In the United States, the income gap between the rich and everyone else has been growing markedly, by every major statistical measure, for more than 30 years. According to the UC Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez, the disparities between rich and poor are so pronounced that America’s top 10 percent now average more than nine times as much income as the bottom 90 percent.
Numbers are one thing, but when you put it in a particular perspective, it sheds a whole different light on the problem. So when one Redditor posted the question “In what way is it expensive to be poor?” on Ask Reddit, it was destined to hit close to the bone for many.
And when it feels like this may be a tricky question that’s deeply counterintuitive, in reality, it does make a whole lot of sense. Like, paying a times-ten fine for not having a parking ticket because you just can’t afford one. Let’s see what other fellow Americans had to share on the subject matter, and it’s more illuminating than you’d think.
#1
The quality of stuff you’re able to buy. For example someone struggling for cash will may pair of shoes for £5 that last for a short period of time and need to be replaced every two months. And someone who is more well off can afford to buy a pair of shoes for £40 which last about two years. Therefore at the end of the two year period the poorer person has spent around £120
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#2
Mental health. Or more specifically stress. You will always have stress about future, always making decisions based on your poverty so that it won’t affect your situation in bad way.
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#3
Biggest one that I always think of for all my fellow Americans is medical care. If you’re poor you put off medical care as long as possible, and it’s extremely expensive by the time it’s serious enough to address.
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#4
Being stuck with higher interest rates because you don’t have enough credit to get low rates.
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#5
“The poor pay interest, and the rich collect it.”
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#6
You have to buy a cheap, unreliable car, that will inevitably cost you more in repairs, poor fuel economy, higher insurance etc.
Image source: Outcasted_introvert, Charles
#7
You can’t afford to buy a place and essentially throw the money away into rent instead of paying off a house and being able to sell it after.
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#8
If you’re ever desperate enough to take out a title/payday loan you’ll discover you just stepped in financial quicksand.
Image source: New_Game_P1us, Alexander Mils
#9
I saw a lady coming out of a laundromat, loading her baskets of clothes into a taxi (there is zero other public transport where I saw this happen and only a few taxis).
Not being able to put enough money together at one time to buy a car or a washing machine (she probably rented so this maybe wasn’t even an option) was costing her a fortune. Just being nickeled and dimed to death.
Image source: shallow_ender27, jeremysallee
#10
Not MONEY expensive, but TIME expensive. Everything takes longer, and you always have to wait. The bus, the laundromat, the store, the line for Money Orders or check cashing…
Before they installed the self-check registers, the Wal-Mart near my work was guaranteed to have a 10-minute wait in line, no matter when you went. Once, there were 42 people in each of the only 2 lines open, at 7P.M. on a Friday. I thought, “They can only get away with this because these people have no other choice.”
There’s no way the store in the nice neighborhood up the road would ever allow that, their customers would have a fit.
Image source: Jef_Wheaton, Lloyd Dirks
#11
In every manner.
If you want healthy food, that costs. But eating cheap food, while sustaining, will inevitably lead to poorer health.
Bad health will cost you.
If you want to not be stressed-and stress is huge when it comes to health-then that means not having to worry is kind of an integral part of poverty.
Stress means less awesome interpersonal relationships, means less sleep, means overwork to try to make ends meet.
Good interpersonal relationships, getting enough sleep, and not working yourself to exhaustion are things that help you stay alive.
Mentally, you now have a running total of how much everything in your life costs. I guarantee you that every poor person knows exactly, precisely, how much milk costs or gasoline, or a bus pass, or the subscription to Netflix that brings them just a little joy and if they can afford it or not. There are no coins in their couches, $5 to discover in an old coat; they need that money and they know where it is.
And if not, now they have to spend time (another expense!) dealing with debt collectors, or people at utility agencies or banks or government offices, trying to negotiate and navigate systems that may or may not be willing to help them (regardless of that system’s original intent).
Poverty is merely the accumulation of expenses that one cannot pay and once you are poor, there is a system in place to ensure that you never, ever run out of those expenses.
Image source: Gentleman_Villain, Dan Gold
#12
Rent is more than a mortgage for my apartment would be, but I can’t afford the down payment.
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#13
There are late fees for everything. Overdraft fees at the bank. Sh*tty jobs usually don’t have good healthcare plans. If you’re poor, you need credit cards just to survive, but interest rates are higher for those with low credit scores (see late fees above). Sh*tty cars are always breaking down, and that’s expensive…
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#14
Time is also expensive. I use to spend 4 hours a day on a bus just to get to work. If my manager let us out 15 minutes late, I’d have to wait an hour downtown at night because I JUST missed the bus. The bus came evert hour after a certain time.
