Reply #86: Not only that [View All]

[conflictgirl]

But when people who have been poor most of their lives come into money, even short-term windfalls like a tax refund, there's a tendency to blow it all right away because one thing poor people face is an unpredictability in income. For example, if someone is living in a situation where they're frequently laid off, or their cars get stolen or their homes broken into, etc. they don't expect money to last. Part of that is a self-fulfilling prophecy. But a big part of it is a mindset that comes along with living in poverty one's whole life, often in a family and community that has always known poverty. If you don't grow up in an atmosphere where saving is encouraged, it's not as likely to occur to you that maybe you should save that tax refund for a rainy day. (I have noticed this personally...for years we used to take our tax refund and spend it on home improvements or vacations home to see family. About 5 years ago we started saving it or paying off debt with it, and it's made a HUGE difference for us to have that to fall back on. But it took us a long time to even realize it would be a good idea to save it.)

When you spend your whole life going without things that you need or want, when you get a little bit of money there's kind of an attitude of "get it while the getting's good". You don't know when the next time is that you'll get another chance to get anything.

Another important thing is that the spending habits of the poor are held up to a whole lot more scrutiny than anyone with more income. There are few people who would say that middle-income families shouldn't spend $400 a month on restaurant meals and should instead invest it for their own retirement. If you followed that line of logic, people could argue that anyone who doesn't have adequate savings at retirement just "made the wrong choices" and don't deserve Social Security. The fact of the matter is that, particular at this time in American history, financial irresponsibility is the societal NORM and poorer people just face more consequences for spending the same way that everyone else does.