
Spent – Poverty Simulator (2011) - smpetrey
http://playspent.org
======
apsec112
Past Hacker News thread:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3070094](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3070094)

~~~
sdwisely
I actually got quite depressed playing the game, then reading the quite
dismissive comments of 2011.

It was kind of nice to switch back to the current discussion and see it lean a
bit more toward empathy for the poor.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Something I've realized here, and in other discussions I'm randomly having: I
think most people just don't think things through and can't put themselves
sufficiently deeply into another person's shoes.

Someone just asked me, "why do you have to register to vote? why can't I show
up with a passport?" \- which sounds reasonable until you start thinking about
local elections, where you need to prove that you live in a certain area, and
then the need for some sort of registration becomes more obvious. (Or another
refactoring of the system, at least.)

Same here - people think, "why do you _need_ a car, I certainly don't need one
on the Upper East Side!" \- and for them, they don't. In rural Texas, not
having one means you're very geographically bound, and effectively
unemployable.

So, for some things, I don't think it's just a lack of empathy; it's just a
quick knee-jerk comment on an internet forum.

~~~
Kalium
A year or two back, I had an encounter with an artist. They were in some
financial distress. This person blamed Uber and a company they'd rented a car
from for this distress, telling a tale of woe and failed art shows. They
included numbers.

I took the numbers provided and worked out what their finances looked like.
Tracked income and outlays. It quickly became clear that while Uber hadn't
helped their situation, the several thousand dollars they had spent on
financially unsuccessful art shows had more to do with their distress.

The artist in question was blown away. They'd literally never encountered the
notion of tracking their money in a meaningful sense.

What I learned from this is that what's unimaginable to me - such as the idea
of budgeting being entirely foreign - is someone else's normal. I also learned
that it's impossible to put myself into their shoes fully, because life
experiences can easily diverge wildly.

------
jstanley
On opting out of playing the lottery:

> It may seem like a waste of money, but for people like you who have no
> 401(k) or savings account, it can look like an investment in a better
> future.

How is that advice helpful? A lottery ticket is not an investment in any way.

~~~
habosa
Lottery tickets are sort of interesting. Yes they are a bad deal, but they're
the highest variance "investment" you can get by a long shot.

If you're very poor and stuck in a bad situation, there could 0.0% chance you
ever become a millionaire through the normal mechanisms, maybe spending $1 a
week on a lottery ticket raises that to 0.00000000001% and creates a bit more
hope in your mind.

Again, I'd never advise anyone to buy a lottery ticket. But if it makes you
hopeful, maybe it's a better treat for yourself than a chocolate bar.

~~~
erichurkman
Want to see something scary? [https://www.businessinsider.com/powerball-mega-
millions-how-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/powerball-mega-millions-how-
much-states-spend-on-lottery-tickets-2018-1)

Per capita lottery spend by state: Massachusetts @ $761/year. West Virginia @
$594/year. Georgia @ $391/year.

~~~
hellogoodbyeeee
Is $800 a year a lot? Invested for 30 years with a 8% return it will be $100k
or maybe $300/month in safe withdrawals. Im not trying to beg a question
here... Really is that a lot of money? $300 isn't enough to live on but it's
maybe a quarter of the poverty line? I guess that would be significant when
added to social security.

Is that per capital lottery spend just total sales divided by population? The
more interesting statistic would be average spend by people who buy at least a
ticket a month. I'm sure the $761/month is brought down by people who buy 0-5
tickets a year.

~~~
darpa_escapee
$800 buys a lot of food, pays a lot of bills and could keep a roof over your
family's head for a month or two depending on where you live.

Reminder that 40% of Americans can't cover a $400 emergency expense[1].

[1] [https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/22/pf/emergency-expenses-
house...](https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/22/pf/emergency-expenses-household-
finances/index.html)

------
jbverschoor
Funny, because I have no way to see what my state is. How I live,
subscriptions etc. So everything comes at a surprise.

~~~
tantalor
The "college loan due" really came as a shock. I had a college degree??