Image source: Lost_Physics_3871
#15
Therapy is $400 PER SESSION even with the insurance from my job. My job doesn’t pay enough to live on my own. My spouse and I are slowly falling out of love and I’ll end up homeless and dead either way (working non stop and can’t afford living still or spouse passes and still end up homeless and dying). I’m on the autism spectrum and getting further insight costs more than what I can afford after my bills are paid. When everything is paid, I have $20 left. There’s no ladder for me to climb. I try my best to stay upbeat, because in the past I’ve already attempted suicide 3 times. That’s won’t help. But yea, poor sucks because your whole life is more expensive than it feels it’s worth many times. But somehow it’s still beautiful in tiny ways. Death won’t take me that easily; that f**ker has to fight to get my soul after the abyss of madness I’ve seen on Earth… and survived.
Image source: HellWasBusy
#16
The justice system. If you can’t pay a fine, the state will make things more expensive by adding fees on top of fees on top of fees, then they will incarcerate you for not paying the inflated fees. Then you have to pay the parole officer who is keeping an eye on you while you care unable to get a job that pays enough to pay him.
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#17
Can’t afford to buy bulk at Costco, so end up spending more and getting less in the long run…
Image source: SnooSprouts220, querysprout
#18
Being unable to pay for education is the most expensive way of staying poor. And don’t come with scholarship and that stuff, it is expensive af and even more if you are like me from a poor third world country
Image source: pazul-ulzap, napr0tiv
#19
Low paying jobs can also be physically harmful ie factory work, and you can be treated like garbage because it’s cheaper to pay out the occasional law suit and medical expenses rather than resign the factory and make it less efficient to be safer.
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#20
There is the phrase, “buy nice or buy twice.” It basically means that you should buy the nicer product because you’ll need to replace it less often.
For those people who can’t “buy nice” they are forced to buy an inferior product multiple times.
An example is work boots. A $100 pair of boots may last 5 years. A $20 pair of boots may last 6 months. If you can’t afford $100 boots then by the time 5 years is up, you would have already spent $200 on cheap boots.
Image source: CaptainAwesome06, LOGAN WEAVER
#21
Not having a kitchen and having to rely on fast food for all your meals.
Image source: unknown, amgee88
#22
In certain parts of British Columbia, you have to pay a fine if you’re caught panhandling. Homeless people literally have to pay money for asking for money.
Image source: wash-those-hands, Michal Matlon
#23
Renting to own anything is really bad. You pay 4X the value of whatever it is you’re renting to own. And if you miss a payment they repossess it and someone else might start at the beginning of attempting to pay for it again. Not only that you very well might be paying 4X the new value for a used item. And only low quality items are sold rent to own. Ashley furniture, sh*tty used cars, the cheapest big screen tvs available at wholesale. Houses might be better, but rent a center, and JD Byrider are worse than loan sharks.
Image source: rhb4n8, alexblock
#24
I once had to pay money so I could set up a payment plan because I had no money. Because I was to broke I had a bunch of late fees so a 100 dollar ticket ended up being around 1500 when all was said and done
Image source: chiphchopchip, Eduardo Soares
#25
My car has a leaky seal on the transmission. It’d be about $250 to replace the seal and flush the transmission. I don’t have $250, so I keep topping up the fluid and keep driving it because I’ll never get $250 if I don’t get to work. But, in time, that’s going to destroy the transmission, which will be about $1200 to replace.
Image source: pokey1984, Martin Cathrae
#26
When bank fees are waived if you keep more than $X amount in your account, but they start charging for the account when the amount drops under the minimum.
Image source: backwoodshippy, sharonmccutcheon
#27
Not being able to afford preventative care can get expensive fast.
Be it cars, homes, bodies, or relationships.
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#28
This has probably been said already, but good cooking.
For us, middle class now, it’s easy to assemble a meal from what is in the pantry and freezer supplemented by what’s in our garden or in the stores within three blocks of my house.
It feels thrifty, healthy, sensible.
But to get to this point took a lot of investment. We have pots and pans, spices, flour, oils, vinegars, bags and cans of staples, grills, steamer, measuring devices galore. We have the knowledge of cooking that comes from being able to afford to learn what we liked by going to restaurants, and having the spare time to watch cooking shows, and the energy to cook everyday because we don’t have two jobs each with long commutes.
And if you don’t have $500 to put together a basic kitchen, or secure private cooking space so that your investment won’t immediately be soiled or stolen, you’re likely going to be eating a lot of fast food. And that isn’t the most nutritious foundation for the next day.
Image source: talesofkenji
#29
A filling is cheaper than a root canal.
Image source: VeeRook, carocaro1987
#30
If you’re poor you already have no or very little money to invest in yourself, so you have to take on debt to do so. If you want to get technical certifications or degrees. Sometimes there’s financial assistance but a lot of the time taking on loans is necessary.
Image source: _TallulahShark, Dylan Gillis
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