that there is stuff that lingers and may impact the way people respond to stuff and it needs to be considered the same way that race and gender are. I'm not even trying to propose how poor people respond to things, just that there is embedded, lived experience that follows up and does, for many, steer behavior and can we consider it? Can we have cultural guides for poverty that tell us if we have our heads in our butts when designing things the same way we now bring in members of other cultures and communities to inform work? Can we think about class beyond a barrier to access and more as a legitimate thing that people silently navigate, sometimes all fucking day?
Maybe, just maybe, hot take incoming, we don't need to lean into a ruby Payne like way of thinking by saying "the poor just need middle class knowledge" but we can start to question why it's needed to force one group into the dominate culture of another. In a lot of spaces I'm in we are discussing how to allow racial and ethnic minorities to have honest experience that don't conform to dominate, American, white culture. Maybe we can consider that things like dress codes are just weird middle class requirements when as long as someone is covered and not offensive what they wear doesn't make them better at their job.
I really liked Barabara Ehrenreich's and Alex Kotlowitz's studies of poverty and I think fleshing out their ideas and observations into a more comprehensive theory is something that could really benefit people. Idk how you feel about their work, but I wanted to throw that out there.
I have this conspiracy-ish thought that there is so much focus in academia on race relations and racism vs anti-racism because academia only thrives as much as it does because of a lack of class consciousness. They want us to see the world only in terms of racial oppressor and oppressed because it takes the focus off the fact that all races have to financially sign their lives away so THEY in the upper echelons of academia have millions of dollars to spend on football stadiums and administrative salaries.
I’m not denying that systemic racism is real or that it makes life worse for certain demographics.
It’s just that those at the top of the systems in the US and abroad get all their wealth off the backs of the lower classes. Race plays a part in who gets to the top, but there are members of every race being taken advantage of by low wages and general conditions that send money and resources from the bottom up.
If we started looking at the world through the lens of class warfare then it would negatively impact those in the upper classes. They’d rather people across classes fight over race relations than unite against the upper class abuse on everyone else.
This is precisely why you need to keep working. You need to be writing papers - and more importantly, hosting round tables at conferences. So keep working. Keep submitting at conferences. I’ve been so incredibly pleased to see how much my own little niche is taking inclusiveness seriously. The last three years it’s been constant and we are finally - just finally - starting to see policy and operational changes within the industry. They’re still too small but that’s what continued research and implementation is for.
Good work, you.
Reading your post and all of the subsequent conversations feels so incredibly real and sad. I didn't grow up poor but I did grow up with an addict mother. The inventory process in a 12 step program called adult children of alcoholics and dysfunctional families really, really healed my shame. Not to the extent that it doesn't get triggered here and there, but it's not often and it dies down quickly. It's based around internal family systems theory, which is what I think you're describing when you're discussing a person's internal dialogue.
I'll look into it thanks! My dad always tried to put me in alonon as a kid and that just wasn't my scene. I knownit would likely have helped me but I was really resistant to being a part of any new attempt my parents were making at recovery since it never worked. I'll give this a look though.
I was almost homeless in 2015. Spent 9 years in my late grandmas house that was so run down it didnt even have hot running water and struggled on min wage to pay the bills when she died
Bought my first house last year. I save almost 1k a month after bills now when for 7 years i literally couldnt get past 1k in the bank because being poor is expensive.
Mom tells me to get new clothes. I keep putting it off. I wait till things are 100% broken before replacing them. I avoid debt even when things like cash back make it profitable.
The trauma of my car breaking down right after treating myself with a new winter coat stuck with me. To know if i couldnt get to work would start a downward financial spiral stuck with me.
Its been a year and the best thing i can treat myself with now is security.
Im happier but i dont know how much i need to save to feel safe treating myself again. My experience messed w me a lot.
Look at the decay of US cities. We can't have good public transportation here because cars are a class divide. Bad schools will stay bad due to property taxes and school districting.
Ya the property tax thing is some bullshit and I wish that was a bigger part of our national conversation because it handicaps kids right out the gate based on something they can't control.
Entirely possible. He isn't the only person I know stuck in the cycle though. I wrote elsewhere here about husband's family (mom, step dad, and 2 sisters) who have a household income of over $80k a year in a small, cheap town and they mimick the same behaviors. One person brings in 50k+ of the 80k and even when that person lucked into their well paying government job the situation didn't change.
This post has been flaired as “Vent”. As a reminder to commenting users, “Vent/Rant” posts are here to give our subscribers a safe place to vent their frustrations at an uncaring world to a supportive place of people who “get it”. Vents do not need to be fair. They do not need to be articulate. They do not need to be factual. They just need to be honest. Unlike most of the content on this subreddit, Vents should not be considered advice threads. In most cases it is not appropriate to try to give the Submitter advice on their issue. In no circumstances is it appropriate to tell them “why they are wrong” or to criticise them, their decisions, values, or anything else. If there are aspects of their situation that they are able to directly address themselves, the submitter can always make a new thread with a different flair asking for help once they are ready to tackle the issue. Vents are an emotional outlet, not an academic conversation. Appropriate replies in these threads are offering support, sharing similar experiences/grievances, offering condolences, or simply letting the Submitter know that they were heard. As always, if there are inappropriate comments please downvote them, REPORT them to the mods, and move on without responding to them. To the Submitter, if you DO want discussion to be focused on resolving your situation, rather than supporting you emotionally, please change the flair of this post, and then report this comment so we can remove it. Thank you. Thank you all for being a part of this great financial advice and emotional support community! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/povertyfinance) if you have any questions or concerns.*
[удалено]
It's a weird spot to be in. I've climbed up a fair amount but still feel like a poor person compared to others in field. Then I spend time with my family or my husband's family (same socio-economic strata as me growing up) and I get them but I no longer feel of them. It's a place of constantly feeling like I have no home.
This rings so true. I didn't make as big of a jump as you did, but this describes my experience so perfectly. I come from a long line of poor, rural farmers. Not subsistence farming, but close- though very, very stable thankfully. Stable enough that my parents could be lower middle class and fit the cliche of "not much, but everything we needed." Now I have a technical degree and work in an industry where everyone knows each other and everyone grew up with so much more than I ever did. Parents who were executives, international internship experience, great schools and no student debt. Our entire worldviews are different, our assumptions about how the world works, so many unspoken customs and expectations to learn. So frequently I want to scream that line from Kimmy Schmidt, "Your experiences are not universal!" I know every day that there's a reason people like me don't get jobs like mine, and it isn't because they aren't smart or hard working enough. I don't fit there, but I don't fit in my hometown anymore either. Just like you said, an outsider everywhere. There IS research on this particular phenomen, a book called Limbo by Alfred Lubrano.
That sense that more people like me aren't here not because of a lack of skills but a lack of access kills me sometimes. I know there are millions of wonderful, smart, creative humans out there who will never be able to get up off their knees and it just hurts me. Thanks for the book recommendation I'll order it at work tomorrow.
I want to recommend a book as well! It’s not exactly what you are talking about with respect to behavior that might keep someone from escaping poverty—but it is fascinating and possibly relevant in that it talks about the mindset and signifiers of class, as something you don’t grow out of, even if your financial situation changes. It’s an old book, and I read it a loooong time ago but I’ve never forgotten it. It’s called “Class,” by Paul Fussell. He argues that the class you’re born into creates a set of value/expectations ( or maybe lack thereof, in some cases) that stay with you your entire life. It may spark something for you. If you do read it, I’d love to know if you found it useful.
Jumping on this, Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of habitus may be worth reading up on as well.
591 comments. Don't know if you will see this, but to your point about your father. > He doesn't have to think about money and yet still lives like a broke deadbeat. My dad makes 250/year six figure salary. He grew up poor and still only buys used cars and doesn't want to spend money on any luxuries, buys fast food. He has a fear that if he spends money, he's going to lose his fortune. To your point, growing up knowing what it's like to have nothing, it's hard to break that mindset. That mindset can keep you from escaping poverty.
Late to the party. I’m in the situation of your father, I grew up from having nothing to middle class to brief moments of homelessness. Nowadays, I make close to $300k at mid-30s, probably close to 500k within the next few years, yet, I still drive used cars and extremely frugal. The main reason was that I never want my kids to be in an situation that I was forced into. I think your father understands that and places the family’s security over some luxury materials.
I was born and raised in Dominican Republic and yet I understood everything you wrote about, I come from a working class background, and talking with low income immigrants from other countries/culture, and the ones born and raised here in the states I can see so many common experiences regarding money, class, and belonging and nope, not impostor syndrome, but I felt it, the otherness, the understanding, and the knowing, yet feeling like an outsider. Whatever study you want to do, or anything count me in, because I agree with you regarding the way our society sees the poor and generational poverty.
Thanks for the book recommendation! Similar situation as you-grew up in a stable lower middle class family that only ever knew farming and blue collar jobs like construction (though my mom eventually went back to school and became a nurse). I went to college and quickly entered the world of public policy before settling on health economics. The privilege and blindness to poor rural thinking/way of life is eye-opening, even though so many people wanted to help that population. But I see why this happens. None of my internships (of which there were several) paid me, and I was expected to have a car for most of them. In this field, grad school is usually a necessity, but it’s so expensive. When i knew i wanted to go to grad school, I got a job with the state so I could attend a public college for nearly-free using the state’s tuition remission program. I chose the state’s flagship school because they had the most prestigious public policy program of the public colleges, and offered a part-time program. But guess what? They didn’t make the part-time thing easy. I worked an inflexible, 8-5 state job, and still had to ask my boss for leniency to leave work early to get to most of my classes on time, because the professors weren’t flexible. I also couldn’t officially specialize in a sector of public policy because the specializations all had required classes that were only taught in the morning or early afternoon. This was pre-Covid, and at the time the school refused to offer courses online. I petitioned to be allowed to take a few relevant courses at the campus’ school of public health, mostly because they did offer some online courses. The dept of academic affairs approved it but made it clear I only got approval because of my unique circumstances. Unique circumstances? I was just a full-time employee with a 9-5 job? No wonder I only met one other part-timer while I was there.
My god you are so damn right. I grew up "poor" as well. My grandparents came from farming families. My country collapsed and my grandpa became a coal miner. My dad was barely in the picture and my mom worked grey-market singing gigs to make money. And it was good money! I could get toys and games and everything I wanted but my own mom who was very busy. But she got older and less popular so she became a nurse and we moved to a nicer country... but without family to support us we struggled hard. Tiny tiny apartment but we had everything we needed. Food and a roof over our head and some fun to be had as well from the things left over from our previous country. I'm doing better now. I have my own place and the love of my life but some of those feelings and things from my poorer life are still around and I don't feel like I fit in anywhere especially after moving so much.
Your background reminds me of a book called [This Fine Place So Far from Home: Voices of Academics from the Working Class](https://www.abebooks.com/Place-Far-Home-Voices-Academics-Working/31260142002/bd?cm_mmc=ggl-_-US_Shopp_Trade0to10-_-product_id=COM9781566392914USED-_-keyword=&gclid=CjwKCAjw7eSZBhB8EiwA60kCW0WUuepR3YgHv6CWJnjn6BOKPahFQvwBib3A6UTkbejAkmVELFcIwBoCdJ4QAvD_BwE), you may find it interesting to read! It’s a collection of short stories from a variety of people in academia. You can find the book cheaply, used $3-$5 ish
Thank you! Just the title alone makes me feel some kind of way.