~~~
levesque
College degree, working a 9$ / hr job. Not saying this is impossible, but
probably not the case of most college degree holders.

~~~
fragmede
Maybe technically _most_ , but with an estimated 25% of collet graduates being
overqualified for their jobs, the situation is all too common, especially for
those outside if STEM.

[http://time.com/money/4658059/college-grads-workers-
overqual...](http://time.com/money/4658059/college-grads-workers-
overqualified-jobs/)

------
mattlondon
75usd on a phone bill? Really? Basic plans with unlimited calls and texts, and
maybe half a gig of data are about £6-8 (say 8-10USD) here (1). 75 USD should
be enough for 6 months service in any other western country, easily.

The cell phone bill makes me question how realistic this "simulator" is. Are
the healthcare costs realistic? Obviously in every other western country these
costs would be zero (or very close to zero if you don't qualify for 100% free
prescriptions in the UK at least).

Is healthcare really that bad in the US? Really? Genuinely staggering if so.

1 -
[https://www.uswitch.com/mobiles/compare/sim_only_deals/](https://www.uswitch.com/mobiles/compare/sim_only_deals/)

~~~
Raphmedia
(Canadian)

I pay $35/month for 1GB of mobile internet + unlimited phone calls/texts. Over
that, I pay 47$/month for unlimited 30Mbps internet. That's ignoring taxes.

Take a look:

[https://www.planhub.ca/quebec/compare-cellphone-
plan/0min.10...](https://www.planhub.ca/quebec/compare-cellphone-
plan/0min.1000MB.2.1-9-2-5-8-6-7-4-10)

[https://www.planhub.ca/quebec/compare-internet-
plan/search?l...](https://www.planhub.ca/quebec/compare-internet-
plan/search?locality=nc&postal=nc&downloadspeed=30Mbps&uploadspeed=0Mbps&bandwidth=unlimited-
data&services=&provider=all-carriers&searchinput=%20)

Remember that the province I live in is more the size of France and is covered
with ice during winter. Carriers have to support the entire province and then
the entire country.

See those size comparison:

[https://mapfight.appspot.com/quebec-vs-fr/quebec-france-
size...](https://mapfight.appspot.com/quebec-vs-fr/quebec-france-size-
comparison)

[https://mapfight.appspot.com/ca-vs-fr/canada-france-size-
com...](https://mapfight.appspot.com/ca-vs-fr/canada-france-size-comparison)

~~~
grawprog
I'm with freedom mobile and pay about the same in bc. But I get no service
outside the cities and certain areas and my data gets slowed after 2GB I
think. A lot of people I know here on telus or Rogers pay insane prices for
slow capped data. A coworker of mine was freaking out recently about a $700
phone bill he got for apparently going over his data limit. There was no proof
of this from telus and his phone disagreed heavily with how much they'd said
he'd used.

I can't remember the exact amount but it was ridiculous more than I can use in
a month unless I really try though my home WiFi let alone on a mobile.

He talked to them but In the end he still had to pay something like $150.

I'd like to say thinga like that don't happen often. But it seems like I hear
stories about it fairly regularly.

Telus plans start at around $80/month

[https://www.telus.com/en/mobility/plans?linktype=nav](https://www.telus.com/en/mobility/plans?linktype=nav)

Rogers at $85 for 3GB of data

[https://www.rogers.com/consumer/wireless/smartphone-
plans](https://www.rogers.com/consumer/wireless/smartphone-plans)

------
jldugger
Eyeballing it with a spreadsheet, simulator offers $1440 in monthly income,
but at least $2000 in expenses. You've got a car to pay off and insure, a kid,
a pet, a heap of CC debt, and a cell phone bill triple what I pay. You're
renting an apartment, but you have monthly gas and electric bills of 125 and
150. Internet fees are higher than I'm paying now. And zero access to credit
to make any investments you'd need to make, or tax credits for dependent
children, retirement savings, Earned Income Tax Credit, etc.

Even if you _could_ fix all that, you're still not going to make ends meet.
The player is effectively bankrupt.

~~~
AcerbicZero
The "simulator" does put you in an essentially unwinnable scenario. I too,
would probably go broke if all my bills occurred in one 30 day period, while I
was cut off from all my credit, given thousands in debt, and left with zero
savings plus a kid.

