NYT: Study Documents ‘Ghetto Tax’ Being Paid by the Urban Poor

[DeepModem Mom]

Study Documents ‘Ghetto Tax’ Being Paid by the Urban Poor
By ERIK ECKHOLM
Published: July 19, 2006

WASHINGTON, July 18 — Drivers from low-income neighborhoods of New York, Hartford and Baltimore, insuring identical cars and with the same driving records as those from middle-class neighborhoods, paid $400 more on average for a year’s insurance.

The poor are also the main customers for appliances and furniture at “rent to own” stores, where payments are stretched out at very high interest rates; in Wisconsin, a $200 television can end up costing $700.

Those were just two examples among several cited in a report Tuesday showing that poor urban residents frequently pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars a year in extra costs for everyday necessities. The study said some of the disparities were due to real differences in the cost of doing business in poor areas, some to predatory financial practices and some to consumer ignorance.

The study, from the Brookings Institution, said finding ways to eliminate these added costs, often called a “ghetto tax,” could be an important new front in the fight against poverty.

At a meeting connected with the report’s release, officials from three states — New York, Pennsylvania and Washington — said they were already doing just that through a variety of programs to draw banks to poor neighborhoods, help finance the construction of supermarkets and encourage innovative insurance schemes....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/19/us/19poor.html

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. groceries...

lots of inner city neighborhoods are too far from big stores. They have to shop at corner markets where all the food is higher priced.

[MADem]

2. Groceries are a biggie, and the "necessities" like buttwipe at twice

the price. That Seven-Eleven markup is a killa.

[Solo_in_MD]

4. Is having a Super WalMart a better alternative?

Low prices with a price

[MADem]

5. Than paying two bucks for a roll of toilet paper at the korean grocery?

I suppose if a person is making minimum wage, they'd head for the WalMart. IF they could get there by public transportation, and get home again without too much fuss.

[Solo_in_MD]

7. WalMart is a bit of a bete noir here and the big cities are fighting

stores being opened in a number of ways. Then there is their non-union position. However they provide jobs and low cost goods. Its a conundrum.

After the LA riots, many places lost their local grocery stores. Even today all that is left is the corner markets. Funny part is that those stores do such a low volume is so small they don't make much money either.

[Bridget Burke]

9. I lived in a different neighborhood years ago.

The local grocery store was Weingarten's. That was a local chain that went out of business--the Weingarten family is now into real estate. The store was crummy looking & I'll spare you the details of the food poisoning caused by coldcuts I bought there. The store went out of business when Weingarten's folded, then I moved out of the neighborhood.

I was happy for my former neighbors when Fiesta opened a big store in the area. Fiesta is a local chain that opens decent stores in many neighborhoods, serving all income levels & all ethnic groups. Prices are good--without "discount" cards. It's good to have a local alternative to WalMart--which is NOT as convenient as the neighborhood Fiesta.

[ManWroteTheBible]

91. You must be in Texas!

I remember Weingartens... and Weiner's... and Joske's... and Battlestein's... damn I'm old!

[sui generis]

113. Weiner's and Joske's?

if you're old that makes me . . .

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THOSE PLACES ARE, (I swear)

:rofl:

[Realityhack]

130. I think thats a false dichotomy

I think there is some middle ground between the corrner convinece store and Walmart.

[WhiteTara]

8. and they never have good fruit

or vegetables, just nasty white bread and hydrogenated oils.

[slampoet]

57. The whole state of Rhode Island is like that for groceries!!!!

I can't get a single decent piece of produce in any supermarket and I don't really have time to go to a different shop or farmer's market for every item. When i go to discount grocery stores in RI I save about 50% but i also get fruit flies in the summer. Plus ALL the meat in Rhode Island sucks, and you can't get good seafood unless you go out to dinner or drive to meet the fishermen at the docks.

The solution seems to be that once a month I drive 40 miles to Worcester, MA. There they have completely fresh product for about 1/8 the price you'd pay in Rhode Island.

Then once a year people WONDER WHY the state of Rhode Island has such bad health statistics.

[Erika]

3. W's America

and he'll speak at the NAACP about how he has helped the minorities.

[erknm]

94. Not sure I understand the relevance.

This is a problem that long precedes the current or previous administration, so I am not sure how we can cite either W or Clinton for this one. Unless it is general W bashing; which while I understand makes us all feel better, doesn't do anything positive for the cause.

This is a problem with which most freshman econ students should have some familiarity, the dynamic of the role of income vs the role of substitution in markets. The income effect dictates that the prices should be lower in the poorer neighborhoods. Having said this, the traditional resident in such a neighborhood is less adept at making optimal consumer decisions, has less information available to him and has less mobility (either physically or via credit to bring in mail order items), and as such there is far less substitution available to these residents. The result is that the impact that lower income has on reducing prices is dwarfed by the lack of competitive pricing. Essentially there is less substitution causing these local economies to be far less competitive.

I doubt that the NYT really knows what it is talking about here, as most of the economic research I have seen indicates that this problem is far less serious than it was 20 years ago. There is simply more information regarding product pricing available to consumers. Although there is a clear inverse relationship between income and the likelihood of paying bills on time, (causing credit ratings to fall with income), there is a dramatic increase in the number of residents along all income strata who receive goods and services ordered over the phone, via mail, or via internet. This last result also seems to be robust across age groups, although the older members of our society are less likely to order online. Similarly, although more poor people are ordering goods and services online now than 20 years ago, there is obviously a positive relationship between income and the likelihood of internet buying.

While it is difficult to measure, most research seems to indicate that in terms of disposable income, the positive influence that the "information revolution" has had on pricing competition seems to have a greater influence on poorer populations.

The reviews on government assistance on this is at best mixed. The WIC program results in increases in pricing due to the separation from the consumer as a decision maker and the consumer as a residual claimant on the purchase. Commerical subsidies for the development of new commercial facilities (urban renewal) help minority owned businesses predominently, but most of these are already middle class minorities. I still consider this a positive. There is a movement to provide cash to welfare recipients over food stamps and other in kind transfers. In many test cases, a surprising result was indicated. While certainly some took the cash and spent it on items other than food, a large number of the initial recipients actually shopped outside their own neighborhood. While it is difficult to determine if this is indicative of the whole, one respondent stated that she "felt better not having to use the stamps and liked going to the white stores". A surprising result to be sure. The so called "white stores" take food stamps, but it seems she did not feel comfortable using them there.

I can't speak to the issue of car insurance, it smacks of actuarial tables to me. I have not seen any data on this, as it is not my field, but I suspect that there is a higher incidence of loss due to theft and robbery in poorer neighborhoods than in wealthy neighborhoods. Beyond that, , , ,


FH

[kestrel91316]

98. Ya got some sorta problem with "general W bashing"???

[erknm]

117. Yes, it gives ammunition to the republicans to recruit the middle

The Republicans don't need any help. The way to win in November is to stick to issues. Additionally, general W bashing will do us no good in 2008.

I prefer to stick to issues. This should be more than enough to turn things around in November and in 2008.

FH

[kestrel91316]

121. Welcome to DU. Enjoy your stay.

[erknm]

124. So far, so good

Not too much flaming, but alot of standard comments that people only make under the blanket of internet induced anonymity.

My link to the inhabitants of this blog is largely the environment. I happily donate to and volunteer for the NRDC, Sierra Foundation, Union for Concerned Scientists, etc. Insofar as environmental protection is concerned, I feel comfortable here. As an economist, I have read some really interesting thoughts that demonstrate a shortfall of understanding. My personal opinions on other issues seem to find a comfortable home here, I just see no real value in general whining.

If I get booted, so be it. I suspect that my life will continue with little regret.

FH

[me b zola]

100. Bla-bla-bla

The tax on the poor has been documented now since reagan. Pukes have a propensity for propping up their tax cuts on the backs of the poor, though, that go much further back than reagan.

As for bush*s treatment of the poor & minorities, were you at all able to watch television news or read the internet as people were dying in NOLA?

[Realityhack]

131. I think that was the posters point actualy.

Seems to me he was trying to point out exactly what you said. That this is not isolated to the current administration.
As a result its a perfectly valid issue for running against other republicans not just the current admin. Hence the point about bashing * not helping in the next election (wither or not you agree with that).

[Solo_in_MD]

6. While it is painful to say, I support the different rates by zip code

Insurance rates are straight statistics and the income needs to cover the expenses. People in the city have higher overall accident, theft and damage claims. Its quite legitimate. Furthermore, if it goes down in the city, the rual areas and burbs pay more. CA did that an it effectively screwed the non city folks in what amounted to a straiught locality vote. Classic tyranny of the majority.

I'll climb off my non-urban soapbox now...

[woofless]

13. While the area you live in is a factor in rate setting,

most if not all insurance companies now use your credit rating to set premiums. They claim that those with less than stellar credit are more likely to be the cause of a loss. Our rate for liability doubled in one year with no claims or accidents and no tickets. Just a sub standard credit rating. Check it out.

