Being Poor

[Spider]

Not that it matters. If there are 200 jobs and 500 job seekers, anything but basic subtraction is useless when looking at the problem.

[PoS]

At least putting some people to work is better than just giving up and paying them all not to work.

[Spider]

[PoS]

The biggest misleading fact is that most people cant tell the difference between absolute and relative poverty because the MSM and politicians use the term so freely.

[Spider]

More a matter of perspective. We don't measure our poverty relative to an impoverished nation because its not terribly meaningful as a reference to our own society. Its like...Tajikistan has a 60% unemployment rate...so we in America should be dancing in the streets over our comparatively miniscule 8% rate, right?

I mean...we Americans don't know jack about unemployment in much the way we don't know jack about poverty. Isn't that the logical follow through?

[PoS]

[Nico]

Was my family poor:

Q & A

Q: When I began school, I was given one jam sandwich per day. When I finished school, just before I left home, I was on 3 Jam sandwiches a day. Poor?


Q: My family had macaroni and cheese every night except Friday, which was Fish and Chip night, and Sunday, which was lamb chop night. Poor?


Q: My dad tauht me to hunt at 12, and we would spend 2 weeks straight in te holidays in the bush hunting deer for the table. Poor, ou pas?

Q: My father told me at 16 I had to eat less or leave home... Pauvre ou quois ?


I just though we were kinda Spartan. I loved my childhood. I am also drunk on port, yay.


PS I joined the army because of this discussion

[Mathurin]

Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs. and waiting until your check is big enough to buy that awesome stereo

Being poor is getting angry at your kids for asking for all the crap they see on TV. then everyone is poor

Being poor is having to keep buying $800 cars because they’re what you can afford, and then having the cars break down on you, because there’s not an $800 car in America that’s worth a damn. Except the one in my driveway
In actuality, being poor is buying a car on time, skipping payments and having to pay tons more on both interest and fees, because you couldnt save $800 to save your life



Being poor is hoping the toothache goes away. thats not just the poor

Being poor is knowing your kid goes to friends’ houses but never has friends over to yours.

Being poor is going to the restroom before you get in the school lunch line so your friends will be ahead of you and won’t hear you say “I get free lunch” when you get to the cashier. Awe, I feel so bad for the person getting free lunch, we should charge him so he doesnt have to feel that way

Being poor is living next to the freeway. someone has to live there

Being poor is coming back to the car with your children in the back seat, clutching that box of Raisin Bran you just bought and trying to think of a way to make the kids understand that the box has to last. because the steaks you bought last week didnt last

Being poor is wondering if your well-off sibling is lying when he says he doesn’t mind when you ask for help. then drinking a sixpack to drown the worry

Being poor is off-brand toys. thats called being smart

Being poor is a heater in only one room of the house.

Being poor is knowing you can’t leave $5 on the coffee table when your friends are around. THIEVING BASTARDS

Being poor is hoping your kids don’t have a growth spurt.

Being poor is stealing meat from the store, frying it up before your mom gets home and then telling her she doesn’t have make dinner tonight because you’re not hungry anyway. THIEVING BASTARDS

Being poor is Goodwill underwear. is that even sanitary?

Being poor is not enough space for everyone who lives with you. define enough

Being poor is feeling the glued soles tear off your supermarket shoes when you run around the playground. I got nothing

Being poor is your kid’s school being the one with the 15-year-old textbooks and no air conditioning. wait, some peoples textbooks are less than 15 years old?

Being poor is thinking $8 an hour is a really good deal. for work a retard can do, it is

Being poor is relying on people who don’t give a damn about you. My employer doesnt give a damn about me, does that count?

Being poor is an overnight shift under florescent lights. Night shift is pay differential and none of the big bosses in sight, its awesome

Being poor is finding the letter your mom wrote to your dad, begging him for the child support. Deadbeat bastard/loose whore

Being poor is a bathtub you have to empty into the toilet.