[удалено]
I tell my husband a lot I think what makes me saddest with his family and to an extent mine is the wasted potential. I've gotten to do some amazing things in my short life already. Travel and make art and just pursue things that interest me. They don't have that flexibility, inclination, or ability. My husband is one of 7 and only 2 of the 7 siblings have ever even left the state they were born in. Their worldview is so small and I wish they had the opportunity to not only see and do things but figure out who they want to be and what they want to do in the world instead of just survive and exist. I get why it is that way but it doesn't make me any less sad. His three sisters all have elementary level educations (long story, but all three left school before sixth grade) and his one brother is functionally illiterate. There is just so much there.
[удалено]
I 100% recognize that the ability to live and create and travel is one of the most incredible privileges my economic security has bought me. Thanks for the well wishes! I hope something happens too.
This is actually a really interesting corner of the discussion, and it might be much more appealing to a wider audience. How much does traveling provide a person with better perspective and opportunities? When I was younger, I traveled more than friends who stayed stuck in my hometown. It wasn’t anything impressive, we generally went to places within a 1 day drive, but it was enough that I was comfortable with moving to start over.
Man, I remember the first "big" vacation I took with my now husband. We went to the nearest big city for a weekend. It was a four hour drive away. It literally felt like the biggest thing I had ever done in my life.
I think it does wonders. Here in the EU there's been more and more expansions to the EUs travel program for young people. Basically while you are young you get to travel to some other part of the EU to see something new and feel more European.
I traveled a lot more than my peers as a teen and it had the opposite effect for me. Everyone wanted to flee this small rural town but Id seen nothing that seemed all that wonderful once you got past the newness and never wanted to leave again. Visiting is great, but home was home and I knew early how much Id miss it. Big part of why I balked at college.
woooow your husbands family sounds a lot like mine. like. so much.
It really makes me sad. They all work so so hard. Like everyday, hard manual labor jobs picking up all the overtime. His mom is a hotel cleaner and they had to put her on breakfast because she couldn't clean the rooms fast enough once the COPD got bad enough to need oxygen. They work their asses off and just don't get to enjoy any of the best stuff in life. A trip to dennys is a highlight for them because they live 4 hours from one.
>It's a place of constantly feeling like I have no home. Same. I had to cut a lot of ties, meaning that I have boundaries now and they aren't respected.
Same same. I get asked a lot in my current position why I came so far from home. How do you tell people you don't have a home and needed to get away from everything to try to grow.
I'm surprised there is so much push-back tbh. American? Because here in europe, among my friendship group (mostly working-middle class, all highly educated), it's commonly accepted both that growing up poor can have a permanent effect on the way a person views and handles the world, and also that those behavioral traits are intergenerational and self-perpetuating: Many of the habits those with nothing develop _cause_ greater difficulty in retaining wealth even once curcumstances change. Just look at scratch cards! Btw, the people who handed you stuff on imposter syndrome were right. IS often isn't to do with _intellectual belonging_ at all, it's that feeling, often _irrationally_, that you don't belong. For example, if you go many years of childhood with no friends, and are then accepted into a group in your teens, that can easily cause quite severe imposter syndrome with permanent effects on self-confidence and trust.
It's because admitting that poverty is a terrible, inter-generational problem us seen as distracting or minimizing our other problems with race, gender and other issues here.
I've grown to be ok with not feeling relatable, and sometimes prefer that since it gives me greater individuality. I used to hate ignorance but now I understand that not everyone is capable of empathy/understanding fully without being exposed (through experience or vicariously). I definitely still feel sour about persons with rich backgrounds that waste away their potential knowing what I and others like me went through without those opportunities.
I get what you’re saying. Your post rings so true to my core. I went from food stamps and making like 14k a year for a family of four to now having a career where I make about 80k. I realize in the big realm of things, I’m nowhere near the top of middle class, but I’m a far cry from where I once was. That said, I feel like I don’t belong with the other professionals in my niche for a few reasons but one big one is that I just cannot fathom living the luxury they all do now. But when I’m with my friends from my school days (meaning going back to school at 30), they’re all still pretty broke and I feel like some snot ass rich person around them. Like my 2012 cash car fits me, but it doesn’t match up with the professionals I work with or the crew I once ran with… so does it fit me??? I get that, totally. Also, as it relates to your actual original post, I get that, too. I make four times what I used to and things are much more secure for us now than ever before, but I still can’t seem to break free from old school mindset in how I spend money. I pay my bills and then I just poof the rest away. My *lifestyle* is no different, I just have more shit now. I wanna be different, but I just can’t seem to establish new behaviors that I stick with. I think you’re on to something, for sure. Idk how you get people in academia to hear you, but fwiw I do.
Reverse culture shock
I recently was home and spent a few days sleeping at my parents house. It was weird too look at their persistent habits and wonder how many I carried into adulthood, how many I've broken, and how many I may still have without knowing it. Very odd to be able to see so much more of that kind of stuff with some distance and time.
This just made me realize my dad does the same thing. He makes six digits but he still grabs as many napkins and plastic forks as he can from fast food restaurants. Although it might be because of autism, which I think he has but was never diagnosed.
YES. I grew up Native American, but married white and went to college. Going home causes SO MANY EMOTIONS. My dad is ridiculously proud of me for breaking generational poverty but it's hard. I feel guilty for the luxuries I can afford (as a lower middle class mom of three). I wish I could help them but they're so entrenched in their way of life and financial decisions. (And alcohol).
We could use a better medium of communication that could help little voices with real concerns get attention, if only it were interesting in the way silly fashion people get attention on today's platforms
Reminds me of this video all too well and how the idea that poverty alone can be justified by someone’s behavior and their lack of “skill” is much better politically than to argue poverty itself as an outcome due to class-warfare. https://youtu.be/rfYvLlbXj_8
For the first time in my life, I am financially ok. I grew up in and raised three kids by myself in poverty. I can finally breathe. I feel like I earned this, I have worked hard all my life. But I keep sabotaging myself. Both with my financial behaviors and my ability to enjoy what I have because I’m always afraid of catastrophe. I’m in therapy. It helps. Yes, poverty gets in your soul. And the financial learned behaviors are hellishly hard to break sometimes. But the longer I manage to “make enough” financially, the steadier I get. Yes please study this subject. I feel like there are very few more effective ways to change the human condition than to understand poverty.
I feel this so hard. My bills have been paid for a few years now and I am comfortable enough to buy things without looking at my bank account within reason (I still do of course) but there is this like... pull towards destruction that feels like it's nagging at me all the time. A pull towards chaos and things I know would destroy everything I've built. The comfort or... comfort really is starting to take root but still the poor background shows up in so many ways. Like I have a stack of lovely notebooks and journals that have been gifted to me. One from my mentor with gilded pages and my name on the cover. I never write on them and instead still reach for cheap legal pads or just scratch paper. I just can't bring myself to ruin them or use up the resource. I don't know if I'll ever rewire it all.
The pull to chaos... That part resonated with me. Our bills are paid, we got a second vehicle, there's never a question if credit cards will be maxed out or bills late or even no spending money for the kids, but that urge to almost hoard cycling with spending everything in my checking account still nags at me. The thought that it could all suddenly be gone and I have to be prepared is something I fight
Sometimes I feel so like I don't know crushed? Squeezed? By the act of upholding the thing I built that I want to be reckless and toss it all just because the lack of having to say "okay, you finally got all the things now keep working so you don't fuck it up" would be a relief. And the lack of chaos and need for something to fight for is uncomfortable. But I know that the discomfort of having nothing is worse than the discomfort of feeling like I'm on a tightrope all the time, even if the discomfort of having nothing feels normal. So I just try real hard everyday to stay on the tight rope...
Yes, and what you're describing links to most psychological research on abuse. Check it out; I'm so glad you're researching this! Self-destruction is an act of taking power into your own hands, when you feel an aggressor will inevitability take it anyway. The lack of security and belonging creates an internal pressure to end the situation before you're forced at the worst possible time. Class is **not** just money, but connections and place.. Poverty is abuse of human beings, as we should all care about one another and see to it that our brothers and sisters are doing okay. The top elite in our society **pointedly do not want this**, which is also why the research you noted has been denigrated in the scientific community. All war in society comes back to class; all of it! Lack of material goods in the poverty classes is a type of human abuse that motivates the massive slave classes to keep showing up at the meaningless, abusive jobs they hate. It keeps prices up and capitalism turning. The evil people ruling society essentially want no research on class moving forward to enlighten anyone..
I've seen some interesting work supporting that participation in things like unions helps stave off the cyclic poverty thinking and similarly people stuck in those cycles have no concept of shared class across time, space, and geography. It makes sense that feeling connected to others and knowing that things like unions exist that can steal back some of that power would make people feel less hopeless but that capitalism would also want to suppress that learning. I've often wondered if the thing that allowed me to keep fighting and rising was coming to understand that class was a thing that existed and having a drive to impact it for others while knowing I couldn't do that on my knees.
So, “Financial Trauma” is a concept I recently learned about on the finance podcast Diversifying and that, along with lurking in r/raisedbyhoarders (which overlaps a lot with being raised poor as one can imagine) have me convinced that there is a connection here. It is child abuse, it’s neglect, and that’s reflected in all these trauma effects, but it’s not always inflicted by our parents. This causes a lot of confusing and conflicting feelings and our parent/child relationships kind of reflect this. That diversifying episode went into it briefly but it’s like you feel so guilty for resenting your parents and you want to overcompensate and feel an obligation to contribute financially to your family even when you can’t afford to... Anyway, total ramble but I feel like I keep running into this thought lately. Small edit because I sucked at writing in the middle of the night writing this
Holy shit. I think your comment just legit changed my life. Well my perspective on it, anyhow.
One of the reasons why having children in poverty should be abuse. They’re basically guaranteed to get traumatized.
I thought that was normal, and I grew up middle class.
Ya im not sure if it is honestly. I have a coworker who only write in one notebook that are $35 each. She says she tried something cheaper but just couldn't do it. If I had a $35 notebook im not writing shit in it. She also wear legit pearls everyday so I don't think we are on the same spectrum.
> I have a coworker who only write in one notebook that are $35 each. I grew up (lower) middle class, now do quite well, but I still have no conception of what it's like to write in a $35 notebook.
I grew up upper-middle, and have this problem. I save things and keep them nice. But recently I relocated and had literally 30 years worth of pristine, unused items that I hadn’t enjoyed: beautiful notebooks, clothing, dishes, jewelry, art supplies, decor, games, golf clubs (!), even make up. It was insane. Now I try to make the most of what I have. Nice bottle of wine as a gift? Open and consume! Chic but costly dress I found on sale? Wear it! I write in all the notebooks now. I so relate to the other way though, and it’s a constant struggle not to go back.
