
John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005) - brudgers
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/
======
jachee
I lived this.

Being poor is growing up between the trailer park and the dump.

Being poor is skipping homework to help repair the $600 car so dad can make it
to work tomorrow.

Being poor is your mother crying over a $100 invoice for the dental service
you just received for the first time in living memory.

Being poor is quitting junior college early, because your Pell Grant ran out,
and a $12.15/hr opportunity is over double your fast-food wage.

Being poor is never going back.

Being poor is 3-years-old glasses and squinting from the front row.

Being poor is _definitely_ going to put some money in the savings account next
month.

Being poor is getting pulled over just for your car and hair looking ratty.

Being poor is 2 nights in jail because of a clerical error.

Being poor is realizing years later that you still live like you're poor.

Being poor is reading about VCs and ICOs and funding rounds on HN and thinking
how huge an improvement just a tiny, tiny fraction of that money could make in
your life.

~~~
philovivero
Thank you for the inventory of my life. I remember those months as a kid when
the cupboards were bare, and so I'd just shrug and go to bed without dinner.
Thank goodness for government-sponsored low-income lunch program. That was my
only meal many days.

Naturally I was surprised when recently I got informed I have white privilege
by a bunch of spoiled children who've never known a day of hardship in their
lives.

I'm not terribly enamoured with the Silicon Valley political atmosphere these
days.

~~~
gerbal
You do have white privilege. White privilege isn't being treated better
because of your race, it's not being treated worse.

White privilege is not remembering the last time you were pulled over for
nothing.

White privilege is not being afraid of the police.

White privilege is getting let off with a warning.

White privilege is expecting to be judged on your merits.

White privilege is getting the benefit of the doubt.

White privilege is having a family that got to use the GI bill.

White privilege is having a family that was able to build a little bit of
generational wealth from government housing policy.

White privilege is thinking racism is over.

White privilege is starting at 0 when the rich kids start at 50 and black kids
start at -15.

~~~
emodendroket
I don't want to minimize racial discrimination, but telling poor people about
their white privilege seems not all that different from conservative finger-
wagging about how American poverty isn't "real" poverty.

Also, even if you only looked at white people American police shootings are at
a much higher rate than comparable countries.

~~~
namlem
White privilege is a bad term. Trevor Noah once said that in South Africa,
they call it the "black tax," which I think is a much better term. It's not a
benefit that's conferred onto white people, it's a cost that imposed on non-
white people.

~~~
Rzor
Isn't this a glass half full/half empty situation? Why the cost imposed on
non-whites doesn't get to be called a benefit on whites since they are exempt
from payment? I know I'm arguing semantics, but it is interesting the change
in nomenclature.

~~~
emodendroket
Technically speaking, yes. But the emotional resonance is very different. If
you don't believe me, try telling a libertarian that there is no real
difference between giving someone a tax break and a subsidy and see how
willing they are to even entertain your argument.

------
chx
This needs a retitle of "Being poor in the USA".

You need to talk to someone who grew up in the DDR or the CCCP to get some
perspective (although I bet people from the so called third world would have
quite something to add, too!). I am a little better as I grew up in socialist
Hungary.

Some memories that this article brought up: off-brand toys? You couldn't even
buy LEGO until like 1982 for Hungarian forints. A few shops for diplomats sold
it for hard currency which was impossible to get.

$800 cars? Comrade, you need to wait 5-10 years for a car and it's made out of
paper and plastic. And it is literally incapable of going above 60 miles per
hour.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant)

Being poor is hoping the toothache goes away. - man, I got a root canal done
without painkillers because they ran out of painkillers.

Being poor is Goodwill underwear. - our undershirts looked like gray rags
because you couldn't get whitening detergent for years. It was a fluke that
didn't get corrected until the next five year plan.

air conditioning. --- HAHAHAHAHA try living in
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microdistrict](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microdistrict)
one of these, oven in the summer, too hot in the winter because the central
heating is cranked up the wazzoo and you can't do shit about it.

~~~
teddyh
This isn’t a competition. This is supposed to give those who are _less_ poor
some perspective. So for you, this article is not so useful.

~~~
mastazi
Maybe parent just used that remark as a way of breaking ice and sharing their
story?

------
babesh
\- Lying about where you grew up \- Being ashamed of free school lunch \-
Being embarrassed and made fun of for wearing the same sorts of clothes every
day \- Not wearing a coat in winter because you are embarrassed wearing the
same coat for years \- Only ordering an appetizer over lunch at a job
interview \- The soles of my $10 sneakers came off in P.E. \- Not playing any
of the video games your coworkers played growing up \- Being extremely
conservative with a little money once you have it, buying the cheapest ice
cream, beans, etc... \- No prom, school dances, girl friends, etc... even the
poor girls don't like you \- Only considering the public university since
private ones meant taking loans as much as your parents made in a year and
even though your test scores are higher than the average at MIT \- One family
vacation in all the years growing up \- Inferiority complex \- Limited
ambitions \- Feeling you don't belong \- Gaps in knowledge \- Too much
willingness to take up hardship

On the other hand, \- Making your own food from raw ingredients: hamburgers,
pizza, french fries, etc... \- Being amazed by foods that you were never aware
of: pho, sushi, stromboli, bagels, sausages on a grill \- Approaching new
places and people with naivety \- All knowledge gained and learned is well
learnt and mostly self learnt

~~~
WalterBright
I'm curious about the MIT thing. In the 70's, when I applied around, MIT and
other top schools made it clear that if you were qualified to go there and
accepted, they'd find a way to get the bill paid with some combination of
scholarships, loans, and work.