[SlipperySlope]

14. It is more than "they claim"

It isn't just that "they claim" that people with bad credit ratings are more accident prone, it has been statistically proven. Where there is correlation, the insurance companies will set rates.

They haven't show causation though...

[Gormy Cuss]

25. Have you read published reports on the degree of correlation?

I'd love to read an independent report on this issue. I suspect that there is no causality and that the correlation is stronger in certain demographics than others, especially if the correlation is based on total claims (including thefts) rather than accidents only. So much credit rating data massaging works well for the average person but is less reliable for people who live outside of the middle class suburban box. The FICO scores when first published were based on a model flawed in this way.

[SlipperySlope]

44. I don't know what counts as an "independent" report

There has been a lot of reseach with varying results. One study, done by the University of Texas at Austin, found that:

* People with the best credit are 40% less likely to be in accident than people with the worst credit.
* When they do have an accident, people with the best credit have one-half the damages as people with the worst.

http://www.ic2.org/publications/bbr_creditstudy.pdf


Despite these statistics (and similar results in other studies) the REASONS for this correlation are not understood.

[Gormy Cuss]

53. Thanks for the link.

It's nice to see that the authors were clear that they weren't showing a causality nor whether demographic indicators made a difference in the correlation.

[pitohui]

101. it seems logical -- a study to prove what we all know anyway

careful people who are anal retentive about such things as paying their bills on time are going to be careful people who tend to have fewer accidents or accidents at lower speeds, careful people are careful people pretty much all day long

[patcox2]

125. I know what the reasons are. Incompetence and corruption.

And I am not talking black and white here, I am talking urban poor and working class. I live in the northeast, and among the urban working whites, getting involved in a workers comp claim or an auto accident is considered hitting the lottery. Disability benefits are considered the ticket to a life on vacation, and people proudly boast of gaming the system. There is an ethic which says there is nothing wrong with cheating the system for benefits and awards. So that raises insurance costs.

And the second part is incompetence. Sorry, but some people, not all, but certainly many, are poor because they are not competent, they just don't do things very well, they are not adept. And that extends to driving. Can't make a living, can't pay your bills, stands to reason you cannot drive either.

[IA_Seth]

70. Credit and it's Impacts...

I JUST received something in the mail this morning about a class-action lawsuit with Progressive regarding the use of credit scores to determine premiums, but I haven't had the chance to read it yet.

In case you were interested, I am sure there is something somewhere on it. I plan on reading it when I get off work.

[Gormy Cuss]

74. Definitely. Thanks. n/t

[genieroze]

55. I had my rates raised because I was carrying a balance on my gas cc.

High Point Insurance.

[sui generis]

16. how many people who have cars in the city live and work

in the same zip code?

insurance rates are not statistics. Risk group analysis correlated to zip code or gender or income or hair color or credit card spending patterns is all just made up fresh-from-the-ass bullshit. Who does it benefit? The insurance companies. Who keeps those statistics and their actuarial assumptions "trade secret"? The insurance companies.

It's not about screwing the good people who never have a wreck with the misdeeds of the bad people - it's about screwing the people who have the least number of choices and the fewest resources to fight institutionalized unfairness.

Why is it that the people who need credit the least have the lowest rates? If you were to look at the actual numbers of people in all "risk" groups who pay back their debt, 94% pay back 100% of their debt on time, yet well over 70 percent of those people are charged userous rates because they are "higher risk". It's not justifiable.

The same thing happens in insurance - especially health insurance. The risk group "profile" is changed to place risk factors into smaller groups to justify charging higher prices to those groups - then draw an artificial correlation to some common factor in those groups to justify charging higher premiums to everyone. The cost of administering those policies hasn't changed and the loss/outlay hasn't changed, in fact the only thing that's changed is that insurance investments are showing higher rates of return, larger cash reserves, and steady annual growth in profit.

Don't believe everything an insurance company tells you, just because they spin it to make it look like you're being saved from the irresponsible high risk people, for a fee.

[BeliQueen]

35. Isn't that a Circular Argument

Poor people should be charged more because they can't afford to live in a decent safe area.

[Solo_in_MD]

92. I never claimed that urban areas were less safe

I am from a rural area that is starting to build up. Not a lot of money there but guns are quite common, so its obviously is much safer in Wash DC or NYC :sarcasm:

[ziggy_luv]

114. i do not support the different zip different rates...

because here where I live in Detroit, it seems like we pay the highest prices in the state. For no fault, and no coverage. We live in the porest
part of the state and get socked for the most. And Im talking about a used car, not new. New is even more. Call for a free quote and dont forget to use a detroit zipcode, and address. We dont have any accidents or speeding tix either.

[USA_1]

10. Twin Cities Ghetto Taxes

In Minneapolis the city people will have to pay higher sales taxes in order to finance a baseball stadium for billionaire KKKarl Pohlad. I have tried to get DU Democrats to voice their opposition to this racist tax but it has gotten very little response in the state/local forum.

In St Paul we ghetto folks pay higher property taxes in order to finance the Xcel hockey arena. None of us give a flying sh*t about professional ice hockey. I could only name a handful of players from the NHL and couldn't care less if it folded. And yet we are forced to pay higher taxes to pay for a suburban playground.


It's a good bet that racialism in taxation happens in other areas as well.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

19. Apparently you didn't see the lengthy discussion about the stadium

in the Minnesota forum.

The participants were about 80-20 against the stadium tax, with the "fors" being a couple of die-hard sports nuts.

[wellst0nev0ter]

79. Probably From Outside The Metro Too, I'll Bet (n/t)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

85. Well, yes, I believe the "fors" were from outside the Twin Cities

:-)

[BrownOak]

112. I'm a die hard sports-nut

and I'm so totally against public funds being used to build stadiums where the profits go to individuals. It's an absurd cycle where:

....Fans demand a winner and won't go to watch a 1-10 football team....
....In order to put a winner on the field owners go out after more and more expensive players....
....In order to make the money necessary to meet those huge payrolls owners demand the money from concessions and parking and a new stadium to attract fans.....
....In order to keep teams and appease voters cities cave and build stadiums using public funds....
....In order to build the stadium the cities suck more taxes out of the citizens...
... leaving the average citizen unable to afford the tickets, parking, and concessions that have all been increased because that's what you do when you get a shiny new stadium....

Lather, rinse, repeat and if the city doesn't like it there's always another sucker mayor who will.

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. That's how it has always been --

you don't live in the ghetto because you're poor; you're poor because you live in the ghetto.

You don't have to worry about 'those people' moving into your neighborhood if they don't have enough money to get out of their own neighborhood.

And people wonder why, during riots, the grocery stores and furniture stores get burned?

[sgxnk]

12. personal decisions

televisions are "everyday necessities"?

televisions are luxuries. one can also go to a thrift store (as i did) and get a decent color tv ,used, for 30 bucks or so. those who willingly (and these are free market decisions) go to these rental companies and pay exorbitant fees are only making bad decisions that likely continue the cycle of poverty.

yes, people in the ghetto pay more for all kinds of stuff. i've spent a good part of my life living in working in "the ghetto". these rental companies deal with high default and damage rates to their property and thus charge high rates. nobody forces anybody to rent stuff from these companies. thrift stores, salvation army, goodwill, etc. are there for those who want to spend more prudently and invest for the future, and not pay exorbitant rates for LUXURIES.

people in "the ghetto" also disproportionately pay into the lottery/scratch ticket programs, which again is a matter of bad personal choices. lottery tickets have been described as taxes for people who are bad at math. ditto for people who pay x$/day for cigarette drug habit.

[sui generis]

17. And the good little poor people

just save their money and go to church three times a week.

It's true, poor people dispose of relatively more of their disposable income so that they won't have to have a thrift store couch with a shit stain from where grandma croaked and laid for a week before they found her, but part of making those "choices" is also education and availability of alternatives.

In today's age, televisions are everyday necessities, most especially if you used to live in New Orleans, apparently. At any rate, you're right, there are extremes of bad choices - living in a cardboard shack and driving an Expedition with thousand dollar shiny ghetto mags on it; buying $300 FUBU velour gear that looks like you got it at a thrift store, but just because someone is poor doesn't mean that everything besides a boiled corn pone to wipe your ass with is a "luxury".

You're basically saying that being poor is a choice, which is a very neo-con view, generally speaking. Corporations who generalize that way extrapolate that everyone who is poor deserves to be poor.