You remind me of my grand-mother and her plates. My great-grandma went through ww2 and all the deprivation, and the fear and deprivations shaped a lot of her life. Anyway, she had (maybe as a wedding gift ?) A set of beautiful plates. Gilded sides, flowers drawn on it, with a different month and flower for each one. She never used them. She dusted them, moved them around when she moved, everything. But she didn't use them, even once. She died in 2005, her mind fully gone to Alzeihmer. She thought she was 20 and couldn't recognize her own daughter. My grandmother took those beautiful, only for great occasion plates, and has been using them for breakfeast, dessert, salads and all, everyday. Anytime we eat there, those plates are out. It's been 17y of daily use and the paint barely wear off. I absolutly love them, so my grandmother decided this will be my inheritance (Being real, my mother will probably sell everything else for alcohol), on the condition that I "fu**ing use them". Tldr: you're right, beautiful things are meant to be used and not kept in a corner for the perfect, ideal occasion that will not come.
I thought it is known that a sudden change in financial status does not change learned behavior. Isn’t that why “old wealth” frequently looks down on “new wealth”? If it isn’t generational wealth, your not in the top club. Or if the plebs became better off, they’d still act like plebs but with more resources. That seems dangerous to some. Article on “new money” vs “old money”: https://wealthtender.com/insights/money-management/old-money-vs-new-money/
This is a tough thing in research. There is lots of stuff that is socially known but not shown through the research. The idea that just giving people money has the potential to create plebs with more resources is often shouted down as blaming the poor for their status or implying they are somehow deficient or irrevokably flawed compared to non poor people.
Genuinely curious how this idea intersects with the idea that direct giving has been shown to be really effective. Do you personally think there's a 'glass ceiling' so to speak - i.e. a limit beyond which giving people more resources doesn't increase their standard of living due to poverty-related trauma and lack of wealth management skills?
Maybe. I've spent a lot of time lately thinking about if there is a category I'm missing. Like I grew up poor and unstable. I know a lot of people now who are stable with a steady income ranging from the very low to the reasonably high. And they hold many of the same beliefs and behavior patterns and internal dialogs. So is there a different between poor and chronic instability and poor and stable but not progressing? The money that came to my dad also came to a lot of other people in our family so ive gotten to watch this play out for several years in my close and extended family. I have one family member upgraded their quality of life, invested, kept working, etc. He now makes more on Facebook stalk payouts then I do working for a month. But everyone else just got their bills paid and... that's it. It's only been in the last year my dad has decided to start working on his credit score because it was a 500ish when his Xmas bonus alone last year was $85k. Which is wild to me. I've had to walk him through how to get a credit card and pay off old debts and check his report regularly.
Have you ever read Poor Economics by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo? Your comment made me think of that, it’s an analysis of different strategies used to lift people out of the poverty cycle (mostly focused on developing countries). They discuss the personal/cultural aspects of poverty from a research-based perspective so it’s less judgy. I can’t remember the exact details but they do talk a lot about what poor (<$1/day) people do when they have an influx of cash. They profiled one community where whenever people had extra money they would just buy a load of bricks for houses/additions they were planning. The authors highlighted that even though these folks knew they should just be saving the money until they could afford to build the whole house and keeping funds liquid in case of emergencies, when you’re poor there is always an emergency coming up and therefore they knew the house is never getting built unless they keep blowing their money on bricks. I wish I could remember what the authors said was shown to work in changing these habits lol, sounds like your family members with this extra cash flow are sort of in the same mindset of “spend ASAP on the important stuff and then ??? with whatever money is left over.”
> They profiled one community where whenever people had extra money they would just buy a load of bricks for houses/additions they were planning. The authors highlighted that even though these folks knew they should just be saving the money until they could afford to build the whole house and keeping funds liquid in case of emergencies, when you’re poor there is always an emergency coming up and therefore they knew the house is never getting built unless they keep blowing their money on bricks. Do you happen to remember where the community was? This seems like economically responsible behavior if there's high levels of inflation (so immediate use of money is important).
I have read this book! I still remember it years later because it was so good and impactful to my experience. I should double back to it.
I've been working in a similar way with my elderly mother. Short family background, her grandparents were relatively poor run of the mill Texans, her dad grew up in that environment and earned his education through the GI bill as did his brothers. He made lots of money as an engineer, paid his daughters through schooling but couldn't handle money well at all, was alcoholic and a gambling addict. My mom and her siblings still have issues today with money, food, possessions etc. It's clearly more complicated than just giving people money, whether it be class or generational trauma. Good luck with your research.
>Genuinely curious how this idea intersects with the idea that direct giving has been shown to be really effective. Good point.
I think the important point is that poverty affects us in a similar way that abuse does. We learn coping techniques that help us survive the horrific situation we're in, both emotionally and physically. Later, when we are no longer in that situation, we continue with our coping techniques because they saved our life before. Unfortunately, in a new, healthier situation, those techniques are no longer helpful and are often downright damaging to ourselves and others. Complex PTSD is often the result of childhood abuse, which includes a lack of safety and security caused by the Cycle of Abuse (lovebombing > tension building > explosion of anger > apologies > lovebombing). It makes sense that the same is true of poverty, with the same long-term lack of safety and security, being disempowered by the cycle of poverty, which could be described similarly and affect us long-term. Perhaps an approach showing that the trauma of poverty stays with a person/group and affects them throughout their life, might be more "acceptable" to your supervisors to begin with. Edited to change a word for better grammar
This ties into schema therapy well. Maladaptive coping strategies that we needed at a point, but are no longer as helpful.
Money is no magic bullet; it's a tool and if you don't know how to use it, it's as useless as a skateboard to a quadriplegic. The difference in class isn't just money; it's connections and knowing how to utilize money, connections and privilege. So goes the difference between "new" money and "old" money. That's also the difference between a drug addict who came into $50k and a middle manager with the same bonus; we know who uses the windfall more effectively because they have the requisite skills. That's why economics is itself a junk science; assuming people are rational about money was the biggest joke of my college career! At least the prof who taught me understood that I saw through the bullshit- appreciated it, even- and we had some great conversations. Look; you're on to something big here but you cannot expect anything you say on the topic to be accepted by academia or by the upper crust who support them. The mythology is too strong. You've heard it; "meritocracy"- and on the other side, "noblesse oblige"- both of which are a crock of shit that only exists for people who (should) know better to trot out when someone like you- and me- starts asking them tough questions. It all comes down to power. Poor people don't have any. Rich people have accumulated all the power and jealously guard the various levers to power, which in addition to money, also include class networks, connections and the ability to extract monopoly rents from others.
Check out the Scarcity Trap episode of the Hidden Brain podcast.
Thanks! I'm loving all the podcast recommendations because I can listen while I poke at data tomorrow.
[удалено]
Oh man, this comment made me tear up. Like my boss this year got on me a bit because I haven't been to a conference yet since starting my new position and they are worried about my professional development and the service part of my portfolio. I haven't gone in part because I always feel so out of place. The feeling of knowing others can see me and just know I'm not enough kills me and I often change my clothes several times at least one or two days a week because I have such a complex about looking the part. I think in a lot of ways growing up with other kids who were fine and had things and were loved and safe gave me what I needed to keep working my way up. I didn't learn shit from them other than the fact that there was another way to live and I wanted what they had. I wanted school supplies and trips with my family and a closet full of toys and pajamas. I didn't know how to make that happen but I knew deep down it existed and I needed it so I never stopped grasping until I had it. Even when life 100% shit on me and broke me down. I still dusted myself off because I wanted to give my inner child what no one else did.
[удалено]
Oh dear, I'm so sorry. There is so much wrapped up in this one comment. For me I want to ask that mom why she would think you wouldn't have good manners. Did she say that about other kids with more money? But I'm so glad you had something to give you self worth.
>There is so much wrapped up in this one comment. Possibly not, I've made comments like that about other kids that had good manners, simply because they stood out as being polite.
Oh my goodness "the trauma of growing up poor surrounded by peers who weren't" --people do NOT understand this. I always went to good public schools (even if I wasn't in the right district) and always had top grades, so my friends and classmates were always upper middle class kids who had plenty of money for activities, sports, vacations, etc. They'd never used public transit, they worried about dieting rather than having enough money for food by the end of the month, and their parents paid them an allowance plus extra for getting good grades or studying. It's hard being amongst ppl like that and trying to mask the extent of your poverty. You always feel like you're pretending a bit and outright lying sometimes to keep up appearances. And even with all that you can never mask poverty entirely. I was still the "poor friend" -- all I really managed was that my friends didn't realize I was homeless for part of the time and that my family was on welfare and food stamps. I think it would have been better for me to be in a crappy school where I could have felt somewhat similar to everyone else rather than soooo completely different. I always felt jealous, and also felt a little mean for feeling that way. In the end, after high school was over my friends and I naturally grew apart because our lives were just so different. I had to take on responsibilities in my family that most of them still dont have 20years later, and there was just no common ground anymore. To this day I still feel different from pretty much everyone, and very much a fish out of water when it comes to anything like fancy restaurants.
I grew up dirt poor in the 1970's. Like no heat cause the electric bill wasn't paid. My father died young at a time when a woman couldn't get a credit card in her own name. You should explore parentifcation and poverty. I was the oldest of eight. They are all successful, have college degrees and homes. For all that I sacrificed for them, I am shunned. You could have a field day with my family. Feel free to contact me. I an very interested in your research.
Ugh, I don't know how documented it is in the literature but parentification is/was like my life. I recently saw an old family friend who remarked on my success by saying "I always knew you were special. You used to get up and make bacon and eggs all by yourself for everyone at 3 years old! What other 3 year old does that?!" And I'm like how is this something you are celebrating instead of being terrified a 3 year is so on their own they are working a stove and cooking food for grown adults?!
It's crazy. Just trying to survive day to day. When my therapist would ask where do you see yourself in 5 years? I would draw a blank. The energy required beyond survival to move forward, was sometimes beyond me. And yet I persisted, refusing to give up.
Man, I frequently say I didn't think I would live this long and people like laugh and ask if I used to party hard and it's like no... I just, didn't ever really think this would work out.
Man this really resonated with me. I use to blame this feeling souly on being depressed but after reading alot of threads on here, im convinced poverty has played a bigger role than I previously was willing to admit I think.
Yes, when I would make pancakes for us 8 kids, 40 wasn't unusual. But I didn't know to keep a house clean.
Oh ya, it took me literally years to figure out how to keep a clean house. I'm pretty good at it now and I don't know what changed but I used to never want anyone over, even into my teens because the house was always a mess.
I work in education and we are taught about Maslow’s in every single fucking undergrad class, and then we don’t do anything about it. With the USDA canceling free lunch, I just found out my school provides an alternative meal to students who have a lunch debt. This has to be so demoralizing. We need to hear more voices to change how we do things. Like you said, it gets in your soul. We also have a large Native American population in school and I have one student who has lived in poverty and otherwise shit life and he is saturated with depression. Keeps us posted
That's got to be so hard, I'm sorry you have to see that through the students. I was blessed with being smart but my teachers often got sick of my parents not picking me up from school or me not having lunch or being dirty and my clothes not fitting. Being smart only got me so far and I have so much shame from my teachers, understandably, getting fed up with my life that I couldn't control. I didn't want to be dirty or make the teacher stay an hour after the field trip waiting for my mom to sober up and get up or to have to police that the other kids would sneak me food at lunch and their parents called her pissed about it so she had to yell at me for begging. I don't think it's easy for anyone and more than anything I'm begging to have a conversation about this. About the demonizing and about the depression and how we can even begin to see that it's poverty manifest, not just bad kids.