~~~
dsr_
Nearly all schools say that. The result is that, before you are old enough to
vote or drink, you are encouraged to take on a debt larger than the total
amount of money your parents have ever made in five years, a debt which is not
subject to bankruptcy laws.

If you make it out the other side of college with a bachelor's degree in a
STEM field and an average job, it will still take you 21 years to pay it off.

[https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-
mine/2014/10/07/stude...](https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-
mine/2014/10/07/student-loan-expectations-myth-vs-reality)

If you don't feel that you can reasonably make a bet of that magnitude because
your entire prior history tells you that it won't work -- that's entirely
rational.

But college costs are completely unreasonable...

[http://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/08/us/colleges-tuition-
outrun...](http://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/08/us/colleges-tuition-outruns-
inflation.html)

... and have been getting worse for the last 30 years.

~~~
maxerickson
Private schools with huge endowments actually do cover tuition for people with
lower incomes. For example, Princeton covers 100% of tuition and room & board
for family income below $65,000:

[https://admission.princeton.edu/cost-aid/how-princetons-
aid-...](https://admission.princeton.edu/cost-aid/how-princetons-aid-program-
works)

MIT doesn't lay the income levels out so clearly but has a similar program:

[http://sfs.mit.edu/undergraduate-financial-aid/types-of-
aid/...](http://sfs.mit.edu/undergraduate-financial-aid/types-of-aid/mit-
scholarships)

Public schools with huge endowments are getting in on the game:

[https://record.umich.edu/articles/u-m-unveils-tuition-
guaran...](https://record.umich.edu/articles/u-m-unveils-tuition-guarantee-
michigan-students-need)

~~~
babesh
They started doing that relatively recently. Back then, it was a small grant,
a job, and a large loan. Software didn't start outpacing other engineering
professions' pay till the web boom. That was hindsight since I had the
faintest clue what a major was.

Choosing a major that results in a job versus one based on interests.

Another decision was not to go to graduate school right afterwards. Poignant
memory was of a professor asking if I was going to graduate school after I did
well in a graduate school level course and saying no.

~~~
WalterBright
> Choosing a major that results in a job versus one based on interests.

When I attended Caltech in the 70s, it was commonplace for people in AY
(Astronomy) to double major. When asked, the reason was always "AY for fun,
and ME/EE/Whatever for a job."

I very much tilted my choice of classes towards what I thought would be most
advantageous for my anticipated career. It never occurred to me that I was
being deprived. It was just common sense.

Ironically, my career wound up in a field that had little to do with my
studies :-)

------
rdtsc
Being poor is watching your mother cry because there isn't enough money for
food.

Being poor is being happy to get a single snickers candy bar for Christmas
(well it was New Years for me).

Being poor is skipping school prom and class foto because you don't have money
to pay for nice clothes.

Being poor is having to listen to asshole relative who gave you their old
clothes or furniture how you "owe them" every family gathering.

Being poor is not going to any family gatherings to avoid asshole rich
relatives who flaunt their wealth in your face.

Being poor is always being under constant stress and worry. A worry those who
are not poor will never understand.

------
peterburkimsher
Being rich is having a car. Even a scooter.

Being rich is being able to visit your family.

Being rich is having insurance.

Being rich is paying for a monthly phone subscription.

Being rich is hot lunches.

Being rich is risking losing your job in order to negotiate a better contract
with your boss.

Being rich is considering having children at all.

Being rich is buying alcohol.

Being rich is looking at house prices.

Being rich is saving money for the future.

Being rich is paying for a haircut.

Being rich is renting a house with a kitchen.

Being rich is making plans more than a few weeks ahead.

Being rich is worrying about North Korea instead of looking forward to
blissful oblivion.

~~~
noncoml
Not being poor is not the same as being rich.

Being rich I having enough money/income to not need to work.

In between is the middle class. There are middle class people who can afford
to buy some of the stuff rich people buy, but if they lose their job they’ll
be broke in a month or two.

~~~
DubiousPusher
When you're poor, everyone else looks rich.

When I was a kid, I assumed if you had a house you were rich and if you had
one with stairs, holy Moses you were rolling in it.

~~~
noncoml
Ohhh, ok, I got it now. I took it literally and completely missed the point.
Stupid me.

------
DubiousPusher
I grew up in poverty and am legally blind. It was incredibly difficult to find
any way of making any money at all. Seriously, it was very difficult just to
get a $5.15/hr minimum wage job in Montana.