[sgxnk]

20. more personal decisions

where did church come into this? nice strawman

hey, you make your choices. tv's are NOT a necessity. i lived without one for several years (about 4) and I lived without cable for about 8.

i *am* saying tv's are a luxury.

sorry.

food is a necessity

utilities

a roof over your head

but not TV, and not an expensive couch rented from rent-a-center or the like

i am NOT saying that being poor is a choice

I *am* saying that many choices that people make continue their place in the cycle of poverty. sorry if you think that's a "neocon" view. Bill Cosby and John Edwards have both made this point(repeatedly) recently. are they "neocons". i have cites if needed for edward's comments, for example. similarly, many choices people make help facilitate a move out of poverty.

the US has among the highest income quintile mobility of any nation ever seen on the planet earth

one can (and does) make choices that make it more or less likely that one will move out of poverty.

many many people end up in poverty through absolutely no fault of their own, and i never said being 'poor was a choice'

spare me the reductionism and the strawmen

out of wedlock births, for example is a choice one makes that is likely to continue a cycle of poverty. groups that have lower oow births tend to have far less poverty per capita. sorry, if that's is "cosby'esque" or neocon'esque. choosing to use addictive drugs is another personal choice.

i am against the war on drugs, fwiw, but it doesn't follow that i don't think that people that choose to use these drugs are not making self-destructive choices.

smoking is a tremendous waste of disposable income. and it's a choice

spending $400+ a month on rental center type luxuries (and having lived and worked in the "ghetto" i saw this often firsthand) is a choice. and it perpetuates the cycle of poverty.

it doesn't build wealth or create opportunity. it drains people's (limited) disposable income

[jahyarain]

37. "out of wedlock births, for example is a choice one makes"

wtf? that one little line sums up your whole argument. and negates it. everything you've tried to use as an example comes back to the same thing. lack of education. about sex and birth control. about the lottery. about cigarettes. and most definitely about rent to own places. and believe me, i know a whole lot about all of them. you say you've been there and got out. good for you. and i sincerely mean that. same here. but i still go back to see my folks. but only for a few hours before dark. because then everyone in the whole fucking town gets drunk and starts fighting with their wives/husbands, kids while spending the last of their factory check on another twelve pack of Milwaukee's Best. all the while there's a big screen tv sitting square in the middle of their dilapidated house/trailer they got because the shiny blue commercial told them no money down and no payments for three months. will anyone come in and say "holy Christ on crutches! what the fuck is going on with these people? we should educate them about budgeting and birth control pills!"? HELL NO, because we have to have these people standing on an assembly line ten to twelve hours a day (or night) making $7.50 an hour so we can afford that car or boat or what the fuck ever they're making. the ONLY way you and i got out was education. and if you're so broken down and fucked up that all you look forward to is that bottle of whiskey or that drunk girl on meth you pulled out of the bar, you're no longer making choices because you're trying not to think at all.

[sgxnk]

42. i don't

i don't really disagree with anything you are saying

i am cosby'esque (edwards'esque) on this issue

but several points. one is that education does NOTHING if people do not make the CHOICE to act on the education. for example, we are barraged (rightfully so) with messages about the dangers of smoking

the issue is NOT one of a lack of education on the dangers of smoking. but people still make the CHOICE to smoke - jeapardizing their health and their $$$

i think the primarly sources of education for issues like this - personal responsibility, character, sacrifice, discipline, etc. is not the schools but is the family, the civic institutions (religious or secular etc.)

and as those have broken, the effect is a cascading one

but we STILL have among the highest income quintile mobility ever seen in the history of mankind

and - generally speaking - people who make the right choices, have personal discipline and sacrifice, will - ceteris paribus - tend to see positive results

[jahyarain]

47. for people stuck in this hell we call poverty

that cigarette/bottle is one of the few pleasures they feel they'll ever have. there is no looking past today to see that saving the money spent on these things could lead to moving to a better location or learning a skill at the community college that could lead to more money and a higher quality of living. you and i DID see past that. luckily. but i understand when that bottle is all you have. and it's not a choice.

[sgxnk]

49. oh cmon

what about the pleasures of family, of love, of working out, of a frigging cheeseburger

i am sorry. mebbe i'm just too optimistic... but i don't see poverty as so damning that "a bottle is all you have"

our nation's history is chock full of people who with far more poverty than often seen today (let's not forget that during the great depression - poverty meant not even enough food. nowadays, the #1 health problem among the poor is OBESITY) did not resort to giving up, and self-destruction

on that point. it is the first time in recorded history that the poor are fatter than the middle/upper classes.

that is an astounding turn of events

[NobleCynic]

59. On the issue of the television you're right

A television is a luxury. People who waste money at a rent a center on a big screen TV probably deserve to be poor. Excessive materialism such as this hurts our entire society.

But you spend so much effort decrying the TV while ignoring the real problems. That the poor are forced to pay more at their supermarkets, substantially more for credit (The highest APR I've personally seen was in excess of 2000%, no joke.), more for medical care because hospitals charge a premium for care for the uninsured, more for insurance of almost any kind, more to cash a check, etc. Yes, they pay a premium for luxuries too, but do not ignore the article's thesis that they also pay a premium for necessities.

As a side note, the issue of credit and insurance would be more understandable if the rates charged where actuarially justifiable. They are not.

Just try to get a deposit back for any apartment you move into. If you live in a good apartment complex maybe. If you have a good wage maybe. If you have neither, you will never see that deposit again, even if the apartment is immaculate. You think the working poor have the free time to challenge the denial of return on deposit? Hardly.

The point here is not that social mobility is a myth. It isn't a myth. The point is that for the average person, it is. The United States is no longer the top in terms of social mobility among income quintiles. And even when it was, the perception of social mobility exceeded the reality.

[sgxnk]

62. the reason

the reason i decried the tv thing was that the original post referenced it among "NECESSITIEs" which to me was just so astoundingly absurd

i agree about the supermarket thing. but there ARE reasons for this. fwiw, supermarkets have very low profit margins. this is well known in business. shrinkage and security costs, both of which are much higher in poor neighborhoods (for obvious reasons) means groceries necessarily will be higher priced ceteris paribus

i am not denying for one second that it's hard to be poor, that there are some heavy burdens, etc.

i'm merely saying that in some cases (like renting a widescreen tv) there are behaviors that tend to perptetuate poverty and that these are not the fault of rentalcenters

i have a BIG problem with credit card companies and their ridiculous rates, moreso the way they can raise them on (essentially) a whim.

fwiw, i am in my 30's and finally got a credit card just a few months ago. didn't have one before that.

but for many, credit is far more of a "necessity" than tv

[pitohui]

102. a teevee is not a luxury in a weather area

you need at least a cheap teevee or weather radio in case of disaster, so you will be advised of evacuations etcetera

as the little ones can be had for as little as $29 on sale at walmart, i think it's pretty pathetic that anyone would resent a poor person having a teevee to keep them informed of what natural disasters such as hurricane, storm, fire are coming down the pike, not to mention the unnatural ones such as what street corner are lots of murders occurring so you can keep yourself and your kids away from it

i suppose, naughty poor person, they also turn it on at times when there is no emergency and watch tyra banks on upn or something like that, oh the horror! for surely if you are poor you should never have any pleasure, only misery and drudgery forever :eyes:

i do think some racketeering or price-gouging laws ought to be prosecuted aga. "entrepreneurs" who find sneaky ways to charge poor people $600 for a teevee worth, at most, $150 but i'm not holding my breath -- it is far easier to blame the victim of the crime than to prosecute the criminal

[depakid]

63. What's this "income quintile mobility" BS

Do you even know what you're talking about- or are you just spouting off right wing talking points.

Please explain- if you can.

[sgxnk]

77. spare me

the "right wing talking points" accusation

and i'll spare accusing you of using stalinist debate tactics by smearing me by association

how's that?


an income quintile is a standard term in economics

basically it means we split income up into 5 parts - hence: QUINTILE

the bottom 20%, the next 20% , etc. encompassing all income levels

also in economics we talk about income quintile MOBILITY which means the fluidity of movement so to speak from quintile to quintile

this allows comparisons to other economic systems. some may have, for instance smaller quintiles (and thus less income deviation) but also less income quintile mobility. again, economics is also (like politics ) about tradeoffs

the USA has, historically had pretty high income quintile mobility

this means that people tend not to be as likely (relatively speaking) if born poor to stay poor and also shows that in a system that rewards hard work, risk taking, entrepreneurship, etc. you are going to see more mobility than in many other systems

again: tradeoffs

for example, one of the most common qualities in those who reach (vs. those who are born into) the highest income quintiles include willingness to put in very long hours, and a willingness to take often extreme, if calculated risks

for example. the VAST majority of businesses fail. yet, in many cases, fantastic wealth is garnered through creation of one's own business

think: Apple, Ford, Microsoft, Walmart, etc.

if one is completely risk averse, one is NOT going to start a business. it requires a high investment (relative to income) for many, with relatively low probability of positive expectancy

etc. etc. etc

[HEyHEY]

127. People who are uneducated tend to make poor choices

Because they don't have the tools needed to make good choices.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

72. Exactly

I've been very broke for two periods in my life, although these were temporary setbacks. However, I worked with street kids for four years.