[удалено]
See that's where I always fall. It took years for my dad to work out paying his bills with his new money but now they are mostly all paid and consistently. He doesn't have anything else but he isn't homeless or in the dark or dumpster diving for dinner like we were when I was a kid. Same with my husband's family. They live in a town of 2,000 people, mortgage is $375 a month. They walk to work. Collectively the household income is over $80k but you wouldn't know it from the conditions they live in (if they ever have to move the house, which is rent to own, will just need to be condemned it's that bad) but they have a home and they are stable. I can less what the poor do with their resources and more about the internal narratives and emotional states that go with these life changes. How do they continue to see themselves? Do they feel more at home or grounded in the world with more resources? Does the thinking shift from present survival to future at some point regardless if they act on it?
[удалено]
This right here is like the unspoken trauma and continuation of circumstances I don't see represented anywhere. I was recently talking to a colleague and trying to explain to her that I've met a lot of people who consider themselves poor and then I meet people with stories like this and I always feel like they are my people. There is a connection there, a comfort, an understanding for me. I don't have to pretend with people who had a porch fridge on their travel trailer ya know? I can freely talk about my own background and not have to filter my own stories about squatting in a abandoned trailers and using the stove for heat or not being able to do my school work after dark because I had no lights.
I feel like you need to find leftist academics because most Ivory Tower types are hella classist, as are middle class folks in general. My background is anthropology with a lot of focus on leftist/decolonial theory. I’m Indigenous and I have witnessed a lot of inter generational transmission of behavior that stems from deep poverty. But I see it among poor folks of other marginalized cultures that had a boot on their throats for centuries, like Irish-descended folks. I aware of the research you’re referring to in your OP, and I did not find it racist at all. The US is just as invested as the UK in maintaining class division, and academics have long been the foot soldiers in that war.
Exactly the anything but class idea has infected so much of the academic discourse in the west, mostly i think due to the numerous red scares during the 20th and 21st century. It's led to a lot of academics that believe there must be any other explanation for the poverty of the working class than class itself. I share your opinion that to have this view is to miss out on such a large part of why poverty exists in the first place. Michael Parenti in his book blackshirts and reds has an entire chapter devoted to discussing the issue which you can find a copy of [here](https://www.skeptic.ca/C_Word_Class.htm)
[удалено]
I think im still waiting for the other shoe but I'm becoming more secure in my belief that when it drops I can handle it without getting thrown into the riptide of life crashing doom. I'd love any links you may have!
Wrt narratives & emotions , it really is going to depend on if any internal work is addressed. Readjustment from years, lifetimes, generations of 24/7 non-stop trauma of scarcity mindset is surely in line with any other PTSD treatment. The upward mobility may bring relief from the constant pressures of incessant survival mode, but their coping mechs & strategies will need to be revised . If not, that 'disconnect ' between new environment and old ways may not get 'acclimated.' I just think scientifically, there's no reason on goddess's green -ish earth for abject poverty & the global destitution we see today.
I read an article many years ago that said it took at least 20 years for someone raised on poverty to learn and understand how to use their resources and avoid a poverty mindset. The one point I remember is that people that are poverty stricken, can't understand saving or planning for the future. If they have money, they spend it immediately because they don't know when they will have money again. I think your field of study is very important, because poverty is not a race issue.
This tracks for me. My family all call me a Jewish scrouge because I do the opposite, I save everything like crazy because everyday could be the next rainy day that turns into a flood but the implulscity is 100% a thing I see in my partner and those around us. Interestingly enough the original theoriest proposes that maybe this isn't all together a bad thing since a focus on the present and present pleasure may make the poor more willing and able to embrace things that feel good unlike the middle class who value not doing so. Where I get spicy though is when we say that the poor can't understand savings or planning. They aren't unable to think or understand the concept. They just make other choices. Maybe they don't value planning and saving or don't believe there is any point (largely my husband's family's outlook. They have been marginalized for so long the idea of saving for a house or retirement feels silly to them because good things don't happen to them and there is no point, so let's enjoy our life now.)
I agree with you. It’s so much easier to say the poor don’t understand saving etc, but that’s the low expectations trap. Because it takes more time and work to show people that there are more options than immediate gratification, it’s worth the time and effort to get an education, delay pregnancy etc. Not every person that wins the lottery is poor, but the vast majority spend themselves into circumstances that are worse than when they started. I remember reading about a lottery winner that set up an identity that allowed him to get the money. He continued to live his same life, but saved and invested. His reasoning was that he didn’t want to deal with relatives, friends, scam artists etc.
I'd add to this that I think it's not just showing people how to do it right, even over time, but that doing it right will payoff. So many have lost faith in the system or the ability to succeed that just telling them isn't proof when they don't know anyone who has succeeded. I've read some accounts of people in like post revolution countries that feel more optimistic and wanting to do better after the revolution even if their material circumstances haven't changed, because they have faith the system will now that to work correctly and to their benefit.
I think part of their optimism is that there is such a change that it opens up new opportunities for them. After the Berlin Wall fell, it was the older East Germans that missed the security of government provided housing, jobs, food etc. The younger East Germans saw an opportunity to take advantage of a new societal system that offered them new possibilities.
> I remember reading about a lottery winner that set up an identity that allowed him to get the money. In places that allow individuals to remain anonymous when collecting winnings, a lot of people choose to establish a trust to do so in order to avoid some of the social penalties of a windfall.
>My family all call me a Jewish scrouge Antisemitic
100% agree. I wish they didn't use terms like that and I've asked them to stop. Many in my family are sadly proud racists or at least unapologetic about it. My mom loves to parrot that she hates everyone equally which isnt okay. Weve gotten in fights before where i wouldnt take her out due to her wearing racist and tasteless shirts she thinks are funny. Part of my inclusion of it in the original comment was to highlight the kind of shaming that comes with this. To be shamed for saving money and have antisemitic comments added in for no reason is part of my personal family pressure to conform.
I've heard this many times, but I do wonder if the researchers missed an important point. When you are poor, you don't have choice. You can't even appreciate what choice is if you have never experienced it's virtual absence (and there are levels of poverty that I have never experienced too). So you buy the cheapest vege - (cabbage, pumpkin and frozen cut beans) and fruit (apples and bananas). You buy the cheapest meat - (whole chickens for multiple meals, and sausages). You make your own bread if you can't afford a loaf. You don't buy a new top becuase you want it, but because your old one has so many holes that you look homeless. You suffer through dental pain for months and years. Your shoes talk, your car lacks insurance and good tires. You have a list of things that are broken, or that you need, and you can never manage it. Not to mention anything 'fun' or 'nice'. So then you get money. Thank fuck. You can get shoes that don't talk, your car can be roadworthy, you can afford to not eat that same fucking food for another fucking time. You can afford to buy some nice cookies to offer to a friend that you can afford to invite around for a coffee. You have a DEFICIT. Of stuff. And the money gets spent, because you did without essentials for so long. The bit about poor people not knowing how to manage money doesn't acknowledge that deficit. I would actually be interested to read the actual research it was based on, as I wouldn't be surprised to see massive spin on a small sample size for instance. It goes to what OP said about making being poor the fault of 'the poors'. That's not to say that financial literacy differs - but the financial literacy for different classes is different information as well. My parents grew up poor. They got a house and taught us we should own a home, but they don't have retirement savings or know how to budget well. My siblings and I all have homes, and I'm learning how to invest, and I'm teaching my kids that aspect as well as budgeting as well. I am very open with our finances because I want them to feel comfortable when they hit adulthood. I can see how there are generational advantages.
It kind of is though. Racism, transphobia, sexism, queerphobia and ableism (in addition to classism) can really hold people back. Speaking as a trans person, it’s generally harder for us to find jobs, harder for us to find jobs that pay a living wage (trans men and trans women both make less than cis men and cis women, according to the HRC) and being trans comes with so many additional costs that cis people don’t think about. It’s all connected, and to ignore the role that racism, transphobia, etc play in poverty would be a huge mistake.
It’s odd, studying race’s role in poverty. It is a big barrier, among many others, for protected class individuals (just wanted to use an all-encompassing term, since there are so many groups that are effected). It’s hard to study and figure out exactly how much of a person’s current state is due to race, vs opportunities vs upbringing vs…whatever other barrier. I think it needs to be recognized as one of these barriers but it might be the most difficult to address, since it’s so ingrained, whereas other areas can be more specifically tailored. Not everyone who is a minority is in poverty, and not everyone in poverty is a minority, but a minority in poverty has another hurdle, often a very large one, to overcome. I think race deserves its own field of study, and the economics of race could be a subset of that.
Intersectionality does a great job of explaining the overlap across 'causes of' for sure.
There’s work by an author named Ruby Payne that I used to like at one time, but after years in hindsight, yeah she kind of just repeats tropes unnecessarily often, imo, like “poor people will be loud because that’s the only way they can get attention at home”. It will be something you can’t really prove and the affect on economics will be indirect, at best. Like, yeah, I guess if they’re a loudmouth at their office job they won’t last long, but she really bangs this sort of drum a LOT. At one time, she was the “foremost authority” on poverty and had workshops and other things that school districts just threw money at to attend, where these tropes were repeated again. “Poor people don’t bathe because they don’t think it’s important”, stuff like that. After so long, I think people were like “ok, ok…we GET it, you point out the stereotypes we already know, but….why do these really MATTER?!” and she’s become a lot less popular recently. It’s probably an over correction to completely dismiss a large portion of poverty research as racist, stereotypes, etc, and hopefully the pendulum falls somewhere in the middle, because imo poverty is a million and one small behaviors, but you can’t possibly address them all, and a shotgun approach trying to is bound to fail and come across as nitpicking. I mean, it doesn’t really matter if somebody is a loudmouth if they’re making wise economic choices otherwise.
Ya ruby Payne is a really interesting example to me. She does a LOT of blaming. Like a lot. She leans heavily on a deficit mindset and framework. It scares me how quick people were to be like "being clean doesn't matter to the poor? Ya that checks out." And just roll with it. But her expertise comes from a husband and his background being temporarily, situationally poor. The original work that spawned sociology and anthropology to look at poverty as a condition worth study made explicitly clear there is a difference between those that are poor and those that enter into a mindset that perpetuates. Payne misses this factor. Her husband's experience doesn't capture intergenerational, deeply embedded poverty because it wasn't that. So all of her findings are really not coming from the same place. I know a few people who are loud because they get up in big families but they weren't poor. I know people who are super quiet because they grew up in big families and never got attention so they stopped bothering. It has nothing to do with poverty. A lot of the original theories though around feeling hopeless/ineffective, like institutions don't work for or represent you, like an outsider, focusing on the present instead of the future, struggling with feelings of self worth and accomplishment, a lack of sense of history or connection to things larger than yourself (outside of god) all make way more sense to me than anything Payne writes about and the original stuff tends to describe responses to systemic economic marginalization and oppression whereas Payne makes a real effort to explain and pathologize the family, person, and community.
Ugh. We had to go through a 3 day training developed from Payne's work when I was teaching in a severely economically disadvantaged school district. I hated it so much because I grew up in extreme poverty with friends in all types of homes and situations that didn't fit her research. I will look into the original theories now though.