The strongest emotion I have felt to this day is the feeling that I would
never get out of being poor.

To this day my nightmares are about losing my job, blowing through my
emergency fund and not being able to find another job.

To this day, I don't buy beef at the grocery store. I can't bring myself to do
it outside a special occasion. (Not saying I spend my money entirely wisely
but that has stuck with me for some reason.)

~~~
35bge57dtjku
Don't you get SSI or something for being blind?

~~~
DubiousPusher
Yes, $500/mo is quite difficult to live on, even in Montana. And as soon as
you start making any money, the support is rapidly withdrawn.

~~~
em3rgent0rdr
> "as soon as you start making any money, the support is rapidly withdrawn"

This is a valid criticism of income-based charity...there is little incentive
to get over that initial hump.

~~~
DubiousPusher
It would be fine if the government could discover there's such a thing as
continuous curves.

------
donatj
I grew up living this, we hardly had money to eat, but success came relatively
easy after high school by simply trying really hard. I applied for hundreds of
programming jobs and interviewed at tens of companies before landing my first
gig where I worked my ass off and proved myself, within five years being the
lead developer there before leaving for greener pastures.

I had taught myself on computers we had been donated first QBasic and later
PHP. I am certainly lucky, but part of me is resentful at my mother in
particular for how easy it seems to be to not live in poverty. I am so
confused about the topic and honestly find myself angry at myself for my own
thoughts. It's really hard to explain. I don't mean to or want to judge anyone
but it's difficult. It's a touchy anxiety ridden topic for me.

~~~
imesh
I don't know. I feel like programming was the one way out for me. Not everyone
can program, and for me, if it wasn't programming I don't think I would have
thought of anything else that bring me above barely subsistence.

------
cheeseprocedure
I didn't realize he wrote this after Hurricane Katrina. He posted a follow-up
in 2015: [http://whatever.scalzi.com/2015/09/03/being-poor-ten-
years-o...](http://whatever.scalzi.com/2015/09/03/being-poor-ten-years-on/)

------
InclinedPlane
A lot of people who have never been poor just think "oh, well, to stop being
poor you just need to X, then Y, then Z." But they don't understand the
implications, or the difficulty. Not spending money on anything you absolutely
don't _need_ is psychologically crushing, especially when that includes
everything from dental care to replacement shoes. Finding the energy to
continue advancing your employment and to work at disheartening jobs is also
brutal. Imagine working at a place that treats you poorly but if you quit you
might end up homeless. That takes a toll. And somehow you have to both endure
such things while also protecting and nourishing the hope of a better future
that makes it possible to put in the tremendous effort to work towards that
future.

Meanwhile, the whole world is trying to take advantage of you in innumerable
ways. Trying to force you to work off the clock for free (wage theft). Trying
to charge you ridiculous interest rates on short term loans. And then you have
to pay extra for things because you're poor. Some things you only buy when
you're forced to in an emergency, so you can't buy them on sale or shop
around. Other things you can't buy in bulk because you can't afford to. You
can't buy stuff that lasts. Etc.

~~~
tekromancr
Not to mention all of the financial tools you dont have access to because of
no/poor credit.

I remember what an incredible feeling it was when I finally worked my up to a
rewards card. This magical thing that effectively makes everything I buy 1.5%
cheeper. It felt like some sort of cheatcode for life. I remember then being
so pissed off that I was able to have this as a rich person getting marginally
richer, but not when I was poor.

~~~
Applejinx
Oddly, I hate rewards cards because I feel like it's one more thing to keep
track of.

I run a small business where I code stuff for a living, and have to
continually be thinking up new stuff to survive. It's tough to weigh the value
of a rewards card versus the mental bandwidth of managing a set of 'optimal
buying locations' associated with rewards systems.

That said, I completely understand your feelings on the matter. When you can't
do a thing, and then you're allowed to and it's giving you a discount of some
sort, it's a huge help. I have a car payment that's less than I was paying on
repairs on the old car I had. There was a time when I wouldn't have been
allowed to enter into such an agreement.

------
inostia
Thanks for posting.

"Being poor is knowing how hard it is to stop being poor." hit me hard. I
didn't grow up poor, but I can understand this sentiment. It's unfortunate
that so many people don't take the time to think about societal conditions
before placing "blame" on the disadvantaged.

~~~
dizzystar
That line is definitely true. After getting into a decent and safe living
world, I ran into a situation. I was given advice on how to deal with it, and
I swore I was talking to aliens. It really gave me pause and showed me the
brutal reality of how different our worlds are. When I told others about the
advice, they looked at me and said "wasn't that obvious to you?" Well, no it
wasn't.