I think the creators reduce the impact of their own message by making it so
far fetched. I can't relate to anyone who would put themselves in such a
terrible financial position, so its just an unwinnable game.

~~~
lifeformed
That happens a lot more often than you may think. Sure, it's rare for all that
to happen on any given month, but cyclic things will all converge eventually
over a few years.

------
narrator
This game needs in-app purchases so you can win at it faster.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
How about crime? Didn't play for long, but an "pay off your credit card by
thieving from someone" option adds another interesting facet.

------
emddudley
If I were only earning $1000/mo then my Affordable Care Act health insurance
would be free...

~~~
ceejayoz
With a $13k deductible...

 _edit:_ Don't get me wrong, it's better than nothing. I'm on the exchanges
myself. That said, a major illness is still going to be a massive financial
hit even with subsidized premiums.

~~~
wtallis
At ~$1000 per month, you're either on Medicaid, stuck in the coverage gap if
you live in the wrong state, or getting both premiums and deductibles
subsidized so that the deductible is at least an order of magnitude lower than
$13k. If you qualify for subsidies and are earning slightly more than the
poverty line, the only way to get close to a $13k deductible is to
deliberately avoid the plans that qualify for the most subsidies.

------
Svoka
I want real poverty simulator. Or, better, Low Income living. With adequate
probabilities (like going more than 10 days without crashing your car),
knowing that you have a kid upfront, etc.

------
esotericn
I don't think you can call a demonstration that deliberately excludes many
available options a "simulator".

If you are poor, then living alone or taking on a lease is insane. The
implicit assumption that you can't move and that "the rent" is as high as it
is in this demo is untrue.

So what you end up with in this demo is a race against unsustainably high
costs because you arbitrarily can't remove them.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Agreed. This simulator seems to make a lot of near worst case assumptions and
paint with a very broad brush.

For starters:

Lifting 20lb is not going to take a toll on your body unless your body is
already beat to crap from something else.

Most people can replace a window. If you don't then you probably know someone
who can. Poor people trade semi-skilled labor around as favors all the time.

You don't need to join a gym to stay in shape, especially if your job involves
manual labor. You also don't need to stay in tip top physical shape, just
don't let yourself get seriously out of shape.

Nobody is doing credit checks for lower end jobs or lower end housing. They
care more about your criminal record or lack thereof. If your poor you're
either not going to use credit or your credit will be crap. Good credit isn't
going to help you dig a ditch or unload a truck so you'll get hired anyway.

The whole point of choosing housing on the rural end of the available options
is to reduce the cost of living and not have someone siphon the gas out of
your car. In the simulation the shopping selector reflects city prices and the
crime happens anyway.

Doing laundry in a sink, tub or 5gal bucket is a perfectly fine option if your
washer doesn't work. It also doesn't cost $30 to go to the laundromat. You
don't just wear dirty clothes. That's what college kids who've never lived on
their own and lose their laundry card do.

I get that the whole point of this game it to make a statement but it paints a
picture that seriously undersells the resourcefulness of poor people. It's
also very clear that the decision tree in this simulator was written using a
set of assumptions about how certain problems be solved and those assumptions
were either made in an ivory tower or were designed to mostly go unnoticed to
those in ivory towers.

edit: Yes I have had jobs like this. I know exactly what they're like. I've
been a janitor, I've worked in food-service, I've done under the table
construction, I've worked for a temp agency. I've literally dug ditches and
scrubbed toilets (not that bad on average, watch out for the edge cases
though). If you expect me to have a lot of sympathy with people who lift 20lb
in a 70deg warehouse then you will be disappointed. Yes it's a crappy job that
pays poorly and I'm sure it's soul crushing but it's not the pyramid building
slave labor that some people like to equate it to. The lack of advancement
opportunities (advancement to better paying jobs) in some of these jobs are
what I consider the primary reason that people in these jobs can't get out of
poverty.

~~~
olliej
I’m curious as to whether you’ve ever had a job like this?

There’s a difference between lifting/carrying the occasional 20lb weight, and
doing that continuously for 8 hours.

I used to have 8 hour shifts at a standing only checkout - it took about a
month before my back started hurting continuously. This was just a standing on
concrete job, not even lifting all day.