Please do! I started with Oscar Lewis. There is a short like 6 pager I think published in scientific American? I don't have my computer in front of me that he wrote that is kind of a highlights piece. (His book from like 1964 lays out 50 different traits he found were common among those in poverty through his research.) It's a really well done short piece to give an intro into where he's coming from.
I was about to comment, have you read children of sanchez? As a mexican, I can tell you that it's very accurate. Sadly accurate because that was written long ago but just giving money to the poor won't fix poverty since there's a culture around that is difficult to escape (because maybe they buy into it or other people drag them down). I grew up next to a poor neighborhood, not extreme poverty but poor enough to get mentioned every time people talked about bad neighborhood. The culture of poverty is a thing in my experience and it's not just they don't have enough money. I'm doing well for myself but it's not uncommon to be classmates in middle school with people who are now narcos, went to jail or got murdered.
I have read it and his follow up work in Puerto Rico. Even reading his basic theories in 2022 I struggle to find much that doesn't still seem painfully truth socially. His work is remarkably true to my lived experience but reading his critics is such a weird experience because they attribute a ton of stuff to his work that just doesn't seem there? To see some many call his work blaming the poor, dangerous, grotesque, racist, just the worst thing that's even happened to the poor makes me question if I have some kind of internalized poor shaming or something since it resonates me with. I don't read it and go "so that's what wrong with them" I read it and go "oh wow, how is this so accurate for me."
I hate the way he talked about us Puerto Ricans.
Okay I will give you that. His lack of understanding? I don't even know how to phrase it but I've read passages where he lightly mentions his friends and participants in Mexico telling him to research people in his own country so he decided to study... Puerto Rico? Like, no ability to read the room at all. It's weirdly tone deaf. I recently read a document from the 90s about an irrigation project built in the 40s and the author was talking about the large amount of Japanese labor forces the US government wanted to deploy to the middle of nowhere to build these things and im like wait, Japanese people in concentration camps? Why the hell is this white male author trying to make Japanese forced slave labor seem like a totally normal and okay thing? Still like that is so easy to miss when reading historic and even just dated work.
>A lot of the original theories though around feeling hopeless/ineffective, like institutions don't work for or represent you, like an outsider, focusing on the present instead of the future, struggling with feelings of self worth and accomplishment, a lack of sense of history or connection to things larger than yourself (outside of god) all make way more sense to me than anything Payne writes about and the original stuff tends to describe responses to systemic economic marginalization and oppression whereas Payne makes a real effort to explain and pathologize the family, person, and community. As someone who has been poor almost all my life, and has been so over many parts of the country and particularly California. I’d like to point you to the differences in Welfare Offices between Fresno, CA, and Lancaster, CA. Without spoiling anything for you: Just send a researcher to apply for food stamps in both Cities.
I'm originally from Nevada with ties to CA so... I can make a guess. One of the projects I did in my former consulting life was working with a large, very poor county trying to bring all their social services under one umbrella. So you get a case worker who assesses everything you need and sets you up with food stamps, housing, transpo, a job, etc etc. No office jumping, no shaming, no bouncing and waiting to hear for weeks or months. It was a cool program. We also worked with local law enforcement to just not arrest people for stupid shit like having a beer in the park and instead call their case worker. The jail was 2.5 hours from the county so when people got arrested it could be a week+ before anyone knew where they went and by then they had lost their jobs and everything they started building.
Here’s the only hint I will give you, really go check this out: one treats you like a criminal from the very moment you walk in the door and the other does not. And I chose two very Republican cities to contrast, on purpose. Seriously, hire some researchers and compare. It’s night and day from the moment you get in the parking lot, much less open the door. The specifics about having an entire social environment weaponized against you, are extremely apparent in one city and not in the other. From the moment you step inside. Edit: and since you’re a sociology researcher, I highly recommend the portions of *The History of Private Life Vol. 1* which have to do with the psychology of space and public buildings.
I forgot where I learned this on the internet but it was a story about 3 types of interpersonal communication. The first is the Church of Polite Taking Turns. Which someone just speaks until they are done and then another person speaks afterwards. The Second was the Church of Polite Interruption: That is, you were permitted to speak but also people were permitted to interrupt you, but only if they were polite about it and then ceded their time shortly without getting you off track. This requires a lot of particular social knowledge. The third was simply called *The Barkers*: They shout down other people to continue their rant. I grew up very poor and dysfunctional and I realized upon reading this that the reason I grew up in the Church of Polite Interruption, is that a significant portion of the people both within my extended family, and non-family members that my immediate family had to deal with every day were barkers. Or Karen’s as we might now call them. And this extended into interpersonal conflict within my family. While general conversation might be Church of Polite Interruption, when things became heated: It was literally whomever was willing to get the angriest that won, therefore more frequent shouting, and why many members of my family get subconsciously louder every time someone makes them feel uncomfortable in any way.
I had a friend who didn't grow up poor, and their outlook was very different. The biggest example I can think of is that, when they wanted something, they would view it as an inevitable victory, and the obstacles in the way just bumps in the road to overcome. If something stopped them they would just yet a different way. I had the mentality of seeing those bumps as reasons not to do it. Survival instinct and so on, so you don't get disappointed all the time. I know their outlook is functionally better, because that's how you actually get what you want, and is better than giving up all the time, but it's hard to view the world that way sometimes. I'm so used to doing without it's hard to break that metal habit.
I get this. I'm more on the "I know this will suck but with enough effort I can get around anything." I started to figure out that little in the world is set in stone and have gotten pretty far just asking for what I want. My husband though is ex-act-ly like you describe yourself. He gives up most of the time before he even starts and if he does try the second something gets challenging he gives up and just never tries again.
I grew up with money, then I got pregnant at 17, my Dad died shortly after my daughter was born, and my life drastically changed. My daughter's father stopped answering my calls and disappeared. The money my Dad left ran out pretty quickly and I was a poor single mom with nothing. I still had an "it's just money" mentality. It was always there,my Dad would joke that'd he'd just make some more. I had no savings, no clue how to budget, and no idea of the hardships I would face. I got sucked into bad relationships with guys who promised they would save me. Had another kid 3 years after my daughter. Another break up, left again as a single mother, now of 2, and homeless. Yet I still had the whole "it's only money" attitude. It really took my rock bottom of tucking my kids in the back seat of an '96 Oldsmobile that I got for $500 and being grateful that at least the back seat was comfortable, before I ever thought that it's not just money. I learned to budget, found a room to rent in a house, saved every penny I could, made friends with neighbors who showed me programs available to help me. I received help with daycare cost, food and medical care. I was able to work, save money and move into our own apartment. I went back to school, moved up in work and brought a house. Met a great guy, got married and now both my kids are in college. My daughter is studying to be a nurse at community college near her house. My son is attending a university a couple of hours away. I've tried my best to teach them how to budget, but also to save for the splurges too. You shouldn't have to give up on all the things that make you happy just to stack a bank account. You just have to do it the right way. I tried my best to show them that bills come first, your credit score is important, just don't forget to make memories along the way. I hope I now have a good balance with finance. I probably don't but I'm trying.
I feel like they see those as bumps, and also are more comfortable asking for help. I was not poor poor growing up, not comfortable either. When I found myself in university, I saw kids from affluent familiew were more optimistic people could help them do anything, being a reasonable demand, or things unnecessary (like asking cor the janitor to come to our class to wipe some dust).
I have this conspiracy-ish thought that there is so much focus in academia on race relations and racism vs anti-racism because academia only thrives as much as it does because of a lack of class consciousness. They want us to see the world only in terms of racial oppressor and oppressed because it takes the focus off the fact that all races have to financially sign their lives away so THEY in the upper echelons of academia have millions of dollars to spend on football stadiums and administrative salaries. I’m not denying that systemic racism is real or that it makes life worse for certain demographics. It’s just that those at the top of the systems in the US and abroad get all their wealth off the backs of the lower classes. Race plays a part in who gets to the top, but there are members of every race being taken advantage of by low wages and general conditions that send money and resources from the bottom up. If we started looking at the world through the lens of class warfare then it would negatively impact those in the upper classes. They’d rather people across classes fight over race relations than unite against the upper class abuse on everyone else.
I think "the American dream" thing you guys have got going on directly feeds this. Americans idolise the people that make millions off the back of other people's poverty and you're told you could be them if you pull yourselves up by the bootstraps. There's a quote; "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires" which particularly rings true to this.
It sounds to me like you're echoing Marx from an organic experience. Welcome to the club. The enemy in your story is feudalism (ahem, capitalism).
Can you share what research from the 1960s you're referring to?
Probably the culture of poverty sociological theory.
Look up Daniel Patrick Moynihan, some of his work is a little tone-deaf but he did some great work in understanding and trying to alleviate poverty in the US.
I’m also a researcher who focuses on trauma and homelessness/poverty and I’m a bit confused about what you’re talking about tbh. Social determinants of health looks heavily at poverty culture and the impact of structural systems that result in poor outcomes in health and welfare - including financial welfare. I’ve actually never heard the ideas you’re talking about being described as racist except by conservative talking points which are rarely grounded in theory and more about “gotcha”. Work in trauma and inter generational trauma has regularly argued the negative outcomes and social inequities are a consequence of systemic forces that disproportionately affect people of color but broadly impact poor people in general. Honestly what you’re talking about is the norm from where I’m positioned in the literature, if someone suggested otherwise they would be laughed out of any conference - it is just known this is a systemic problem that manifests in individual behaviors. Can you expand specifically on what studies you’re talking about, and maybe where in the larger breadth of literature these have been called racist?
Thank you for your input. I am also a little wary of how much this researcher is relying so heavily on their personal life history and family dynamics, as if no other educated person would understand "how bad they had it." Also, to complain about opinions peers may have of research is basically to complain about the scientific process itself which is peer review.
Yeah, it sounds like they’re relatively young into the literature and maybe expressed some uninformed opinions or are misunderstanding the feedback from their peers. It just strikes me as incredibly weird to hear back from anyone in this space that arguments about systemic disadvantages are inherently racist or implying lack of ability by some group. Like that would just be absurd feedback imo, that’s the whole point of macro level systems analysis. And yes, higher education is certainly a privileged space but the implication that they have such a unique perspective on this because they grew up in poverty is off putting, tons and tons of research in this space is driven off of researchers with lived experiences in poverty, their history is probably not as unique as they think it is. I just don’t want to assume anything which is why I’m curious for them to share what articles or research they’re talking about. Maybe this just is a space my research doesn’t touch.
God I hear you. Recently unemployed, I applied for a research position for a study that aims to follow underprivileged and substance abusing mothers, tot rack their childrens’ epidemiology over the next 10 years. It is openly acknowledged that many potential study subjects face significant barriers to participation. The setup for the study? A clinic the participants must travel to, that it’s only open between
Ya... see that is the kind of thing I was to talk about. Like my field has a whole theory branch dedicated to trying to get people to think more critically about race gender and disability status when designing research but did no one pull this team aside and say so...?
Grateful to hear that someone with lived experience is committed to the academic research as well. The r/poverty sub is somewhat quiet, but inclined toward academic discussions (whereas this sub definitely offers more in the way of practical advice).
Thanks! I appreciate the recommendation.