In my experience, getting out of poor is a multi-pronged deal. Getting out is
1/10th of the battle; the hardest part is not falling back in. It's like being
dropped into the ocean with a canoe, while everyone around you is in
steamboats.

~~~
gnaritas
What was the situation, and the advice, expand please.

------
amagumori
for anyone who has grown up poor or working class, how do i claw my way out of
this? i come from a single parent household, my mom is an elementary school
teacher with 4 kids in an expensive city. she barely makes ends meet and
cannot support me. i was homeless and addicted to drugs for most of my teenage
years, before getting sober and going to college, but dropping out after 2
years - my mom's child support put me just outside of qualifying for financial
aid, despite the fact that she could still barely afford food and rent, so my
only option was living at home and taking out 5-6 figures of loans. i didn't
want to be a financial burden on my mom by living at home, so i dropped out
and kept working as a bike messenger. as an aside, my mom is in astronomical
debt from a lengthy divorce process with my father, who physically abused me,
my siblings, and my mom, tried to kill both me and my mom at different points
in time, then successfully put my mom in 6 figures of legal debt by drawing
out the divorce process as long as possible.

flash forward to now - i'm still a full-time bike messenger. i barely pay the
rent for my tiny SRO i share with my girlfriend. my biggest goal in life is to
get a job as a programmer to support my mom and siblings. i've been teaching
myself computer science for years now, and i know i would succeed if i could
get a job programming. i just don't know how i get there from here. being a
bike messenger (a real one, not a postmate / uber eats person) is extremely
physically demanding. i'm mentally and physically exhausted after work. i
don't have enough time or energy outside of work to complete any of the
projects i start, with the hope of having something to show to a company. i
feel like a simple CRUD app is too easy of a project to show my skill to an
employer, so i try to work on things like a compiler and a real-time rendering
engine, but these are huge projects, and i don't have enough free time to
finish them in any reasonable time frame. i'm confident in my programming
skill, but my resume is a list of working-class jobs in machine shops and
courier companies. any advice would be seriously appreciated.

(hopefully this doesn't read as too melodramatic or anything, it wasn't meant
to be. i know i'm still a lot luckier than most.)

~~~
SimonPStevens
> so i try to work on things like a compiler and a real-time rendering engine

Even unfinished this sounds like a cut above the average entry level dev. Make
sure these projects are on github or whatever so people can see the code, even
unfinished, it's good to see the progression.

Apply for a dozen junior dev jobs and see what happens. You'll probably get a
bunch of rejections, but if you can write coherently and talk clearly you've
got a chance.

And even if you don't get one you will probably discover something about what
it is you are missing that businesses want and you can work on that
specifically.

~~~
SimonPStevens
I missed the edit window, but the post got me thinking, so I came back to add
this.

My first dev job was straight out of uni. No prior work experience, and no
open source work to share. I had a 2000 line final year project written in c++
and that was it.

I think may 1% of the graduates had any open source contributions. Most were
like me.

If you consider that these will be the people you are competing against for a
entry level role. Your projects are a huge thing if you open source them, even
unfinished. Just demonstrate an understanding of some CS concepts, algorithms,
code design, etc and you'll be competitive at the very least.

------
titzer
I've known people in third world countries who've been kicked off their land
by the government, been forced to demolish their own homes--by hand!--on the
way out, and were barred by law from ever stepping foot on said land again.
All because developers wanted the land more and could make...millions for
everyone. When that happens, you lose everything, your life is reset to be _at
bottom_, and every day is a struggle to get off the bottom rung.

I've been with people so poor that when their friends had some beers they'd
drink so much they'd pass out in a public park and be robbed of everything--by
their friends--even their flip flops--and they'd wake up at noon the next day
and wander barefoot home--whereever that is--with nothing.

I've seen people so poor they'd steal a bucket with a hole in it, they'd steal
a dog trap to make a chicken coop. Forget about cars or bicycles...they'd
steal a T-shirt or a lighter.

And they are not less moral or more moral, that's their life--screwed over in
an endless cycle, locked into a futile struggle with the system that just does
not let them make forward progress, always huffing it by foot or by bus
because no car, and the bike has a flat.

From the bottom they look up; there are no rungs of the ladder to climb up,
there are only superhuman leaps.

------
shadowtree
Being poor is living in an illegal cellar flat.

Being poor is wiping off the mold from your shoes before putting them on.

Being poor is buying second hand - unironically.

Being poor is working harder than your peers.

Being poor is not being able to fully relax, ever.

Being poor is a chip on your shoulder, that never goes away.

Being poor is a voice, deep within, saying nothing lasts, it is all an
illusion, tomorrow you're back in the cellar.

Being poor never goes away. Being poor is being angry.

~~~
five_dollars
Minus the illegal flat(we had a dilapidated house), I could have written this
exact thing.

I hope you got out like I did.

~~~
shadowtree
I did. But the thing deep within never goes away.

------
AdmiralAsshat
Being poor is very nearly a crime in this country.

We could all be much, much happier if the forces that run this country stopped
making people _ashamed_ to be poor.

~~~
SSH007
What are you talking about? Which "force that run this country" shames anyone
that is poor?

~~~
georgemcbay
How about the faction of the Republican party that has the gall to call Social
Security and Medicare "entitlement" programs and then act like people who rely
on them (after paying a lifetime of taxes in) should feel like they are taking
advantage of everyone else?