When you're really at the bottom of the social hierarchy, it's so depressing and discouraging that you'll "self-medicate" with whatever you can: drugs, alcohol, TV, dancing to loud music, tobacco, whatever is available.

Most of the street kids spent at least some time as prostitutes, and they could earn a couple hundred dollars a night. But they were still teenagers, with a teenager's impulsivity, and their first thought would be, "I'll get a hotel room for the night" or "I'll get some drugs so I forget (all the sordidness)" or "I'll get some cool clothes." With no permanent address, they couldn't open a bank account, and given the predators on the street, they couldn't carry hundreds of dollars in cash with them all the time, so they felt it was better to spend it.

It was hard to get these kids into "straight" jobs, because they made less money, and most of the time they STILL couldn't afford a place to live on minimum wage. Even those who had managed to find roommates still came to the drop-in center for their evening meal, because they always ran out of money before the end of the month. Then there were their street friends, who would crash in their apartments, and sometimes get them into trouble with the landlords because of vandalism or wild partying. Yet these were the friends who had helped them survive in days past.

It was complicated.

If you're several generations into poverty, your family has literally lost the skills for living the middle class life. You have no role models. And the first steps are HARD.

Some people appear to be born naturally responsible and prudent. Good for them. Others luck out by finding a mentor who consciously or unconsciously teaches them life skills.

The rest fall through the cracks.

"If you think there's a simple solution, then you probably don't understand the problem."

[saigon68]

123. Nice rant I'm impressed

It's an effective message which cuts right to the heart of the problem

[Le Taz Hot]

50. Sir/madam

you are correct. In all your points. And this is from one who was raised in unbelievable poverty and hunger (yes, as in starvation AND homelessness). I CHOSE not to start popping out babies at 15 as I knew it would doom me AND ANY CHILDREN I MIGHT BEAR to ever-lasting poverty. I CHOSE to stay in school until I got my high school diploma despite ungodly physical, spriritual, emotional and yes, sexual abuse. I CHOSE to work 2-3 jobs and get a college degree.

The people who have and will berate you on this thread are one of two types of people 1) they made the wrong choices and are trying to justify them (i.e., I have such a hard life, smoking is the only thing that gives me pleasure, despite the fact that cigarettes are around $3.50 - $5.00 a pack now) OR 2) people who I refer to as faux liberals never having seen a really hard poverty period in their lives.

Life is and always has been full of choices. I can talk the talk 'cause I've walked the walk.

[Gormy Cuss]

87. Start walking again.

Just because you succeeded by making that set of choices doesn't mean that everyone who is stuck in poverty is there because they made bad choices.

I haven't been poor a day as an adult because I was fortunate enough to a good brain and the support of many Federal subsidies for good choices like education. I know far too many people in my own family and old neighborhood who weren't as lucky. They don't smoke or drink or give rent-to-own places money for frivolous stuff and they still can't get ahead, even the ones who delayed having kids or who had only one. I have good solid upstanding citizen cousins who have never made more than a dollar over minimum wage. The only bad choice they made was not having parents with a little money.

[erknm]

96. Some People Are Poor Due to No Fault of Their Own

This is true. The questions are: What percentage? and Should we design social policies to serve the minority of people at the expense of the majority?

I ask these questions, I have no real answer. Some here will tell you that they know the answer to the first question, and they will lie. No one knows because we cannot decide on fault. The most extreme members of this group will, for example, try to convince the rest of us that being black dooms one to a lifetime of hard choices and restricted opportunities. Yet there are examples of success.

Meanwhile, others will say that any obstacle can be overcome, but will ignore the 6 year old child of a drug addict, stuck in bad schools with no options to get out.

I know that the opportunities to leave poverty are greater in the US than in other nations, our income mobility seems to indicate this, as was cited elsewhere.

As far as a good brain is concerned, how can one design social policies to offset the preferential impact of this?

FH

[raccoon]

106. The current administration is already doing that.

"Should we design social policies to serve the minority of people at the expense of the majority?"

For example, the estate tax and the tax cuts enacted which benefit the uberrich the most.

[erknm]

118. The estate tax does not do quite what you think.

If you can find a way to help otherwise middle income and poor families to keep family businesses and farms, then by all means, repeal all reductions in estate taxes. However, I am watching right now as my grandparents farm is being sold (Sept. 11th auction) because my mother and her siblings cannot afford to pay the estate tax.

Unfortunately the tax is not properly indexed, and what was superrich 25 years ago is no longer so.

As for the tax cuts on the wealthy, I don't mind giving them a tax cut so long as the poor see a palpable benefit. I do not think it happened under W. One could make a case that the Reagan tax cuts caused all boats to float higher, but I do not see the same phenomenon under the current administration.

FH

[Le Taz Hot]

104. Honey, you need to bark

orders to someone else. I stopped bowing down to that shit when I was 12.

[raccoon]

105. And some made the "wrong choice" of acquiring a disability. nt

[sui generis]

60. spare me the attitude

you have not been here long enough to try to snark like that. This is supposed to be constructive conversation, not a pissing contest, unless you have the skill, and skill involves research which is a wise thing to do before battle.

Now then on a friendlier note, reductionism? Getting fat is a waste of disposable income too. In fact anything that isn't an absolute survival necessity is a waste of disposable income, technically speaking.

I think you ARE generalizing though, and your "ghetto" qualifications are not as relevant as you think, seeing as most of DU understands the value of money. What I see first hand are people who exploit the ghetto and who exploit ignorance. While it may be common sense to you and I not to spend money on the scale of relevance versus necessity, there are poor people whose values tell them that the appearance of success or the value of convenience is worth the cost of debt, and those Rent-A-Center ghouls who take advantage of that are doing so because it's more difficult to screw people who are spending every dime on their overvalued mortgage and their second hand BMW and justifying every spent penny as a result.

"one can (and does) make choices that make it more or less likely that one will move out of poverty."

I'm not sure where your "ghetto" is, but that statement doesn't really hold water. If all one had to do was make simple choices to "move out of poverty" then we wouldn't have poverty, or at the very least we would have an education campaign that would mitigate it to a much greater extent. Not trying to be snarky, but honest. I understand the theory of what you are getting at, but poverty in America, Rent-A-Center aside, is pretty complex at its origins. Getting pregnant may or may not have been a "choice", but exercising the choice to keep your baby may impoverish your skills and experience for a higher wage job in later years, regardless of the choices one makes subsequent to having that child. As you must surely know, a DUI, chronic medical, bankruptcy, and even just bad credit or failing one piss test once anywhere in the U.S. can keep you out of the job market nearly forever, can keep you out of a rental contract, away from a mortgage, and locked out of white collar employment, and some of those conditions may even contribute to others in that list.

The "choices" you have going forward, no matter how well executed may never be enough to overcome where you are, regardless of how you got there.

[sgxnk]

78. deal with da attitude

i said: one can (and does) make choices that make it more or less likely that one will move out of poverty."

you said: I'm not sure where your "ghetto" is, but that statement doesn't really hold water. If all one had to do was make simple choices to "move out of poverty" then we wouldn't have poverty

again, you are putting words in my mouth.

read what i said . i said MAKE IT MORE OR LESS LIKELY

there is no certainty.

and there's no crying in baseball either

what i said, clearly. and several times... is that ceteris paribus, willingness to sacrifice short term pleasure, hard work, self discipline will result in a greater likelihood of upward income mobility

duh

there are no certainties

you can do everything right and still end up poor

you can do lots of stuff wrong, and get exceedingly lucky and get rich

it happens. life aint fair

however, in general, making good choices is more likely to result in positive results

wasting high %age of disposable income on rental of luxury items is not a good choice

[sui generis]

83. well now at least you are putting words in your own mouth

in a tangential attempt at self-disambiguation. Clearly you are misunderstood a lot. And the unabridged phrase is: antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem, ceteris paribus, per se, dude.

Duh. Duh? Exemplary conversational skill there, bubba. Life isn't as simple as your bumper sticker philosophy, although it would be nice if it were so. Duh? I'll stop now before we have you defending how few times you beat your wife, ut humiliter opinor.

You haven't seen attitude yet but ya just might when you grow up.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

18. Yes, wouldn't it be wonderful if everyone were

as savvy as you. :sarcasm:

You're invoking the "buyer beware" principle that obtained throughout the nineteenth century and allowed businesses to produce and supply shoddy, sometimes outright dangerous products and cheat their customers without penalty.

When I lived on the East Coast, I saw the contrast between supermarkets in the same chain, one in the inner city and one in the suburbs. The suburban store had lower prices, higher-quality produce with a better variety, and much nicer fixtures (the inner city store looked as if no one had repaired anything for years, and it smelled of rotting food).