Being poor is stopping the car to take a lamp from a stranger’s trash.One mans trash is another mans treasure

Being poor is making lunch for your kid when a cockroach skitters over the bread, and you looking over to see if your kid saw. CATCH THE ROACH, MOAR PROTEIN

Being poor is believing a GED actually makes a goddamned difference. it does, it says that while you are worse than 98% of the nation, you are still better than a few

Being poor is people angry at you just for walking around in the mall.this doesnt make sense

Being poor is not taking the job because you can’t find someone you trust to watch your kids.Not just the poor

Being poor is the police busting into the apartment right next to yours. Shout "I AINT GOING BACK TO JAIL" and slam a book on the table a few times

Being poor is not talking to that girl because she’ll probably just laugh at your clothes. meh, she just laughed at my ackwardness, no sympathy

Being poor is hoping you’ll be invited for dinner. because you/your dad blew your money on booze

Being poor is a sidewalk with lots of brown glass on it. because some jerk gets drunk and throws his bottles.

Being poor is people thinking they know something about you by the way you talk. being poor is talking funny

Being poor is needing that 35-cent raise.

Being poor is your kid’s teacher assuming you don’t have any books in your home. actually thats being an american

Being poor is six dollars short on the utility bill and no way to close the gap. time to burn one

Being poor is crying when you drop the mac and cheese on the floor. DTs again?

Being poor is knowing you work as hard as anyone, anywhere. being poor is self delusion?

Being poor is people surprised to discover you’re not actually stupid. you just make terrible decisions based on lack of knowledge

Being poor is people surprised to discover you’re not actually lazy. you just dont show up for work sometimes

Being poor is a six-hour wait in an emergency room with a sick child asleep on your lap.

Being poor is never buying anything someone else hasn’t bought first. is this another thing about used underwear?

Being poor is picking the 10 cent ramen instead of the 12 cent ramen because that’s two extra packages for every dollar. at the end of the month at least

Being poor is having to live with choices you didn’t know you made when you were 14 years old. And yet continue making without knowing you are making them, because you arent looking foreward, arent thinking about the future or dont believe you or your actions have any affect on it

Being poor is getting tired of people wanting you to be grateful. Being not poor is being tired of people wanting you to give of yours to provide for the ungrateful

Being poor is knowing you’re being judged. everyone is being judged, the poor are just judged as lacking

Being poor is a box of crayons and a $1 coloring book from a community center Santa.

Being poor is checking the coin return slot of every soda machine you go by.

Being poor is deciding that it’s all right to base a relationship on shelter.

Being poor is knowing you really shouldn’t spend that buck on a Lotto ticket. but doing it every week anyway

Being poor is hoping the register lady will spot you the dime.

Being poor is feeling helpless when your child makes the same mistakes you did, and won’t listen to you beg them against doing so. thats called being a parent

Being poor is a cough that doesn’t go away.

Being poor is making sure you don’t spill on the couch, just in case you have to give it back before the lease is up. sit on the floor

Being poor is a $200 paycheck advance from a company that takes $250 when the paycheck comes in. you know the cost when you take the advance

Being poor is four years of night classes for an Associates of Art degree. why take a useless degree, no wonder they are poor

Being poor is a lumpy futon bed.

Being poor is knowing where the shelter is.

Being poor is people who have never been poor wondering why you choose to be so.

Being poor is knowing how hard it is to stop being poor.

Being poor is seeing how few options you have.

Being poor is running in place.

Being poor is people wondering why you didn’t leave.

Loads of sentiment with no substance, I have worked with the poor, side by side during college. They drink, they smoke, they spend their money with reckless abandon while they have it, and are standing in line waiting for the checks to be handed out come payday, its the classic feast of famine behavior.
Americas poor do deserve a chance, and they get one daily, they just have to go for it

I watched a HS friend of mine fall into poverty, he started college the same time I did, but didnt come to class and dropped out (I forgot to mention, his dad worked at the college, so it was all but free to him)
Thats chance #1 gone
He moved to another town and started a vocational program which would have made him an ASE certified mechanic, he didnt show up and eventually dropped the program.
Thats chance #2 gone
He was hired at a factory, good wages for hard work, he again failed to show up and was fired
Thats chance #3

Throughout this ordeal he drank, smoked, and did MJ at least, still does afaik
He is now a line worker at a pizza hut, which he will probably remain for the rest of his life, because those kinds of jobs tolerate the kind of behavior he displays.
He is not the only example of this I have seen, just the most detailed.

Life is struggle, it always has been and always will be.

[Revenant]

Being poor is only having one unfurnished vacation home on Martha's Vinyard

[eynon81]