~~~
sidlls
Look, it ain't just the Republicans you identify that screw the poor.
Democrats are in some ways worse because unlike Republicans they pretend to
care (sometimes).

The Democrats' candidate for president was offering Republican style market-
based crap like tax breaks for profit sharing and work programs for low cost
loans. She didn't even touch on poverty with anything concrete: just words.

Their president from 2008-2016 has as his signature achievement a health care
bill that promoted subsidizing private insurers using poor people as the
mechanism to do so! The little for poor people in ACA came from things like
Medicaid expansion (grossly insufficient) and Independent Bernie Sanders'
community health center funding add-ons.

The one before him, in the mid 90s, screwed the poor with welfare reform.
Don't tell me how much the Republicans hate the poor. We know. I just wish
people who point it out would spend as much time pointing out how badly
Democrats do it, too.

It really burns me up when people play this card. As if being poor in this
country weren't about catching shit or being ignored by everyone in power.
Including democrats.

~~~
throwaway123355
Do you really think single-payer healthcare (versus the individual mandate in
ObamaCare) was ever going to pass in the US? Obama literally adopted a
Republican proposal for how to improve healthcare coverage, and the
Republicans have spent every year since railing against it.

As someone who's pretty far to the left, I don't see how a (fiscally) far-left
candidate/party would make any progress in the US. The centre is just so damn
skewed towards "individual responsibility" and other bullshit that voters
apparently love.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
We were one vote away from having a public option in Obamacare, which is what
many of the people who aren't fully versed in healthcare jargon are really
thinking of when they say "single payer". All it would have taken was for Joe
Lieberman or any one Republican senator to allow it and most of the "single-
payer" proponents would have been satisfied.

------
Mz
_Being poor is deciding that it’s all right to base a relationship on
shelter._

I sleep in a tent. I have turned down such offers.

I am literally homeless, yet can't identify with a lot that is in this
article. This likely explains 90% of my social friction.

~~~
will_hughes
> I sleep in a tent. I have turned down such offers.

If you have children, and you're a single parent (typically a single mother),
then that might not be something you can turn down without a significant
reason.

~~~
Mz
My statement was in no way whatsoever a criticism of anyone else's choices.

(Also: I have a _significant reason_. I don't know why you would assume that I
do not.)

------
beingpoor
Being lower middle class is using a HN throwaway account because risking to be
linked to this purge doesn't help at all.

Being lower middle class is 4.5h of daily commute to public college (despite
having best grades in your high-school) while being told all the time that
you're a priviliged.

Being lower middle class is your friend suggesting to use his adress on your
CV.

Being lower middle class is hiding your hometown from your coworkers and
having them smirking and condescending when one day you can't evite anymore
and show it on Gmaps/street view and regretting that you didn't show a random
location.

Being lower middle class is being ashame of bringing friends home.

Being lower middle class is having friends scaried of coming to your place.

Being lower middle class is saving all pennies you can because you are
terrified of getting poor.

~~~
beingpoor
Being lower middle class is that place where nobody helps you with anything.
You're _too rich_ to get help from state, and too poor to have any easy money
like rents, interests, whatever. Being next to the _poverty_ threshold it's a
terrible place to be.

Being lower middle class is to know that a friend, to be able to get some
state money during college, pretended to live with a grandmother without his
parents help and regretting not having done the same.

------
hndamien
I'm fairly certain I'm not poor but a few of these apply to me.

Not enough room for all the people in the house. Driving an $800 car -
although it works very reliably - maybe it is $1200 US. Living next to the
freeway - well a 5 lane highway and a many many lane motorway around the
corner.

It is incredibly hard to break the cycle when living from paycheck to paycheck
unfortunately.

~~~
brudgers
Because it is common to use the term "the poor" when talking about poverty, it
is easy to miss episodic poverty. Between 2009 and 2011, thirty one point
eight percent of Americans were below the poverty line at some point. [1]

[1]: [https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-
mine/2014/01/07/nearl...](https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-
mine/2014/01/07/nearly-one-third-of-americans-were-in-poverty-during-downturn)

------
sixothree
Being poor means getting taken advantage of and being pushed around.

Being poor means being powerless in almost any and every situation,
transaction, and interaction.

------
fencepost
I don't see it mentioned and it may be a little dated by now, but Barbara
Ehrenreich's book Nickle and Dimed is a very good read on this topic.

One thing that I believe is on that list that may escape a lot of folks:
"Being poor is knowing EXACTLY how much everything costs."

Edit: Wups, didn't remember that that was how it starts

------
sushisource
I had no idea he had a blog. For those who aren't aware: he's a very
entertaining sci-fi writer, if not necessarily as cerebral as others.

~~~
AceJohnny2
Both John Scalzi and Charles Stross have been blogging since before they were
called "blogs" :)

Charlie is even a regular here, user cstross.