Low end housing does do credit checks, and does increase your “deposit”.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>I’m curious as to whether you’ve ever had a job like this?

Several. I edited my original comment to reflect this.

>I used to have 8 hour shifts at a standing only checkout - it took about a
month before my back started hurting continuously. This was just a standing on
concrete job, not even lifting all day.

Not imagine it being hotter, louder higher humidity, and having to bend over
slightly to reach things all the time. Welcome to a dishroom.

~~~
olliej
I’m impressed you did that without back pain :)

Just to be clear though

1\. I said I got back pain just standing on concrete, without actually lifting
anything

2\. People are super bad at lifting things properly, so I’m sure a reasonable
number of injuries are “avoidable”

3\. I’m not saying that everything in this was realistic (there are some
questionable options), just that this particular case is super plausible.
After all the equivalent in tech is RSI/OOS (whatever it’s called now), and
that’s super common even though avoiding it is way easier than avoiding back
problems when your job is picking things up.

------
diddid
I was expecting this to be interesting and was excited to play, but it's not.
In fact I found it annoying. But maybe that's the point. From playing it made
me thing I could get out of poverty.

"You've made your bed and now you need to sleep in it."

------
fallingfrog
Such deja vu! This was my life for years.

~~~
fallingfrog
I never had health insurance though. This was pre-affordable care act. My
teeth were falling out after a decade of no dental coverage. I almost died
from pneumonia. For some reason, I turned out to be a socialist..

~~~
StavrosK
I know someone from Canada who had the exact same experience
(homelessness/drugs/poverty) and is now a staunch conservative, believing that
there should be no socialized insurance or provision for anyone.

His rationale is "I picked myself up with no help from the state, so why
should I have to pay for others? If you're poor, it's because you're lazy". I
was of the opinion that the help he received from his church is just a smaller
version of socialized healthcare, but he disagreed.

~~~
fallingfrog
I believe you, but I find it impossible to understand that point of view.. I
see a person in their 50's bagging groceries or working the drive through and
I think to myself, could have easily been me, different childhood interests,
different opportunities, just slightly worse luck and I could have been in
your position. And still might, depending on if the economy tanks or if I get
brain damage from being hit by a car or something.

~~~
StavrosK
Me too. I guess he thinks that anyone can have the
interests/luck/opportunities he can? Who knows.

------
swazzy
One of my favorite games growing up was Jones in the Fast Lane
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jones_in_the_Fast_Lane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jones_in_the_Fast_Lane)).

~~~
dagurp
mine too! I don't really know why

------
sigi45
Interesting to see those comments on a platform whee the avg warning and
chances is way higher than what reality looks for lots of other people.

Yes this game is not realistic. Now let's talk about fairness and
responsibilities of us for all others.

------
brianwawok
I lost when my landlord raised rent $150. My options were pay or argue. I
picked argue, I lost, $150 went away.

In reality I would have squatted and forced them to spend 6 months evicting
me, giving me time to save up firsts month rent for a new place.

~~~
Kalium
That's a very clever idea! In many places eviction is a drawn-out process that
can be taken advantage of.

It's worth considering that that approach might be an excellent way to make it
very, very difficult to get a new place. Squatting to afford rent on a new
place is very much like declaring bankruptcy so you can afford a new car loan,
complete with the major black mark on your credit report that makes it much
more difficult to get a reasonable interest rate. This is less fanciful than
it sounds, as agencies that track information about your rental history can
and do exist.

Your idea is very clever. It's maybe worth thinking about if clever is the
same thing as a good idea.

------
root_axis
The "Ask a friend" social media thing is really obnoxious.

------
wtmt
Very well done. In a personal or online conversation, it takes a little while
to explain how bad things can be for the poorer people and how it’s a vicious
circle (or like struggling in quicksand). Many people don't get this without
an explanation.

A couple of suggestions:

1\. The Facebook and Twitter icons were too close to the last choice on the
screens, and I ended up tapping on them when I intended to tap on the last
option. This was on a phone. Please move those buttons down a bit.

2\. The site didn’t work on Firefox Focus onnthe phone. But it did work on
Brave. Something about Firefox Focus’s blocking must’ve caused this. I didn’t
have time to figure out the issue.

------
sergiotapia
I'm seeing like a site to purchase things for people in need. Can someone link
the game, I can't find it in the website's current design.