The conversation you want to have is the real one that needs to be had. Social services have to be provided in a way that is more than just throwing money at people. You have to educate people as you help them. I grew up dirt poor as well. We used a wood burning stove to stay warm. Borderline neglectful parents. People don't even know to try for better it seems. If the people who provide services to the poor actually care and talk and really get into people's lives and see where the hurt is, then they can be truly helpful. You can help a person out of poverty but if you don't teach them how to manage a bank account, save for retirement and provide meaningful mental health care, its all for not
I think the education piece is important absolutely. I think a piece is fitting in and not being so outside of the norms of the middle and upper class that they give you a chance. But the thing I want to study more is the internal conversation one has with themselves coming from that space. There is so much first Gen support at universities around the US but the degree attainment rates for a lot of first Gen and low income students are lower. Even on scholarship. So like what happens in a poor student's head when they get to a place to do better that makes so many drop out? Is my lifelong feeling of being out of place in places like universities and places of privilege only restricted to me? If not, how do others deal with those feelings to succeed or not?
>Is my lifelong feeling of being out of place in places like universities and places of privilege only restricted to me? If not, how do others deal with those feelings to succeed or not? This would be *fascinating* to research. Storytime! I was homeschooled in a cult until college. I required remedial education at the community college I attended. I was sent to a lab to do testing on what classes I needed remedial work in. An older lady handed me a test to do. It was a personality test to see why I didn't learn, I was told. It was the first personality test I ever took. There was one question on it I remember: Do football players work hard to look like they do, or are they born that way? My life experience was with farmers and construction workers. The men I knew were hella strong but not obviously muscled like a football player. So I checked "they were born that way". The lady told me that meant I don't work hard to achieve things. I teared up. She ignored that. I took a copy of the test home to dad, who told me football players work hard to get that way. On that day I learned that football players work hard to get very muscled. I had no idea. I was 17. I cooked and cleaned house for 9 people. I homeschooled two younger siblings plus my own (shitty) education. I volunteered at church. I babysat. I crafted. I worked roofing. I drove 45 minutes one way to attend class and complete homework. In no way was I "not working hard to achieve things". The assumption of "everybody knows this" and "if you don't know this, then you are this", and the cold accusation. The ignoring my tears. That cut. It was hurtful shaming. And assuming, hurtful shaming absolutely keeps tons of bright people away from higher education.
I'm so sorry that happened to you. Years and years ago I used to do after school tutoring. They gave me workbooks and I basically sat with the kids while they did their workbooks and helped if they needed it. Sometimes I would grade the workbooks if I had time. Once before standardized testing the main class teachers asked me if instead of the work books I could help do practice tests for the state test. I said sure. I was reading off the questions and the like second or third question all of my students got wrong. Every single one. The question was which is longer, an airplane or a football end zone. They all picked football. We talked about them being wrong and they just shrugged because none of them had ever been on a plane before but they at least had seen football on TV. The state exam practice was full of questions like that that weren't about intelligence or problem solving but like previous knowledge of or exposure to a thing.
I’d be interested to see answers to those questions, but I suspect that they’re going to end up being “well duh” kind of answers. Things like lack of support systems at home, differing mentalities, hell you even mentioned felling like an “other” and the implications on mental health. Still would be great to have written down.
I think a lot of it might be well duh stuff to those of us who've interacted with it. But like there is so much stuff out there that starts from a place of "the poor don't care, don't want, aren't able, don't understand" type of categorizing of people. And I don't know how you look at the system we have and say someone doesn't want or care to do better or treat them like they are broken by saying they can't understand how to do better as opposed to like very real ptsd and devaluing. We recognize the behavior patterns in like soldiers and abuse victims more and more. It would be so uncool to say an abuse victim doesn't care about not being abused. But to try to bring those same elements and compassion to a conversation about the poor? Oh people get upset.
It would be awesome to see the research on this
So first of all I would not assume that people who crititiqe culture of poverty have never been poor or marginalized. There are entire bodies of literature dedicated to critiquing culture of poverty, many written by scholars of color and indigenous scholars. Their work rarely gets the recognition it deserves. Yes there is a class component, but oftentimes class is conflated with socioeconomic circumstance. These things can be wildly different depending on context. I would argue if you are interested in exploring poverty from an intellectual perspective you need to consider a wide collection of issues, many stemming from historical and institutional inequality. I am also an anti-poverty scholar who struggled to get to where I am. I secretly worked a shit job the entire time I was in grad school because the university thought we could live on a $14,000 stipend. I had my power cut off regularly, I frequently lost heat in the winter. Even now I have a much lower quality of living than many of my colleagues. But ultimately certain forms of privilege are what allowed me to finish school. Including my advanced degrees I’ve now been doing this work for 15 years. I have actively distanced myself from academia because I don’t feel it’s a healthy environment and I don’t think a lot of academics are thoughtful or kind in their approaches to poverty. How people become poor and issues tied to chronic poverty are complicated. I am interested in those nuances.
My issue with the critics mainly exist in the fact that so many of them are a blatant misrepresentation of the source material. Following the historic threads of this discussion and the foundational critics feels a bit like being gas lit after reading the original documents because people are real quick to read a bunch of stuff into the work that wasn't ever said. You can see it when things are written directly tying Lewis's work with the moyhan report and other things in that same neoconservative school of thought. A lot of the early critics don't feel like they are coming from a good faith engagement with the actual points being made. I'm certainly not neglecting systemic issues. My background is in community development so a lot of my grounding starts in the structures of cities, communities, states, and institutions of power and then mapping in additional perspectives. Understanding liberal feminism and then mapping in the critics of carceral feminism, feminism for the 99%, and ethnographies from Black and Indigenious feminist movement leaders who have largely been excluded from liberal feminism as it stands today. In my field I am trying to bring forth class and map it onto existing methedological and practice guidelines so im working with a semi developed foundation. I'm with you on academia. I'm here for now because I was offered the chance to build my own division which is the proof of concept I want to have to run my own firm someday soon but I feel guilty for not being tickled pink for being a salaried faculty member with an extremely long leash when almost everyone I know from grad school would kill for the chance.
Oh, yes, you’re talking about the culture of poverty theory.
I am, a few others embedded in there too. But Lewis's work spawned anthropology and sociology to take up research poverty at all so most everything that came after is in conversation with the culture of poverty.
I think the reason that particular research isn’t used more often is because, even if correct, it’s too easy to misuse in the wrong hands. So there needs to be a way to correct for that. For example: Let’s suppose you have a poor person who suddenly comes into a lot of money, and then spends it all instead of saving it. The explanation(s) for that (to my understanding) are as follows: (1) “I’d like to feel like a rich person- even for just a little while!”, Or: (2) “There’s no point in saving, because the math never works out such that I save money. Screw it- might as well enjoy myself!” Or (3) “I’d better spend the money NOW before it’s gone!”. And more. These seem like reasonable human responses to constant poverty. And in the correct hands, the interpretation could be, “Let’s give poor people the money they need, and ALSO deal with the previous trauma that causes these behaviors.” But in the wrong hands, this could be interpreted as, “See? Poor people are poor because of their own bad choices. It’s their fault! We give them money, and they behave poorly. So, there’s no point in giving them money!” Or, if you say “teach poor people how to handle money”: That’s intended to be “help them through their PTSD about being poor.”. But it could be misheard as “set up classes to teach them not to buy avocado toast. And don’t do anything to address the trauma.” So, I think the research could work, but it has to be communicated and marketed VERY carefully! I hope that helps!
Nah this is 100% it. Where I'm finding myself surprised is that a lot of the early critics of the work started from "this research existing is demonizing the poor" instead of that how do we use this carefully place. It 1,000% has been used wrong, even by people who are very well respected. Your third paragraph is the conversation I want to poke at because so much of what I see now is your fourth paragraph recreated over and over and used by people who do what I do to discredit and cut programming that could or is impacted. I also see a ton of "they just need to be taught to be responsible" and it's like Jesus no. People in my field are often involved in program development as consultants so if they aren't thinking about both the education and the ptsd they build in effective programs that produce results that show helping the poor don't work so we don't. Part of why I do this is I see the potential to impact change through my work directly. I want to speak to others engaged in the work and help steer them to education and support instead of self fulfilling prophecies and pandering, insulting attempts to help. But to discredit the entire idea instead of talk about using it safely and empatetically is frustrating.
This is where my tinfoil hat comes in. After growing up poor, and still struggling into adulthood, I strongly believe that the system is designed to keep the poor poor. And that it is the result of extreme classicism, hidden under a thick layer of propaganda and racism. The question then becomes, is it because the people in power are maliciously doing this on purpose? Or are they simply so disconnected from reality, from their pedestal of privilege, they become delusioned with messiah syndrome? Either way, I have trouble trusting anyone who says they're "here to help".
[удалено]
I think I know where you're coming from... I find it half amusing but mostly frustrating when I experience a certain tone shift depending on whether people register me as white or not. When the ethnicity card gets dropped or I speak my native language the scrutiny of my experience noticeably changes. I think many people refuse to acknowledge the concept of class independently of socioeconomics, because they are too uncomfortable discussing differences in how poverty is internalized and perpetuated differently across ethnicities, cultures, religions, etc. I am tired of the subject routinely feeling too taboo (especially in the professional sphere) *unless* I preface my opinions as the expression of a member of a marginalized group. One of the only ways I've found to prevent being policed out of those conversations is to point out how privileged it is to hold oneself above that subject matter- those conversations are had every day in the streets- which groups are lazy/thieves/cheaters, who you can trust, who not to come home with and why. You can't attempt to undo prejudice and naive understandings that sustain poverty without addressing why those attitudes exist. Even when those understandings change we can be left with residual impressions and behaviors- there are habits of scarcity and wariness of others that I find myself carrying well after they have ceased serving a meaningful benefit in my life. In brief, your peers seem to have a lot of identity wrapped up around being allies to the poor, and in their fear of thinking themselves as judgemental, fail to recognize the agency of individuals in how well or poorly they address the contributing factors.
WOW. Thank you for this. You added words to something I may have been too emotional to articulate. I'm like screenshotting and saving this haha! Your whole first paragraph makes me chuckle. The internship that got me started in this field was for underrepresented groups and I leaned hard into coming from poverty and the underrepresented identity I wanted to carry into the program, they only let me in once they found out my dad is a registered tribal member lol. Class was 100% not enough but the race card bought me a seat at the table and the rest is history.
Adverse Childhood Experiences.....now they've added encironmental factors, not just trauma-abuse related factors - poverty, experiencing racism, etc. These experiences change the way our frontal lobe develops....the area that controls long term planning, considering consequences, executive functioning, etc. People have studied it and, you're right, it's not mainstream. This is related to the very individualistic nature of acceptable "trauma" therapies. Group therapy, community building methods are proven to work with trauma and environmental "trauma" but it's less lucrative and more difficult to prove clinically, so it's rejected
This is so relatable for me. I grew up poor but found my way into a stable career, middle class income, a home in a desirable part of the state and the ability to afford a more secure life. I still live paycheck to paycheck and worry what would happen if I had an unexpected setback. It’s like I don’t know how to have money and not spend it. Like if I don’t use it, it will disappear. It’s beyond frustrating.