FWIW, I find Charlie's blog [1] more interesting, because his schtick of
taking random ideas and mashing them together to see what sticks makes him
come up with insightful perspectives.

Also as an ex-programmer (and ex-pharmacist), he speaks our language ;)

[1] [http://www.accelerando.org](http://www.accelerando.org)

~~~
mcbain
I thought the canonical location for Charlie's blog was Antipope:
[http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-
static/](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/) although Accelerando
redirects there.

(as for why that name:
[http://www.antipope.org/charlie/old/antipope.html](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/old/antipope.html))

------
gehsty
I read this and feel lucky.

I want to help people who feel this way but do not want to make them feel like
they owe anything in return, or that they are different because they need
help. I don't know how to do this. I give money to charities but sometimes
that feels very classist, some times I feel like I do it to make me feel
better, rather than actually help people. I give food to foodbanks but I don't
give enough. I want to volunteer somewhere but I tell myself I don't have
time, but I probably do.

I guess the best thing I can do is raise my kids to not judge people on how
much money they have, and to talk to people they think need help.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
Find a local charity you can and give money to them. It will be more helpful
and your dollars will go directly to benefit the people around you.

------
DubiousPusher
Being poor is trying to hide the finances from the kids but seeing the stress
in their faces anyway.

Being poor is this year's shoes are last year's gym shoes. (Good thing they
stretched out.)

Being poor is choosing between the doctor and the heat.

------
shubh2336
Barring a few instances, feeling of being poor is similar in a developed
economy vs a developing one. I'm experiencing this in a South Asian country-

Being poor is falling in a debt-trap no matter how financially disciplined you
are.

Being poor is calculating your income & expenditures everyday and dreaming you
would break even in the next month for sure.

Being poor is trying to avoid the worst days your loved ones have seen.

Being poor is going to work even if you feel sick.

Being poor is not knowing why you are so poor.

------
nnd
This should be named “Being poor in the USA”. The amount of priveledge
bestowed upon you by winning a passport lottery, which provides you with the
access to a multitude of opportunities available to you is unprecedented.

From a perspective of someone born in a much poorer country this sounds like a
birth-right priveledge taken for granted.

------
tudorconstantin
Many of the psychological issues can be overcome by not giving a flying fuck
about what others think about you.

My father died when I was 17 years old and my brother was 18 years old. My
mother became an alcoholic and for the next 5 or 6 years I saw her sober less
than 10 times. There were days in a row when we didn't had what to eat. She
prioritized alcohol, cigarettes and coffee over food.

We were so poor that my brother got ill of tuberculosis from the lack of food.
I was luckier because I used to eat at my ex girlfriend (present wife). The
clothes I got were usually gifts received from my girlfriend. I was wearing
the same pants months in a row, daily, until they got holes in them.

But I don't remember being stressed about what others thought about me and
that made my whole adolescence beautiful. I wasn't even aware that somebody
would notice that I wore the same clothes every day. Until one day a girl in
my high school told me "these are some nice pants that you have, too bad that
you're wearing only those". It hurt me, but I got over it fast thinking "how
does this concerns you anyway?" and kept wearing them, because I didn't had
others. And my main teacher once told me "you look good wearing other colors
than black". While the black shirts were the only ones I got, until I received
that light colored one. And I took that as a compliment - she just told me
that I was looking good after all.

The positive part of being extremely poor for about 7 years is that I got
really fed up with poorness and I do my best to never going back.

Fast forward 15 years after finishing high school, I am a software developer
with 11 years experience, working remotely for a US company and I think my
earnings put me somewhere in the top 1% earners in Romania. Since I started to
work for this company, I didn't took a single vacation (with a few exceptions
of 1-2 days off), because I feel it's the opportunity of my life time and I
want to make as much as possible out of it. While I got 9-to-5 jobs I always
tried to learn new things and had side projects and I was somehow baffled why
the majority of my programmer colleagues weren't interested in something
similar.

So, there are positive things in anything if we really try to find them. And a
positive attitude makes the difference between feeling miserable and feeling
... normal, or even being happy. I think that my years of poorness increased
my motivation and desire to succeed in life drastically, but it's definitely
not an experience I would encourage someone to try.

~~~
beingpoor
_But I don 't remember being stressed about what others thought about me and
that made my whole adolescence beautiful._

One thing that you fail to acknowledge is that in rich countries _smart poor
guys_ don't get girlfriends. In East Europe being poor is/was considered
normal, and as such, getting a GF in that situation is much easier and it will
make wonders to your self-estime. This will hardly ever happen in the western
rich world: _I was luckier because I used to eat at my ex girlfriend (present
wife)_.

 _I think that my years of poorness increased my motivation and desire to
succeed in life drastically_

No, it didn't. You just hit a jackpot: niche IT for a foreign company.
Probably the best you can get worldwide (as an employee).

------
csomar
Living in a very poor country and having seen Egypt (Cairo), I shrug off when
US people talk about poverty.

