No, The Poor Aren’t Poor Because They Waste Their Money

[eridani]

http://www.nationofchange.org/no-poor-aren-t-poor-because-they-waste-their-money-1396967132



The differences in spending on food have other troubling details. The BLS reports that all income groups spent more on food in 2012 compared to the year before except for the bottom two quintiles. The lowest group decreased its spending on food at home by 1.3 percent, instead of increasing it more than 7 percent the year before. It’s not that food got cheaper: the cost of groceries increased by 2.5 percent that year. And the need has been steady: in 2012, more than 18 percent of Americans struggled to afford food, up from 17.8 percent in 2008. But there may just not be enough room in budgets to get enough to eat.

The stereotypes about the poor — that they bring their financial struggles on themselves by unwisely spending their money — go perhaps double for those who receive public assistance. But the same spending trends hold true for people who are enrolled in housing assistance, welfare cash assistance, food stamps, and other programs. They spend less than half of what families who aren’t recipients spend while putting a bigger share toward food, housing, and transportation — 77 percent of their budgets. They also spend less on eating at restaurants and on entertainment.

[theHandpuppet]

1. Cultivating a culture of poverty

From an article posted to Appalachian Group:

http://www.athensnews.com/ohio/article-42126-historian-appalachia-has-record-of-social-injustice.html

(excerpt)
We learned, along with other poverty warriors, that it was not some deviant culture that causes the inequality in our communities, but the consequences of race, class and gender subjugation, that had allowed some to succeed and others to be trapped in generational poverty."

The ground was uneven, Eller said, because resources were unequally distributed, the wealth generated by hard labor was shipped out of the region to enrich others, and public institutions were scattered and weak because taxes were sparse or non-existent.

Moreover, he said, the political systems responded more to those with economic power than to the common good...

....Eller said that with the current explosion of wealth and income inequality in America, parallels can be drawn to the experience of Appalachia, and some have gone so far as to refer to the current situation across the country as the "Appalachification of America."

[daleanime]

2. K&R....

[CFLDem]

3. I'm pretty sure the poor are poor

because they don't make much money.

Just a hunch...