I also saw payday loan predators move into my neighborhood in Portland as the unemployment rate when up.

If you're poorly educated and don't have many other resources, television is cheap entertainment. Meanwhile, libraries and organizations that bring the arts to poor areas are having their funding cut.

If you're poorly educated and don't have many other resources, you may not have gotten far enough in math to know what a bad deal rent-to-own stores are. Are you going to conduct consumer education classes for the poor?

Yeah, it's just soooo eeeeasy. The only trouble with poor people is that they're stupid and lazy, right? :sarcasm:

There has to be a special ring in hell for the bloodsuckers who take advantage of the most vulnerable members of society.

[sgxnk]

22. strawmen 101

hey, you make your choices. tv's are NOT a necessity. i lived without one for several years (about 4) and I lived without cable for about 8. and renting a widescreen HDTV for big $$ instead of spending 20-40 bucks for one at goodwill is a CHOICE

look. i've BEEN THERE. i've been in poverty.

i *am* saying tv's are a luxury.

sorry.

food is a necessity

utilities

a roof over your head

but not TV, and not an expensive couch rented from rent-a-center or the like

i am NOT saying that being poor is a choice

I *am* saying that many choices that people make continue their place in the cycle of poverty. sorry if you think that's a "neocon" view. Bill Cosby and John Edwards have both made this point(repeatedly) recently. are they "neocons". i have cites if needed for edward's comments, for example. similarly, many choices people make help facilitate a move out of poverty.

the US has among the highest income quintile mobility of any nation ever seen on the planet earth

one can (and does) make choices that make it more or less likely that one will move out of poverty.

many many people end up in poverty through absolutely no fault of their own, and i never said being 'poor was a choice'

spare me the reductionism and the strawmen

out of wedlock births, for example is a choice one makes that is likely to continue a cycle of poverty. groups that have lower oow births tend to have far less poverty per capita. sorry, if that's is "cosby'esque" or neocon'esque. choosing to use addictive drugs is another personal choice.

i am against the war on drugs, fwiw, but it doesn't follow that i don't think that people that choose to use these drugs are not making self-destructive choices.

smoking is a tremendous waste of disposable income. and it's a choice

spending $400+ a month on rental center type luxuries (and having lived and worked in the "ghetto" i saw this often firsthand) is a choice. and it perpetuates the cycle of poverty.

it doesn't build wealth or create opportunity. it drains people's (limited) disposable income

[Lydia Leftcoast]

26. So ignorance, hopelessness and depression have nothing to do with

"bad decisions"?

What are you doing to help people make better decisions?

[sgxnk]

28. of course

of course they have something to do with it

again, with the strawmen

the point was that nobody FORCES somebody to go rentacenter and spend several hundred dollars a month on LUXURIES

doing that is a self-destructive personal choice.

part of choice means that one accepts that some choices are BAD, and will hurt you.

television is a luxury.

i've made plenty of bad decisions in my life. those were my fault. blaming rentacenters imo is neither productive nor logical. there are issues of personal responsibility here

what have *i* done? so now we are going into personal issues when we were discussing political issues? ok, if bona fides are necessary - i have tutored english and math. pro bono. i don't think think that's relevant as to my political ideas.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

31. Why not blame rental centers?

They are set up to deliberately defraud people.

They are no better than any other kind of scammer.

Why should a "pigeon drop" scammer be subject to criminal penalties when a rental center owner isn't?

In both cases, people "should" know better.

[sgxnk]

33. why i don 't

because people freely enter into a contract with a rental center.

they have CHOICE

nobody forces anybody to rent a tv at a rentalcenter vs. going to goodwill for a decent $30 color tv

if u choose to spend $100 or so rent a month for a frigging TV when that's a huge %age of your disposable income, that's a bad personal choice. it is NOT the rentalcenter's fault

if rentalcenters are so usurious (sp?) and sucky, the obvious solution is to NOT patronize them. they are providers of luxuries. like i said - i have been there. there are tons of other options. there are nonprofits providing very affordable DECENT *but not luxurious* furniture, tv's etc. (and i have patronized these places).

again, these are (generally) luxuries. they are not providing basic utilities. and people have other options

if you choose to throw away a good %age of your disposable income on unecessary cr*p, you gotta take personal responsibility for that

if you have evidence that these rentalcenters are SCAMMING people, then provide it.

[conflictgirl]

56. Ok, let's go with your argument

Say the poor person has the superior sense like you do that they should just get a TV from Goodwill instead of Rent-a-center. But let's say they take the bus everywhere, with their kids, because they don't have a car. How are they supposed to get the TV home from Goodwill? Are they supposed to carry it on the bus and hope that nobody takes it from them?

I think YOU are the one making the strawman argument with the rental centers in the first place. Undoubtedly, there are enough people patronizing those places that they continue to do a very good business. But you know what? I know a whole lot of poor people - and have been one of those poor people myself, some would say I still am - and the MAJORITY of them do not go to the rental centers at all. I have known two poor people in my entire life who were customers of rental centers. I've known more poor people than I can count who get their TVs from hand-me-downs (it's how we got ours), garage sales, trash picking, etc.

[sgxnk]

64. tv transport 101

look, like isn't easy or fair. how do they get the tv home? FIND A WAY.

i mean for pete's sake. it is a frigging luxury.

i am not making a strawman argument with rental centers

they are VERY successful and very common in poor areas. that isn't opinion. that's fact

there is enough of a market for them such that they do well, and with a fair amount of competition and decent market saturation

the original post criticized the rentalcenters, and I gave my position on this issue

it's hardly a strawman when i didn't bring them up in the first place. did you read the op?

again, *i* did not bring up rentalcenters. it aint my man, thus it aint my STRAWman

[sui generis]

65. shift key 101

now there's a straw man. ;)

[sgxnk]

71. TOO MUCH

milne

or something

[Bridget Burke]

88. e e cummings....

Or the guy who wrote archie and mehitabel

Unless you're so poor your shift key doesn't work?

[sgxnk]

109. ya

him too.

i am just being frugal and saving electrons. lower case conserves them. :l

actually, my lower case "thang" had its origin during a period of injury where i had to type with one hand. the habit stuck, i have taken ENDLESS cr*p about it over the years, but that's just the way i do it.

[Neecy]

81. luxuries? You must be kidding.

if rentalcenters are so usurious (sp?) and sucky, the obvious solution is to NOT patronize them. they are providers of luxuries. like i said - i have been there. there are tons of other options. there are nonprofits providing very affordable DECENT *but not luxurious* furniture, tv's etc. (and i have patronized these places).

My new neighbor fled an abusive husband and had nothing other than the clothing on her back and her four-year-old child when she moved in last month.

She used one of these rental centers and if I had known her before she did it I would have given her some of my own furniture. I've never seen such absolute junk in my life - cheap, poorly made, ugly shit. All outrageously priced.

I fail to see how this shit qualifies as "luxuries"; what these places do is unload bottom of the line junk at premium prices to people down on their luck. For you to continually decry their products as 'luxurious' is really ridiculous - walk into one of their stores sometime and see what garbage they're selling.

[Joe Chi Minh]

82. Your post might have been very enlightened if you were capable

of understanding that solvency is not a virtue in any shape or form. However, since the nub of your world-view seems to be precisely that solvency and disposable income are God, in fact, your post is a disgrace to humanity.

You should also understand that poor people, after being "under the cosh" for a long time, get kind of punch-drunk; and instead of thinking, "Now how can I prudently arrange my very limited finances to optimal effect - bearing in mind that all the options open to me are bad in one way or another. I must surely evaluate them all and decide how best to spend each penny", they take the stupid decision to spend some of it on stuff that gives them a wee bit of hope, a wee bit of pleasure, a wee sense of belonging to society at large, a wee something to make their misery and hopelessness a wee bit less painful. Having a vague idea that instead of wanting help them, the respectable folk want to trick every last penny out of them, and people like you don't want to believe it, or worse, don't want others to believe it, probably isn't a great source of encouragement to them, either.

Because of people like you, with very limited and superficial understanding, instead of being allowed the very modest means every human being is entitled to - at least according to Judaeo-Christian teaching - the poor suffer inordinately. And when you meet your Maker, you'll rue world view, but it will be too late.

Why the heck should your correspondent supply you, of all kites and crows, with evidence that rental centres are SCAMMING people!

And as for you, Le Taz Hot, I suspect that narrowly focused, self-righteous social climbing you seem so smug about... I prefer Maya Angelou's comment, that when she sees a homeless old man sleeping on a bench, she's filled with immense gratitude towards him, because it was his struggles and sufferings that made hers and many other people's success possible.

[conflictgirl]

86. Not only that

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.

