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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127points
#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.
124points
#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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120points
The idea that it’s expensive to be poor may sound counterintuitive. But life is pricey in itself, no doubt. And if you break down the average American’s monthly expenditure, most of it goes towards housing, transportation, healthcare, childcare, and food and clothing.
In numerous ways, the system benefits individuals more the bigger their bank account is. According to Mallory Sanborn, a senior associate at Access Ventures, the concept of the overdraft fee is one of the examples.
“While many banks offer overdraft protection and market it as as a service, it can result in the accumulation of fines that make it more difficult to maintain a bank account. If you have insufficient funds in a linked savings account to cover the overdraft, this 'service' can cause more harm than good. Overdrafting by $5 results in a $35 overdraft fee.”
#4
Being stuck with higher interest rates because you don't have enough credit to get low rates.
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118points
#6
You have to buy a cheap, unreliable car, that will inevitably cost you more in repairs, poor fuel economy, higher insurance etc.
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113points
Sadly, the majority of the profit banks make through these fees comes from the accounts of the poorest of the banking population in the US. The numbers speak for themselves—Americans paid a staggering $15 billion of overdraft fees in 2016 alone.
The payday loan is also something that many Americans find themselves grasping onto as a last resort when their financial situation is particularly difficult. When you have little or no savings and your car breaks down, which is the only way for you to get to your job, a payday loan becomes the only option.
But according to The Economist, in 2013, the average interest rate on a payday loan was 322% compared to the average credit card interest rate of 15%. This is cold evidence of how the system that feeds on the poorest of society is broken.
#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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107points
#8
If you're ever desperate enough to take out a title/payday loan you'll discover you just stepped in financial quicksand.
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103points
#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.
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102points
#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.
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99points
#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.
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94points
#12
Rent is more than a mortgage for my apartment would be, but I can't afford the down payment.
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79points
#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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76points
#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.
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72points
#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.
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69points
#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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67points
#17
Can't afford to buy bulk at Costco, so end up spending more and getting less in the long run...
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65points
#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
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57points
#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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45points
#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.
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45points