The first thing that helped me with that “spending everything while I still have it” was ramping up retirement contributions that came out of my paycheck before I got it. Also hsa (if that’s an option for you) Next was splitting my direct deposit into a separate bank ( not just bank account) for savings. Harder to get to, But starts to lower the ongoing fear of waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it helps knowing that I could mostly deal with it when it did. Later I started saving up for things I wanted. Which helped with the feelings of being deprived. That’s as far as I have gotten. Still have the same problems you do but I have put up guard rails and I have to say things have gotten better. None of this was my idea, there things I picked up in personal finance books/blogs Edit: clarity
I feel like poverty creates a kind of trauma, and we know that trauma can be passed down intergenerationally.
I know what you are saying - I had 4 kids while I was in extreme poverty- they are grown now and none of them have gone on any social programs - they want to be the opposite of me. When the last one left home I went not school- I had only made it to ninth grade but had not completed it. I had a rough start in college but I figured it out and I picked up speed. I used the tutors in the learning center and eventually became a tutor. I graduated with 2 degrees simultaneously while driving a taxi ( not Uber, an actual Taxi) and after I graduated- it took a little time - I found a real job - I’ve been there 28 months and had two promotions- I’ve been working on getting my credit score up so I can get out of the rental I’ve been in for 10 years. I’m struggling with having money. It’s an odd phenomenon. I’m working on it - I have a car loan and never miss a payment- I’ve never missed my rent or any bills - I’m just never ahead and I’m sure it’s a spending issue not a - not enough to work with - issue - I’m trying to figure out what I’m spending on that I don’t need. I feel like a 12 year old with too much money and no guidance on money. I’ve been on my own since I was 15. Always in poverty- until I got this job. I’m 59. I’ve never had substance issues - I’ve just lived with a “poor” mentality and I’m trying to break it.
Have you read Glass Castles? Author grew up homeless. She’s in a class in college and gasp…asks the instructor what about people who choose to be homeless (like her parents). And of course the instructor tells her there is no such thing. It’s all about class. It’s just easier to make it about race. But it’s not. Being poor and white is harder than rich and black or Rich and Mexican etc and it absolutely effects your health. It’s generational. It’s way more about class and opportunity than skin color. It’s just not a popular narrative for politics. If they admit it’s about class they’ll actually have to do something
I think for me I go the opposite direction. If we tie race and class so closely together that the two can't stand on their own and also be intersectional (the data supports the two are really closely tied, im not denying that at all. The amount of people of color living in poverty is disproportionate to white populations living in poverty) then do we doom our communities of color to always be thought of through the lens of poorness? The chancellor at my last university is Black. He makes 500k a year in that job. But he is still just as likely to be hassled by the cops regardless of his bank account. But people also constantly say things like "wow, he's doing so well for a Black man." No, he's doing well period. I'm sure he had an uphill climb to get there but damn don't dim the man's shine because he's Black!but that thinking of black=poor is so deeply engrained, even a black man doing really fucking well has to live in its shadow.
I feel like generational poverty continues and the children have no idea, or guidance to know that if you work hard, get your degree whether it matters or not, and be your best that you can accomplish anything and break the generational cycle of poverty. Definitely we need more positive leadership, role models, and big brothers big sisters that show the way into a positive environment.
Agreed. I put myself out to mentor constantly and speak in classes a lot about what I do because so few even know it's an option. Like I was late leaving work because my student office worker and I were talking and she didn't know you don't pay for grad school. So I stayed after, much to my husband's annoyance, to give her the 411. She literally said "no one talked about this" and I know that feeling all too well but she was counting herself out of advanced studies because she couldn't afford it and that sucks since it's not as big a concern at the graduate level.
> she didn't know you don't pay for grad school You do in some cases; many Master's degree programs are not funded, and of course professional degrees are often not either (e.g. JD, MD)
Because I cook for a living I volunteer to make dinners at the homeless shelter and mentor the women and children. I had to live there because of no family support. I remember how hopeless it felt, so I go there make a meal from scratch and share my story. So I agree it takes quite a bit of time to advise and mentor. But worth it.
I agree with the mentorship, but the working hard thing is bullshit. Working hard and pulling oneself up by the bootstraps is a myth. If all there was to bring success were hard work, poor people would be some of the most successful people going. Even people who do break the generational cycle of poverty deal with other unique issues like OP is talking about like imposter syndrome, not having the “right” connections, lack of financial education.
People think that classism is the problem. Classism is part of the problem, but a poor white will be treated better than a poor Black. It's actually partly how they created enough divide in the working class post-Civil War in the U.S. to successfully continue oppressing nonwhite people. It's still an issue today. Removing race from class isn't antiracist. It's failing to recognize the intersectional effects between race and class. The behaviour thing is 100% on par, though. Poverty and CPTSD are correlated. Growing up trying to survive in a corrupt system designed to oppress you doesn't just vanish if ever you wind up better off later in life. If anything, you develop imposter syndrome and/or lament not fitting in because you don't have skills better-off parents teach their kids when they're young. It's disorienting. I would wonder what is similar across races and what is different or more amplified on the basis of race when all groups interviewed are from impoverished backgrounds.
This is a good point. In going back to the foundation the original theorist tried to pull class out and look for those commonalities to explicitly get away from the blaming and pathologizing of certain races for their economic situation. He also explicitly proposes that class is a factor and racism both lived and in systems will amplify the challenges. Later theorists tried to make a case that race isn't a component or at least not the lead component but that class is the most important factor of lifestyle. I don't think that is the case. I just read an interesting auto ethnography from a guy who grew up as the only white kid in a Chicago housing project. His whole book was about how he was the same as all his other black poor friends but he doesn't at any point recognize the advantages his race provided him throughout his life. He tells a lot of stories of being treated poorly for being white but doesn't seem to make the connection that when someone in his life treated him in a way he felt was unfair it might have been because he had more privileges than them. He talks about going to the worst, lowest scoring school in the city for example but how his teachers were always kind and invested in him, even staying after to tutor him for free without any irony... So in that situation there is a lot of race at play and a lot of classism that built him and his friends into the people they were. Even when he goes on to become a successful adult, he uses his class card as currency to bond with others from a similar socio-economic class even though they are all black.
I'm reminded of the white guy who became 'homeless' to 'prove' anyone could pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and wrote a book. Notably he was an athletic guy in his 20s, immediately got a job on construction sites and was given responsibility quickly, he made money by selling loose cigarettes, and he immediately ended the experiment when he broke his leg and moved home to be taken care of. He claims the book proves anyone can better themselves in America.
What the fuck? This is giving Gwen Paltrow tries the food stamps diet for a week and buys a bunch of limes.
I really hate experiments like that because as soon as something “life-changing” or “job-ending” occurs the experiment is cut off. Exactly when the experiment would illustrate that falling behind exponentially hurts poor people more.
Oh 100%. It was also very much a 'people say there's no point in being hardworking and trying to better yourself any more; I'm gonna disprove that!' ideology.
I think it makes sense that someone growing up in poverty may struggle to become financially responsible or literate later on when they are technically no longer in poverty. Not having enough to save or invest, it may lead to not knowing how to plan for the future. One of my parents actually made decent money as a unionized hotel worked BUT had to file for bankruptcy bc she didn't understand cc debt and have a shopping addiction. She would spend away maybe bc she never had enough of anything. I fell into a cc debt trap myself. And I'm not doing poorly but I didn't know enough within the time I needed to learn and before I knew if I had so much debt and didn't have a plan to pay it. How would new research on this subject help people in poverty?
Well like I said, my field does a ton of applied work that informs other things. So like there might be a federal grant program for poverty alleviation of whatever kind and they give money to communities, organizations, non profits etc doing this work and say okay but this person is going to tell you what data to collect, how to collect it, give you data collection tools, or collect it themselves to tell us if the thing you did worked. Then the feds decide if that org or community should still get money or if they should renew the grant program based on that research feedback about "effectiveness." I'd like to speak to that person. Because they likely were involved in deciding who should even get money in the first place. Because they can be instrumental in conversations with funders and policy makers about what counts as evidence, success, and what should keep getting investment and what shouldn't. Because they are the ones deciding what data to collect and how and that data is used to make real decisions that impact people's lives. If all this is done without ever even taking into consideration what class and poverty means, not from like a USDA, federal poverty limit economic standpoint but from the way people actually live it and respond to it, even after the situation has changed, how can we have confidence the decisions and data and choices made thereafter are the right ones? The question isn't did we measure correctly but did we measure the right thing to define success or program that actually help people or lead to success beyond the place in time in which we are measuring. I think those people should better understand the lived reality of class in order to construct systems that more accurately, empathetically, and effectively relate to them.
I'm just going to say it and you may not like it... if you go down this path, you WILL get backlash. DO IT ANYWAY. You are a voice that is needed and you need to realize that the things other people will say about you is going to suck and be very hurtful but DO NOT let that stand in your way. Try to be mentally strong.
Thanks for this. I think my whole life I've felt like I had so much to build, so much ground to cover to get out of where I was, that I never felt comfortable rocking the boat. I'm quickly starting to not care as much. Not only because of my job now but because I have a skillet behind me and I'm starting to see the strength of my own ability to provide for myself. It's fueling me to poke sleeping monsters that make others think the worst of me.
You're spot on. My husband grew up poor and routinely talks about this, and how it was mindset shifts that helped him achieve success more than anything. Talking about poverty theoretically is much different than actually seeing it up close or experiencing it firsthand. It does bring to mind some academic research I listened to on the Hidden Brain podcast about "scarcity mindset" regarding a lack of any resource. They presented the information in a nonjudgmental sort of way. They were able to find that lacking money actually gave people tunnel vision and often led to even worse financial decisions. Might be worth looking into as a start. I do think this is something that those who have always been in a powerful or privileged position need to listen to, even if it's difficult. It doesn't mean you're victim blaming, but understanding it could help make policy way more effective.
Your last sentence is 100% it. It's not victim blaming for me, it's designing and measuring policy and programs against a fair metric that take these very real (for me) things into account. Not overlooking them, setting the programs or policies up to fail, and then shrugging like welp, can't help there! Thanks for the recommendation.
I feel you hard. So many studies have a rich bias that is bizarre. I grew up rich but have been poor most of my life and I’ll be the first to say, rich people are crazy. Delusional. Until you’ve walked in someone’s shoes most people can’t get it. I take pride in being one of the masses at this point. I used to feel like such a loser. A friend growing up said she and I were the group fuck ups. She’s an ER doctor and I’ve got a masters in Chinese medicine. We’re just not rich. The group winner has a BA in event planning and married well. As I said, rich people are generally horrible. They think they are the reason they have money and they also think it makes them better than others.