~~~
JosephRedfern
[https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/UMDurham?code=SPENT](https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/UMDurham?code=SPENT)

------
shittyadmin
Gotta say, kinda crappy. Why do I have a car? I'm wasting so much money on
insurance and gas - that would never work out better than renting a shitty
place closer than bussing distance. Accept the commute, even most of the
middle class does it anyways so they can live in a bigger house.

And it just randomly decided to take tutoring money away even though I answer
its math question correctly? Why do I have over $7000 on my CC bill? Was I
living well above my means for some reason? Why do I have a kid? That was a
rather poor financial planning decision...

~~~
52-6F-62
You can opt to live closer to work and not pay as much in transportation

~~~
pavel_lishin
Which sounds great, until you lose your job and your new one is suddenly 75
miles away, or away from any public transit options.

Move closer to the new job, you say? Not everyone can drop a few grand to
terminate a lease and hire a moving truck and put down a new first-month-and-
security-deposit.

~~~
52-6F-62
I was just responding to their critique of the game—not real life.

I know what poverty feels like.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Ah, sorry; I didn't realize. I think a lot of people here don't know what it's
like.

~~~
52-6F-62
No worries. It's good to see that some people empathize, especially if they
don't know what it's like.

------
dnautics
Having been (relatively) poor, I've seen all these things, but not in a single
month.

------
__initbrian__
I love that this simulator exists. super stressful

------
madeuptempacct
One thing I noticed immediately is that this person has a lot of luxuries: 1\.
Child. 2\. Pet (went to the shelter)

~~~
crooked-v
Considering the mere existence of a child to be a "luxury" is fundamentally
bad for society.

------
wolfgke
Instead of complaining about how evil society is that it leaves them in the
lurch, poor people should rather be mad at their (often poor) parents that the
parents give birth to them.

~~~
golergka
This. It always baffles me why people are not shamed more for having kids when
they clearly have no resources of place for them in their lives.

~~~
cure
Birth control is expensive. Birth control often requires regular, routine
access to the healthcare system. This is a problem when you're poor.

At the time of conception, nobody knows how things will turn out in their life
a few years down the line. Will I still have that job that allows me to pay my
bills? Will I have been bankrupted by an acute medical issue, because I lost
my health insurance at a critical moment?

Having kids is a commitment. But you have to take a leap of faith. You can't
just undo that commitment later, or walk away from it.

But shaming people for having kids? Have you no heart? How on earth is that
going to help with anything? Is it going to make their lives better? Is it
going to help the kids?

~~~
wolfgke
> Birth control is expensive. Birth control often requires regular, routine
> access to the healthcare system. This is a problem when you're poor.

As I wrote in
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18284196](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18284196)
Let's subsidize vasectomies so that they can ideally be gratis. They just have
to be done once. No regular visits necessary.

> But shaming people for having kids? Have you no heart?

I have a very big heart. But my heart is a deeply rational one instead of an
empathic one (I know, I will never become a diplomat). My big, rational heart
is the reason why I became very anti-natalist.

~~~
ceejayoz
"Sterilize the poor" is, historically, not a great road to start down.

~~~
ticviking
An opt in program to improve the ability of people who don't want children to
reliably control their reproductive choice is wildly different from forced
sterilization.

~~~
ceejayoz
We've got historical precedent for that, too.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization#Steri...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization#Sterilization_Procedures_and_Coercion)

> Sterilization was most frequently recommended by physicians because of a
> pervasive belief that Puerto Ricans and the poor were not intelligent enough
> to use other forms of contraception. Physicians and hospitals alike also
> implemented hospital policy to encourage sterilization, with some hospitals
> refusing to admit healthy pregnant women for delivery unless they consented
> to be sterilized. This has been best documented at Presbyterian Hospital,
> where the unofficial policy for a time was to refuse admittance for delivery
> to women who already had three living children unless she consented to
> sterilization. There is additional evidence that true informed consent was
> not obtained from patients before they underwent sterilization, if consent
> was solicited at all.