[raccoon]

107. Also, when people who've been poor all their lives come into a

windfall, they're not used to handling money and a smooth-talker can get their money without too much difficulty. For example, a stockbroker.
The poor person may figure, he/she works for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Merrill Lynch, etc., he/she should know what he's talking about.
A broker could push the stock of the day onto them, or whatever gets him/her the biggest commission possible. In a few months, said stock(s) go into the crapper.

[TygrBright]

40. Condemning people for making "bad choices" without...

(Edit for outrageous math typo)

...acknowledging or apparently understanding the factors that influence them in making such choices makes you appear cold, callous, and clueless. Which you may not be, for all I know. Still, if you care about making your point effectively, it could help for you to not to turn your readers off by the apparent cruelty and superiority of your attitude.

Let's start with the "rent a center furniture" thing. Do a thought exercise. You're a single Mom in her mid-20s with two children of your own and your cousin's little boy who is living with you while the cousin is in jail. You have been living with your Mom and sharing expenses, but she dies, and you need to find a new place.

You have two part-time jobs totalling about 50 hours a week (no benefits, of course,) that leave you with (after paying rent and utilities) a monthly take-home income of $680. You have a small, older, unreliable car that you need to get to one of your part-time jobs, the other is on a busline from your new apartment but the bus trip adds another five hours to your time away from the kids each week.

Another family member helps you move the two children's beds, bedside tables, a dresser, a couple of small tables, a bookshelf, some folding chairs, and particleboard desk that are your "share" of your mother's "estate" to your new 2-bedroom apartment, which is all you can afford. The smelly sleeper couch, the TV, the other bed, and the dining room table and chairs were claimed by siblings, and the massive, deteriorating particleboard "entertainment center" was too big and heavy to get on the small van, so it was left in the street, since your Mom's apartment had to be vacated within a couple of days.

There you are, in your new apartment, having used a big chunk of what you were able to save while living with your Mom for the first & last months' rent and the large damage deposit required for you to move in to the new apartment. Your car is making a funny noise. There is no table large enough for you all to eat from, nothing to sit on in the living room except a couple of folding chairs or the top of the small bookcase, and your two boys are having to share a single bed in one bedroom so that you and your cousin's girl can share the other single bed in your bedroom.

The local rent-a-center can rent you a "living room set" with a sleeper sofa, chair, coffee table, end table, lamps, and a TV; a "dining set" of table and four chairs; a "bedroom set" of a full-size bed, dresser, bedside table; and another single bed, for $250 a month, PLUS they will deliver everything and set it up for you tomorrow, just on payment of the first month's rent now. The beds have new mattresses, and the upholstery and cushions on the sofa and chair are clean and smell fresh.

A survey of the St. Vincent de Paul store, the Salvation Army store, and Goodwill in your city reveal the availability of several sofas, none terribly clean, all heavy and large. Dining "sets" are also available, as are bed frames, dressers, and used (not too clean, either) mattresses. The best of the sofas is at St. Vincent de Paul in one neighborhood for $70, they also have a decent used TV for $30. At the nearby Goodwill there are two bedframes for $15 and $20, and a not-too-disreputable dining 'set' of table and three chairs for $40, plus another nearly-matching chair for $5. At the Salvation Army, across town, they have two mattresses that aren't totally squick-you-out-icky for $10 and $15, plus a dresser for $20 and a couple of lamps, a coffee table, and an end table, another $25 for the lot. Call it $250 for all of this not-matching, other-peoples'-discards, stuff.

Unfortunately, the obliging family member with the van who helped you move from your Mom's apartment has gone back upstate after the funeral. You're working 50 hours a week as it is, trying to find the time (and coordinate times with a friend(s) who also work tight schedules) to rent a U-Haul for a day on which all three of the thrift stores are open and you all have the day off and can rent the truck the whole day, which is what it takes, opens your timeline for getting stuff into your apartment up into next month.

Under those circumstances, YOU, o virtuous and thrifty sgxnk, might indeed opt to keep explaining to the kids why there is no other place to sleep, no other place to eat, etc., for a couple more weeks, then take up a couple of all-too-scarce days of your time away from work which you'd rather be spending scrounging school clothes for the kids that won't subject them to ridicule and feeling like outcasts, getting one of them to the doctor, and/or possibly dropping your noise-making car off for repairs at the "cheap" place, to schlepp around and collect all this cool cheap stuff. If you weren't already feeling depressed over losing your Mom and having to do all the sorting out of her bank account, bills, etc., the paperwork and followup for transferring one of the kids to a different school because he's considered a "discipline problem" by the lazy asshole so-called 'teacher' at the ghetto school, and problems from having had to miss work at one of your jobs while your Mom was in and out of the hospital that last week and the funeral, etc. Of course, your character might be so steely and elevated that factors of tiredness, depression, neglected health, poor nutrition, feeling terribly responsible for your kids who are acting out a lot lately, social isolation from your move, etc., might be mere Challenges To Rise Above for one of your Horatio Alger-like determination to succeed, I don't know.

Me, I'd probably smile in grateful appreciation at the rent-a-center clerk, set a delivery time, and put off the issue of paying $250 a month for five years for forty-five hundred bucks' worth of furniture to think about next week.

Now, multiply that "choice" and the factors that affect it by a couple of dozen a week, which is what the average single parent scraping by just above the poverty line encounters.

If you can get yourself INSIDE that thought experiment, feel what she feels, right down to the visceral oh-my-god-I'm-so-tired-I-could-burst-out-crying-right-NOW feeling and the determination not to let the kids suffer and the oh-hell-I'll-never-get-out-of-this-trap two A.M. sleeplessness and the need to check the boiling rage at the smarmy just-out-of-college oh-so-superior supervisor who always assumes you can just "find someone to take care of the kids" when they want you to work the extra hours you desperately need, THEN tell us about how it's all about "bad choices" in selecting rent-a-center furniture over thrift shop bargains and you might get a little more consideration for your viewpoints and opinions.

helpfully,
Bright

[sgxnk]

41. i am not condemning anybody

i am not CONDEMNING anybody

jeez. the histrionics are amazing

i am saying that people that make reckless, self-destructive decisions/behaviors often find that those decisions have (wait for it...) negative results

i am ALSO saying that rentalcenter are not evul (tm).

nobody is forced to deal with them, nor is tv a frigging necessity

there are tons of other options to expensive rental centers and people who make very bad decisions need to accept some responsibility for the results of their decisions

[IA_Seth]

76. Nice post.

And it sounds like you've been there...as have I. Some people will never understand, but I think your post might help a few people.

Thank you

[Idylle Moon Dancer]

23. So, what quality of education do people get in the ghetto?

And what role does education play in making good decisions?

Smoking/other drug habits are not a reliable indicator of someone's math skill.
I smoke, I'm good at math. I had a moment of foolishness/weakness when I was a teenager and to date desire to quit + willpower < strength of addiction.

[sgxnk]

27. math skillz

the primary math skill example was lottery/scratch tickets, NOT smoking

personally, i don't think govt. should sponsor ANY gambling, and that includes lottery/scratch tickets.

fwiw, i play poker for $$$$. it's about math/game theory/psychology. i trade for a living. the same is similarly involved with math and game theory.

i am talking abut choices here. if you live in poverty (and i *have*) you still need to take personal responsibility for your decisions. I think the govt. could do far more (duh). i think the minimum wage needs to be higher for instance

however, the issue i was raising is that there are choices you can make that increase (or decrease) potential for income quintile mobility.

this education is primarily, as bill cosby says, one of character - not so much of the three r's

it is learned through social institutions - the family, churches, civic groups etc.

if you calculate the cost of (for example) smoking 1 pack a day on the budget of a family (2 parent 2 child) making 30k a year, it's astoundingly bad economics.

i am well aware that smart people smoke. heck, (i used to be a firefighter), i recall taking a guy to the hospital and seeing a SURGEON outside the ER chain smoking in between surgeries. this guy had probably seen more than one black lung, but smoked regardless.

smart people can still make bad choices

[Bridget Burke]

29. Were you *born* in poverty?

Did you attend ghetto schools?

I lived without TV for longer than 4 years. Pin a medal on me!

[sgxnk]

34. how about

a cookie?

no, i was not born into poverty. and again i find it silly that one has to provide all these bona fides to have a political point.

i haven't had an abortion . does that make my pro-choice position invalid?

i've never smoked. so, i guess i can't criticize smokers.

whatEver

people make choices and those choices ARE related to (wait for it...) consequences

cosby said it. edwards said it.

this is hardly, as proposed in another post, a "neocon " position

[BeliQueen]

39. It's extremely relevant

I think the socioeconomic class in which you were born is extremely relevant to any argument on poverty.

You say you were poor, but I wonder if you were ever destitute to the point where your choices were limited to what you could or could not afford.

It's less difficult to be poor by choice and have a safety net, but it's a lot harder to be born into a family with no resources.

Poverty breeds desperation, but even in that amount of despair people need to cling to a sense that they are worthwhile. If anything rent-a-centers feed on the human emotions of pride and self-worth.