There is poverty as finding hardship in life and there is _fighting for
survival_ in a literal sense. Poverty in the US is hardship of life. The US
still has accessible infrastructure and job market to help an average person
get on his feet.

Also, I find poverty to be related to your parents. If your parents are poor
and then just go out of their way to have 6 children, well, their output is
going to be divided by 6 and so you'll be shit poor.

Poverty is a byproduct of culture and nature. Stupid religious cultures (as
well as nature) will push poor people to multiply to guarantee survival. Since
the probability of survival of their offspring is weak, it might help to have
lots of them.

This makes matter worse (lots of poor people themselves multiplying). Rich
people having little offspring seem to help and accentuate the problem (make
the few rich people fewer and the lot of poor more).

------
teddyh
Related (and IMHO better):

 _5 Things Nobody Tells You About Being Poor_ , May 27, 2011:
([http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-things-nobody-tells-you-
about-...](http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-things-nobody-tells-you-about-being-
poor/))

 _The 5 Stupidest Habits You Develop Growing Up Poor_ , January 19, 2012:
([http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-stupidest-habits-you-
devel...](http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-stupidest-habits-you-develop-
growing-up-poor/))

 _4 Things Politicians Will Never Understand About Poor People_ , February 21,
2013: ([http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-things-politicians-will-
never-...](http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-things-politicians-will-never-
understand-about-poor-people/))

~~~
rusk
_Kids Who Grew Up Poor Share Realities Their Rich Friends Just Didn 't
Understand_

[http://www.knowable.com/a/kids-who-grew-up-poor-share-
realit...](http://www.knowable.com/a/kids-who-grew-up-poor-share-realities-
their-rich-friends-just-didnt-understand)

------
EliRivers
For some reason, it's the dentistry that always hits me. As a society, we
can't get it together enough to fix people's fucking teeth? Instead, we end up
with this sort of thing (this one is more than just teeth) -
[http://thefederalist.com/2017/08/02/thousands-visit-free-
cli...](http://thefederalist.com/2017/08/02/thousands-visit-free-clinics-in-
barns-and-fields-were-the-middle-class-and-were-here/) \- like some kind of
fucking end times collapsed society.

Don't know why that's my trigger.

 _Holbrook’s is 420. The stranger holds up her card: 158. She places it in
Holbrook’s hand and takes the higher number in exchange, explaining that she
wants Holbrook and her baby to get in before she does. Holbrook doesn’t know
what to say. The old lady mixes back into the crowd._

------
nickpeterson
Wow this cuts like a knife. I've never been poor, but this hurts to imagine,
especially with two little kids at home that rely on me. What is the best way
to help this, what charities/activities?

~~~
saalweachter
I'm a fan of finding your local food pantry and helping out / donating there.

Most always need volunteers. Depending on the place, it can either be more
effective to donate money or food. Some places have affiliations with larger
collecting centers which just charge the individual pantry handling (usually
something like $0.10 / lb) for food; if a place doesn't, they might prefer
food donations because otherwise shopping is one more thing a volunteer needs
to find time for, and they won't get a particularly better value than you.

If you want to shop for a food pantry, it's best if you ask them what they're
currently short on, but in general it will be your proteins and fruits,
because both tend to be more expensive than the vegetables and carbs, and a
lot of people donating to food pantries are giving what little they can.
You'll mostly end up giving a lot of a few good staples that are reasonably
priced - tuna, canned chicken, apple sauce, peaches - but if you throw in a
little variety every now and again (spam, blueberries) you'll really make
someone's day, who's been eating the same damn thing for longer than they can
remember.

Dried beans are cheap but not very popular, because they're a bit more time
consuming to prepare. Don't donate cranberry sauce, every food pantry has a
shelf full of it. Large packages of food (20 lb bags of rice) are tricky;
they're usually cheaper, but then the pantry has to repackage it, which is
more work, less appealing, and introduces more risk of food contamination. Buy
generic canned vegetables, but name brand cereal. Being poor is no-name cereal
from a plastic bag, and you'll make some kid's week if they get to eat actual
Cheerios for breakfast, but no one cares what label is on their can of green
beans.

If the food pantry near you is well stocked on food, you can load them up with
personal hygiene supplies - toilet paper and toothbrushes, but also deodorant,
laundry detergent, feminine products, and diapers. Most places will also give
out pet food; that is usually safe to buy a 50 lb bag of, because people are
happier to take a gallon ziploc of dog food.

~~~
vacri
> _Most always need volunteers. Depending on the place, it can either be more
> effective to donate money or food._

It should be noted that some charities are drowning in unskilled labour, and
that folks shouldn't take it personally if they're turned away. Help in some
other way, like you say, with money or food.

A friend of mine offered to volunteer at a nearby charity and was miffed that
they turned her away since she had no management experience; they had plenty
of hands, but really needed folks with organisational skills to manage them.