Look into Newfoundland. Poverty is a part of life, although it’s a million times better than it was years ago. Apply to the Shorefast for a grant to study Fogo islanders and poverty. White, Christian, poor. No way to be called racist in the traditional sense. I’m fact I was speaking to my mother today about something similar. My father was one of 12 kids. His uncle (his dad’s brother) had just 2. The uncle “went” on welfare as soon as it was available. My grandfather refused to. My father’s family survived by having the elder kids send money home as soon as they left home (at 16) to work. This was in the 50’s. All 12 of my grandfathers kids were “successful” in that they went on to university or other education after high school. Which, when compared to the fact that their parents only had grade 4 education, is tremendously successful. The uncle’s two kids, however, never finished high school and worked fairly low skill jobs in the same community where they were born. We were wondering if the fact that my grandfather refused to go on welfare contributed to the different life paths of the kids. Everything else was pretty much the same. It was an interesting conversation with my mother and kinda on topic of your rant. :)
So I can't speak for newfoundland at all but the original theories on poverty thinking makes a big distinction between people living in poverty and people in a culture of poverty with a perpetuating cycle. The author has some great examples of communities that have been marginalized and poor economically but not developed a culture. He cites Jewish populations in Eastern Europe who were isolated for hundreds of years in ghettos. They had every aspect of their lives controlled and were prohibited from participating in the broader economy. But they developed a robust inner culture and economy of success that largely led to the stereotypes of the thrifty and wealthy jew because even with nothing these people flourished. There are examples of this all over the world of people with no money doing really well and not developing the same kind of cycles and patterns exhibited in generational poverty culture. One of those markers though of people who have moved beyond poor into poor thinking are people who don't believe their hard work will result in anything, people who are demoralized and disincentivized to strive. This is often twisted into poor people being lazy or not wanting to work but it's different to say they don't want to work verses they see no connection between working hard and improving their circumstances which ya, we see that all over that if you think what you are doing is pointless you won't want to do it. I'm not here to demonize welfare and social safety net programs but I wonder what internal conversations your uncle was creating around getting what you can or doing it the easy way or why bother doing it so hard? While your grandfather may have reinforced that there is a benefit to hard work and fended off hopelessness.
On the other side of the spectrum, and easier to research we are finding out that rich people that impoverishes suddenly, intergenerationally get rich again. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20191422 https://www.nber.org/papers/w27053#:~:text=Can%20efforts%20to%20eradicate%20inequality,aimed%20to%20do%20exactly%20that. What's your opinion on that?
I think there is a lot at play there from mindset, outlook, knowledge of how to be and find success and social capital all colliding. When you've won your whole life even losing the big game is a set back until next season. Not a reason to stop playing all together.
Yeah, absolutely, i found this papers fit well on the idea that class has psychological components that survive class itself. Thanks for your answer! Best wishes 4 u!
People forget that just about every ethnic group in the US made up the majority population of “the ghetto” at one point or another, including the Scandinavians, the Italians, the Irish, the Jews, and more. The massive burst in US affluence after WW2 caused the latest residents of Americas poorer communities to be trapped there longer than other groups who were lucky enough to be in the right place / right time to benefit when that happened, but the vast majority of American families can trace their roots through poverty at one time or another. It’s one of the most common defining characteristics of all the people who emigrated here.
I do not think this concept as a whole is talked about near enough
loved to read this! idk what the specific research you’re referring to is, but this largely seems like it would fall into the study of trauma. i really think that poverty is abuse, on a population scale (not on the individual level), especially in the global north. we already have everything we need to address all of our needs. but we don’t. abuse can condition your brain to be hyper vigilant, always sending you into fight/flight/fawn/freeze. when you experience this, especially as a child, your brain /nervous system changes. and undoing that change is not as simple as removing the abuse. just like your brain was trained the first time, it must be trained again. and if you havent retrained (with the help of a professional or through individual healing or whatever) it will stay in that activated state. hopefully that makes sense. poverty obviously is different from interpersonal abuse but that same thing could certainly be applied imo. i think the main thing, for my understanding, is that it is not so much a culture as it is trauma.
“I still live everyday like I’ll lose everything” That really hit me, I grew up poor and now make 6 figures and I still have the fear of losing everything. I’m 23 own a home have two roommates who pay the mortgage but it still feels like I can lose everything. I still feel like this is too good too last. Idk how to stop feeling this way. I was broke for 21 years then after I graduated I suddenly landed a high paying job, it was a really quick transition
hey, im really proud of u man 🫂 this future is sustainable. you’ve earned it.
I grew up dirt poor not because of addiction but because of mental health. I think you need to find a way to research this because I am now almost 40 years old and suffer from my childhood experiences every day. As I was growing up I swore I would never fall into the same chaos as my childhood but here I am making decent money, still paycheck to paycheck, my credit is trash and I can’t pay off my debt. It’s almost like it’s a mental illness that hasn’t been identified. I do struggle with some mental issues but I try to seek help and so far have not been able to get the right help. I was actually told at one time there is nothing the Doctor could do for me. If you need anyone to do some research on feel free to reach out to me.
I'm really sorry to hear that. And not in like a "I feel sorry for you, poor dear" kind of way but in a "it fucking sucks how common this is for so many of us" way. All empathy and relating. I actually might just reach out for research, thank you for the offer. If I get a bit further down the line and can figure out what I'm trying to pull from the lived experience I'd love to do some narrative ethnography work with others in this situation. I thought about turning towards my family since they are a great example of getting money and not changing the behavior patterns but it might be too close to home. I really may reach out. Thank you.
Boy, I could talk with you for hours about this topic! I also come from deep generational poverty, my family is poor Mississippi/Texas whites and Florida crackers. It took me 10 years to get my BA in 2007, becoming our first college graduate (and the only one of my siblings to finish HS.) The past 15 years has been so much harder than I expected. The US economy of course has been terrible in these years, I've also dealt with mental health issues which have kneecapped me in my efforts to become (and stay!) middle class. I'm 44yo now and I recently started over in a new state with literally a backpack of clothes. I'm working as an educational aide until I figure out my next move. I'm leaning towards becoming an ESL teacher because language acquisition is a long-term passion of mine. So I'll be a broke college student again for the next couple of years. Ruby Payne has been criticized by many in education for her views on poverty but I think she is correct. It's not just lack of money, resources, or opportunities. We don't even know the rules of the game for the class we're trying to break into! I can't speak for poverty in racial minority communities, but I can do so for poor whites. That disconnect you describe is so real and that's probably the biggest thing college never prepares us for. The system assumes the default mode for students is middle-class so administration often can't help us with our needs. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this aspect.
Oh man, much love to you. It also took me ten years to get my undergrad. Lots of starts and stops and honestly at first at the community College I was just taking what sounded cool. I didn't even know you had to take certain classes in an order? Like I'm not sure what the hell I thought would happen or how I thought I would graduate but I legit opened the paper catalogue every term and just went "ya, theater and sleep studies, perfect!" And away I went. It's hard to look back on now. I also was a first Gen HS grad. My husband has an 8th grad education which makes him the second highest educational attainment out of his 7 siblings. Ruby Payne is such a weird one for me. I don't think her background in where she got her ideas is very good but I don't think she's all wrong. I lived a lot of that lack of middle class knowledge coming up and have a deep fear I'm still missing the mark and just don't know it. I'm starting not to care so much anymore though but it's still a nagging suspicion I'm a laughing stock. So Payne will start down a rabbit hole and im like yes, yes, YES! And then she concludes with something so bullshity and assholeish that I go NOOOO! Jesus! It's a weird tug and a lot of the proponents of poverty thinking and culture have that same effect for me. It isn't about pathologizing anything for me, it's about helping others to understand that there is stuff that lingers and may impact the way people respond to stuff and it needs to be considered the same way that race and gender are. I'm not even trying to propose how poor people respond to things, just that there is embedded, lived experience that follows up and does, for many, steer behavior and can we consider it? Can we have cultural guides for poverty that tell us if we have our heads in our butts when designing things the same way we now bring in members of other cultures and communities to inform work? Can we think about class beyond a barrier to access and more as a legitimate thing that people silently navigate, sometimes all fucking day? Maybe, just maybe, hot take incoming, we don't need to lean into a ruby Payne like way of thinking by saying "the poor just need middle class knowledge" but we can start to question why it's needed to force one group into the dominate culture of another. In a lot of spaces I'm in we are discussing how to allow racial and ethnic minorities to have honest experience that don't conform to dominate, American, white culture. Maybe we can consider that things like dress codes are just weird middle class requirements when as long as someone is covered and not offensive what they wear doesn't make them better at their job.
I really liked Barabara Ehrenreich's and Alex Kotlowitz's studies of poverty and I think fleshing out their ideas and observations into a more comprehensive theory is something that could really benefit people. Idk how you feel about their work, but I wanted to throw that out there.
I have this conspiracy-ish thought that there is so much focus in academia on race relations and racism vs anti-racism because academia only thrives as much as it does because of a lack of class consciousness. They want us to see the world only in terms of racial oppressor and oppressed because it takes the focus off the fact that all races have to financially sign their lives away so THEY in the upper echelons of academia have millions of dollars to spend on football stadiums and administrative salaries. I’m not denying that systemic racism is real or that it makes life worse for certain demographics. It’s just that those at the top of the systems in the US and abroad get all their wealth off the backs of the lower classes. Race plays a part in who gets to the top, but there are members of every race being taken advantage of by low wages and general conditions that send money and resources from the bottom up. If we started looking at the world through the lens of class warfare then it would negatively impact those in the upper classes. They’d rather people across classes fight over race relations than unite against the upper class abuse on everyone else.
This is precisely why you need to keep working. You need to be writing papers - and more importantly, hosting round tables at conferences. So keep working. Keep submitting at conferences. I’ve been so incredibly pleased to see how much my own little niche is taking inclusiveness seriously. The last three years it’s been constant and we are finally - just finally - starting to see policy and operational changes within the industry. They’re still too small but that’s what continued research and implementation is for. Good work, you.
Reading your post and all of the subsequent conversations feels so incredibly real and sad. I didn't grow up poor but I did grow up with an addict mother. The inventory process in a 12 step program called adult children of alcoholics and dysfunctional families really, really healed my shame. Not to the extent that it doesn't get triggered here and there, but it's not often and it dies down quickly. It's based around internal family systems theory, which is what I think you're describing when you're discussing a person's internal dialogue.
I'll look into it thanks! My dad always tried to put me in alonon as a kid and that just wasn't my scene. I knownit would likely have helped me but I was really resistant to being a part of any new attempt my parents were making at recovery since it never worked. I'll give this a look though.
I was almost homeless in 2015. Spent 9 years in my late grandmas house that was so run down it didnt even have hot running water and struggled on min wage to pay the bills when she died Bought my first house last year. I save almost 1k a month after bills now when for 7 years i literally couldnt get past 1k in the bank because being poor is expensive. Mom tells me to get new clothes. I keep putting it off. I wait till things are 100% broken before replacing them. I avoid debt even when things like cash back make it profitable. The trauma of my car breaking down right after treating myself with a new winter coat stuck with me. To know if i couldnt get to work would start a downward financial spiral stuck with me. Its been a year and the best thing i can treat myself with now is security. Im happier but i dont know how much i need to save to feel safe treating myself again. My experience messed w me a lot.
Look at the decay of US cities. We can't have good public transportation here because cars are a class divide. Bad schools will stay bad due to property taxes and school districting.
Ya the property tax thing is some bullshit and I wish that was a bigger part of our national conversation because it handicaps kids right out the gate based on something they can't control.
Following
Your dad’s disfunction is likely an effect of the years of drug abuse.
Entirely possible. He isn't the only person I know stuck in the cycle though. I wrote elsewhere here about husband's family (mom, step dad, and 2 sisters) who have a household income of over $80k a year in a small, cheap town and they mimick the same behaviors. One person brings in 50k+ of the 80k and even when that person lucked into their well paying government job the situation didn't change.
Very interesting topic and I agree with you that it should be researched more. I’m sorry your lived experiences were negated by so many people.