Lotteries reinforce the hope of the American dream: that anyone can be rich.

It's a vicious cycle--no doubt--but it is a social cycle not an individual cycle. Sure some individuals do break it through education and perseverance, but for there to be a lasting change it has to be attacked on a societal level.

If you don't understand the mindset of people who live in poverty, and your stint at being poor was mostly observational and--from what I can only gather from your posts--judgmental, then your socioeconomic birth status is extremely relevant.

[sgxnk]

46. OF COURSE

of course it's HARDER to be born into poverty than being born with a silver spoon, etc. some people are born more privileged than others. duh

this is tangential to the issue that the choices we make have strong influence on income quintile mobility (both intragenerationally and intergenerationally) and that the problem is NOT rentalcenter

nobody is forced to rent a 40' widescreen HDTV on a lower middle class or lower class income

but a surprising %age of people DO make these choices

and that is NOT the fault of rentalcenter, nor is tv a "necessity"

the very idea that tv is a necessity was what "set me off" in the original article

[conflictgirl]

66. Oh yay, statistics!

I'm a sociology major and I love statistics. I also know quite a bit about the studies about inter-quintile mobility. You are right that poor people do sometimes make choices that keep them stuck in the same quintile. However, there's a difference between the bottom quintile and even the second-to-the-bottom quintile. People in the lowest quintile have the fewest resources to move up, regardless of the choices they make. I have personally known bottom-quintile people who did well enough in school to get scholarships, but they couldn't find a way to move to the schools that offered them the scholarship (because, of course, it takes money to move, which many people don't have). In the bottom and upper quintile, it is very unlikely that people will move out of either one, regardless of the choices they make. It's those middle three quintiles where there is more mobility. It is extremely rare, for example, that someone would begin in the bottom quintile and through their own efforts move up to the fourth or fifth quintile.

Statistics only take you so far. It is true that our status is changeable in the US, and that many people remain stuck at roughly the same level for most of their lives, but you imply that it's totally feasible for ALL people to improve their status. It's not the case.

[sgxnk]

73. actually

actually, i agree with most of what you say.

i do think it is feasible for ANYBODY to improve their "lot in life" so to speak, but there were always be quintiles... definitionally :)

certainly, our quintiles have moved up over time (care to compare vs. 100 yrs ago) for instance which proves the wealthgrowing results of our system

what i have seen in studying some of the most successful people in the USA (like checking the fortune 500 etc) is that a surprisingly high # of wealthy people were not always wealthy. many in fact were lower income for some time. this is not to say that everybody will be wealthy if they just "grindstone it".

it is to say that i am not aware of any other economic system that offers greater opportunity

economics, like politics, is all about tradeoffs.

[FormerDem06]

36. Do poor rural schools count?

My parents made just enough to stay off of welfare by working three jobs between them. They had been raised with a sense of doing things for themselves.

I was *born* into poverty. My grandparents lived in houses with holes in the ceilings so they could watch the stars (they made a living share cropping if that tells you anything), my parents lived in a trailer until I was 4 (the first 10 years of their marriage).

But the one thing my parents did teach me was hard work. I made good choices and now I'm a consultant pulling down 6 figures a year.

My parents are still poor, but I get the privilege of helping out two people who had no education to speak of, but gave me the desire to go out and get one.

It's not only about education, but also about drive and determination. I had three jobs in college (and a ton of financial aid). I studied in high school when my friends were out to have a good time. In the end I made good choices, and I broke the cycle of poverty in my family in a big way.

I do understand that some people can't rise above their environment; they don't have the smarts, the personal drive or they have destructive behavior. In a lot of cases they were just never taught the right things and that's sad too.

[Oak2004]

110. There's a difference

I'm poor by reason of disability, and I deliberately live in rural areas. Right now in order to get access to a big hospital I'm living in pretty much the biggest city I dare: 40,000 people.

Except for transportation (and even that isn't necessarily bad if you find yourself a small town or learn that even a cheap old bicycle can take you 30 miles into town and back), poverty is vastly easier to live with in rural areas. There's a greater sense of community so you've got your neighbors to lean on, relatively low crime so you're not constantly faced with predation, streams and fields or woods full of potential food if you've got a gun or a rod (and, if you're really in need and you think you can get away with it, there's plenty of illegal methods to tilt the hunt in your favor), and usually some dirt of your own to grow something in, the classes are all mixed up with the rich, the poor, and the middle class living "near" each other (near in quotes because to urbanites it wouldn't be near) and so often (not always) you shop at the same stores and get pretty much the same deals, and if worst comes to worst and you're out of a home, it's soooo much better for sleeping outdoors -- find yourself somewhere a little out of the way and you can set yourself up a very nice camp.

I've had a tiny taste of urban poverty. Give me the country, any day.

[Gormy Cuss]

52. Yeah, but did you rise above that bottom income quintile?

There is a high degree of mobility across income quintiles. The right-wing fiscal conservative think tanks love to trot that out as proof that poor people just need to make better choices. Problem is, that stat is based on tanalyses of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and the stat is a rather coarse measure (not to mention part of the mobility over time is downward from the second quintile) and remains silent on the effect of rising income inequality and where those income breaks land in terms of real dollars. Another stat from the PSID data, rarely touted, is that the bottom decile of income has a very low upward mobility rate.

I don't have a medal to pin on you. I hocked it for a TV.

;)

[sgxnk]

80. you are correct

you are correct, not that that invalidates anything i said

fwiw, income inequality does not necessarily have any bearing on income quintile mobility. even though it is frequently trotted out. if i widen the tails of a natural distribution curve does that affect mobility?

do i think it is absurd and disgusting how some ceo's make many 100's or even 1000's of times the income of some workers? yes

and again with the labelling rubbish. i don't care if a point is made by a rightwing think tank, a leftwing thinktank, or a fishtank. if it's valid it's valid, and i don't care from what "side" it came from

the problem with too many political discussions is that people choose their opinions FIRST, then cherry pick their "facts" to match their preconceived notions

rightwingers will naturally have more of an external locus of control viewpoint in these types of matters

the reality is that there are factors of both types involved here, but I will readily put myself in the camp of the cosby's (and even John Edwards recent talks) when it comes to personal responsibility and choices

if we want to talk income statistics, let's talk the relative success of asian - specifically japanese american - income levels

why do these FREQUENT victims of racism in the not so distant past, have such high levels of income quintile mobility over the last 100 years AS well as currently having higher average income levels than whites, blacks, hipsanics, etc.

could it have SOMETHING to do with beneficial behaviors that promote higher incomes

again, when cosby et al makes these comments even he gets accused of shilling so i don't know how far i'll get since i don't have "cosby cred", but imo and ime, some activities make you more likely to move from poverty to the middle class than others.

[Gormy Cuss]

90. I didn't label you, but who cites income quintile mobility.

There are patterns of which facts are cherry picked by each side, and this one lands squarely on the right-wing side. I suspect that's why some people have called you names like neocon. Note that I did not.

Income quintiles can disguise much wider disparities than deciles. Mobility between quintiles can be marginal too -- is it really that big a deal if people who were kissing the upper limit of the bottom quintile are now making $20 over it? Furthermore, mobility cuts both ways -- some people who were in the second quintile fall into the lowest. I'd wager that if you asked the average person whether a high income mobility rate meant that people were doing better, most with no economics training would fall for the trap and say yes. So using the phrase can be a simple means of spinning (and again, I am not suggesting that you used it that way.)

And as to income inequality, if you widen out only the upper income tail, why yes it does affect the quintile mobility, although it disproportionately affects the highest quintiles.

[sgxnk]

108. 2 points

first of all, i use quintiles because much of the data/studies i have read uses quintiles. i have not found NEARLY as much data in deciles. i have no problem with deciles.

obviously, with ANY arbitrary "line", you have "arbitariness" as mentioned in your $20 example.

second of all, you are wrong :)

if you widen the distribution curve (even in the way you mention) it does NOT necessarily affect income quintile mobility. it CAN but it does not necessarily. that's statistics 101

i make my living crunching statistics. in a sense

similarly, if you increase income inequality, it does not NECESSARILY mean the poor are getting poorer, so to speak. on a relative basis, sometimes, but not necessarily and not necessarily on an absolute basis

if the middle of the lowest income quintile is

10 quatloos

and the middle (median) of the upper quintile is

100 quatloos

and then 10 yrs later the lower # is now

12

and the upper is 104

then the GAP has widened

former gap : 90
current gap : 92

so, the GAP is bigger. but that does NOT tell the whole story. because the increase in the lower # is 20% and the higher # is 4%

i do agree that BOTH sides twist data, and use statistics to front their POV. and as i said again, i don't care if i sound like a "neocon" lol on THIS issue because i dare use quintiles ( the industry standard) or talk about mobility. facts is facts. sometimes they support one's POV, sometimes they don't, and i'd rather change my mind based on data, then stubbornly stick to prejudices no matter WHOSE side that forces me into on any particular issue

[LynneSin]

43. Well there's a problem even with that

I have 2 "Rent-to-own" places within blocks of where I live (I live in Urban Wilmington) and yet for me to get to a Thift store I have to get on the bus take a 30 minute trip to the closest one.