~~~
saalweachter
Yeah, food pantries especially are bespoke operations, and you really just
have to find one near you and talk to them to find out what they want or need.
Some will be territorial and not want non-eg-church-members volunteering,
others will be thrilled to have community involvement. Some won't need
volunteers for distribution, but will be glad to have younger labor to help
with food pickup - picking up a literal ton of food and carrying it up stairs
is a lot of work. Some places might not need help right now but will in a
different season, as volunteer schedules change. They might also need help of
varieties beyond the obvious - management, like you said, or accounting or
network-building (eg, finding other sources of donations, like groceries or
farm co-ops) or web development/social media management.

Even if they don't need more volunteers on the regular, most places won't mind
if you join a couple of shifts, just to get a feel for how they operate.

Ultimately, you just have to find a place and start talking.

------
divanvisagie
Being poor is working 2 jobs so you don't have time to write blogposts

Being poor is not being able to afford your own domain name

Am I doing this right?

------
Waterluvian
I wanted to know what it was like reading these lists without qualifications,
so I interlaced a "rich" and a "poor" list.

[https://gist.github.com/ablakey/1cf9c03edf4b38c1646f17f8e0b5...](https://gist.github.com/ablakey/1cf9c03edf4b38c1646f17f8e0b52144)

------
cousin_it
Another great piece of writing about US poverty is Chris Offutt's "Trash
Food": [http://www.oxfordamerican.org/magazine/item/550-trash-
food](http://www.oxfordamerican.org/magazine/item/550-trash-food)

------
rphlx
The high ER "tail latencies" effect almost everyone in the US, UK, etc, at
least everyone that's not hyper-rich enough to proactively retain dedicated
private doctor(s) with high-end private facilities that can handle everything
that a good ER can.

------
c3833174
>School with no air conditioning. But schools are closed in the hottest months
of summer, whats the point?

------
senectus1
that was hard reading.

------
spajus
> Being poor is knowing you really shouldn’t spend that buck on a Lotto
> ticket.

That's being smart, not being poor.

~~~
boyce
It's okay not to understand what the writer means here. But is it okay to have
read the article looking for a detail that you can use to try and feel
superior?

This is a problem the poor everywhere face. Those with wealth looking to
reassure themselves about their moral and intellectual right to their
position.

------
jondubois
>> Being poor is wondering if your well-off sibling is lying when he says he
doesn’t mind when you ask for help.

That's not real poverty. If any well-off person cares about you even a little
bit then you are not poor because you have an emergency lifeline.

A real poor person won't hesitate to beg for money, especially from a family
member (easier than begging on the streets).

~~~
emodendroket
Until they're tired of giving you money and you don't have a lifeline anymore.

~~~
Applejinx
And that is literally the long and the short of it ;)

------
merpnderp
Being poor must in part be not knowing how not to be poor or having felonies
or depression holding you back. I failed out of college and barely scraped one
month of rent for an apartment. I got a shit job working the dock in a light
bulb warehouse. I made friends with the truck driver who picked up orders who
told me about an opening on their better paying dock. After half a year my
hard work caught the eye of HR who put me through driving school. And a few
months later I was making $45k/year driving trucks and working the dock. I had
rough times and missed a day or two of food every once in a while, But working
your way up in trades is doable and straightforward. After paying back my $18k
in school debt and seeing much of the country while driving, I went back to
the cheapest college I could find and got a degree, from which it was all
downhill from there.

~~~
truxus
Your success touched a nerve. Lots of people making excuses for how lucky you
are, and how lucky others aren't.

It's been known for millennia that "luck" is actually being ready for
opportunity and then acting decisively when presented with opportunities.
Preparation and action is what seperates winners from losers. You cant help
losers win, you can only buy them time.

My parents were small farmers in the 80s when it was "get big or get out". I
remember a lot of kids in my 20-person grade level had shoes that were falling
apart, myself included. Grandpa died in 94 and my dad tried to keep the farm
going by himself but could only last 2 years before the farm went broke. He
left home and trained to be a truck driver. He drove over the road for 2 weeks
at a time, when he was home he'd sleep, then go back out. My parents declared
personal bankruptcy and the bank took their property and we were evicted in
April 1999. We moved not far away, my parents needed a co-signer. My
grandmother lived in the same house as us because they couldn't afford to move
her double wide trailer. My parents slept on a pull-out couch for a year.
Nobody gave them hand-outs. Life began slowly to turn around soon after.

You do what you have to do. And in the meantime you get ready for the next
move. America is the land of opportunity, don't forget that.

~~~
michaelmrose
Some land of opportunity. You can help people win. Your distinction between
winners and losers is arbitrary. At a different degree of adversity the line
falls at a different point in the population. If you turn up the heat you
would eventually fall on the losers side of the line. If you extend a hand and
help your fellow man a lot more of them will end up on the right side of the
line. Open your mind instead of your mouth.

------
Temasik
Please do inequality and why someone becomes Walter white

------
candiodari
Being poor is reading about this James Damore Google issue and realizing:

> They fired the guy so everyone would _feel_ better. And then of course
> they're making it worse by kicking the guy when he's down.

Yep, had that done to me. I HATE EVERY ONE OF YOU !