Add in the fact that if I buy from a "Rent-to-Own" they'll deliver whereas the local thrift store will not.

Now mind you, I'm not defending "Rent-to-own" (they are a scourge) but the problem is the fact that for many places "Rent-to-owns" are the only thing around. And to make matters worse, the items they offer are not low-end products, but bigger, flasher items that tend to be an overkill.

I checked out one of those "Rent-to-own" places and there was only big screen TVs available. Out of curiousity I asked about a smaller TV but they had none available. So now, if I'm living in an urban area where I have no car and I want a TV (and hey, nothing wrong with wanting a TV) there are so few choices out there than these big flashy TVs.

It really sucks.

BTW, I once had a neighbor who wanted a VCR and was going to a "Rent-a-Center" where she was going to pay $10/week for 3 months to own one. She had no car but I did so I said I'd take her to Sears and help her out. We got her a VCR for $40 and I just told her to pay me when she could (she really only had $10 at the time).

[genieroze]

58. I love thrift stores. I got a beautiful leather couch in great shape for

100 bucks.

[RawMaterials]

61. Its not the Ghetto tax

its a stupid tax, not knowing about interest rates can keep you in poverty for ever. don't even get me started on the check cashing stores, they are worse then the Mafia

[sui generis]

68. reality on those stores though

including the grocery store customer service counter, is that a bank can prohibit you from having an account if you have bad credit, a criminal record, dodgy, incomplete or foreign identification, recently lived in a foreign country, are in default to the IRS, SBA, or ED, etc., etc.

Technically giving your check to someone else to cash, no matter how well trusted, is shown as "unexplained income" in banking records, and an audit trawl against that person's W-2/1099 declared income will definitely flag them for an annoying interview with the IRS.

Those places exist because a vacuum exists, not necessarily made by choice. I would venture to say that most people don't continue to use those places, but they are a "bridge" solution on the way to banking legitimacy for many.

[MissB]

67. To sum up your post,

poor people are stupid, violent and generally bad people.

Welcome to DU. Enjoy your stay.

[RawMaterials]

97. don't think i have been on du

welcome to life i only report the facts..

[patcox2]

126. Sneakers. Nikes.

Does anyone need $200 sneakers? Anyone at all?

[zonkers]

15. The most awesome small market in my hood just closed due to condo develop-

ment. The fixtures inside were at least forty years old. It was old fashioned and family run and often gave credit. It had a hot meal counter in the back. Construction workers were always coming in. It sold little cups of cuban coffee for 80 cents. It was the soul of the neighborhood. So so sad.

[meganmonkey]

21. It's their own fault

why don't they just move?

:sarcasm:

[sgxnk]

24. sam kinison

isn't that what sam kinison said (jokingly) about people in africa.

[Bridget Burke]

30. He didn't invent the phrase.

Unfortunately, lots of people use it seriously.

[sgxnk]

32. kinison

kinison was a classic

son of a preacher if i recall correctly. i think that's where he honed his delivery.

[mccoyn]

38. Schools and Loans

Poor people are very hurt by the way these programs run. They are a positive feedback system. The poorer you are, the poorer they will make you and your children.

First, schools must raise there own money to build from property taxes. Low property values means higher tax percentages and the school gets less money to build. As a result schools in poor neighborhoods are way behind on the money they need while schools in ricer neighborhoods have extra money to put in a computer lab and expand the library when they build. I think schools should be built from a statewide fund with a single tax rate applied to all residents of the state.

Next is loans. They are very popular and rarely a good idea. A poor person probally can't afford to repair or replace a car when one breaks down. The only option is to get a loan for a new car. Someone with more money, might have the option to buy a car outright, or with a few payments. So, faced with the same problems, the poorer person must pay more money. Worse is the interest rates. Basically, the less income you have the higher interest you will pay. Its shocking that banks charge different interest rates based on income. This should be illegal.

[LynneSin]

45. Talk about Loans & Cars

The other predators out there include "Pay-Day" loans, "Car-Title" loans and Car dealerships where you pay weekly for a piece of junk (and again overpaying for something with little value).

I love living in an Urban area but I see this stuff everywhere

[mark414]

48. is this any surprise? hospitals do the same thing

i don't think it would qualify as a ghetto tax, cause plenty of people outside the ghetto don't have health insurance - but if yer not covered the hospital charges higher rates than they would someone who's insured - it's like a punishment for not having insurance, it's despicable and it needs to stop, just like everything in this article needs to stop.

[noonwitch]

51. Also, city utility taxes on every damn bill

I lived in Detroit for 12 years, from 1989 to 2001, when I bought my house in Warren. I thought I was getting a bargain because my rent was so low. When you add in the higher car insurance rates, the utility tax on electric, gas, phone and cable, I probably wasn't really saving all that much money. Plus, no one would deliver pizza to my house and the mailmen were all crackheads. When I bought a house, I found out that city property taxes are extremely high, too. I bought a house less than a block north of the city line (some of my friends still refer to me as living in the "ghetto"), my insurance rates were cut in half. My property taxes add up to about 2000 a year (which is really good for Michigan), and at least when I call the Warren PD, they come out.

It's too bad, really, because I love Detroit. I still work there, I live within eyesight of it. The part of downtown east of Woodward is looking better than it has in years, due to the new stadia and the Campus Martius building. Two weeks ago, my sister, bil and their little kids went to Greektown to eat, and we walked from there to Woodward. It was a very pleasant walk, with all the buildings occupied and rehabbed (except the old theater, which is a work in progress). It looks like a big city's downtown should look.

I'm currently urging my city-dwelling renting friends to look into buying houses in Warren. The prices are good, the taxes are low and the area is becoming more integrated every year. Plus, buying a home is good for you financially, if you can come up with the down payment. The rest sort of works itself out with the bank and the real estate people.

[Vinca]

54. I've never understood how those "rent to own" stores are legal.

The rates are usurious, but somehow it's a legitimate scam on poor people. The rich get rich, the poor get poorer.

[slackmaster]

69. A study to figure out that poor people are nickle and dimed to death?

Gimme a big "DUH!"

Check-cashing places are the worst of the worst.

[KamaAina]

75. Cars. (Not a luxury if all the jobs are in the 'burbs.)

I once read about inner-city car dealers that "they don't make as many sales, but they hit a lot more home runs." That is, they rip off the same people who aren't trained to understand the Rent-A-Center contracts by loading them up with all the guaranteed service contracts, delaer rustproofing, what have you. An associate of mine referred to this as the "non-Caucasian fee"; the "female tax" is on top of that if applicable!

[LeftyMom]

84. And the little used car lots are worse...

:grr:

[greccogirl]

89. It is probably because

Of WHERE they live. My auto insurance went up when I moved from one county to the other. The county I moved to had a higher rate of accidents. Probably true in the poorer neighborhoods as well. More theft, damage, etc.

[zonkers]

93. "Ghetto tax" sounds like cool inner city slang for a knuckle sandwich.

[jdpainter]

95. The only way to conquer poverty...

...is with education. Unfortunately there are many folks out there that do not want to be educated. You can't sit them down in a chair and force them to learn. This is especially true in today's society where it is more cool to shoot someone than to actually learn something.

I'm not blaming poor people as a class. There are a lot of people out there in the lower class that work their asses off to try to make a better life for themselves and their family.

But clearly there are a great number of people that are poor because they have made and continue to make poor choices, such as having children they can't afford, doing drugs, dropping out of school, etc. Sometimes it's just plain laziness. From my counseling of these people (family members mostly), they want instant gratification. They would rather take $50.00 and play it on the lottery when putting it into a Roth is the SURE way to make money off of it.

Again, I'm not blaming the poor as a whole...I'm blaming *some* of the poor.

We often deride republicans for taking black and white stances on social issues. Well, this is an area where Democrats are often just as bad, by saying that the one and only reason people are poor is because they're a victim of society and there aren't enough social programs for them. Being poor does not absolve someone of responsibility for their own lives and the lives of their children.

The truth is that we are all dealt a hand when we are born. It's how you play the hand that matters.

I was born to a poor family in rural Georgia. I know the cyclical nature of poverty. It's hard to overcome but not impossible with good decisions and a LOT of hard work. Yes, rural poverty can be just as bad. I look at my extended family and see them all repeating the cycle. They get married at 18 and then start talking about kids (if they don't have them already -- most do). My cousin is 19 and has 4 kids. My uncle received a $45,000 settlement from worker's comp and spent it on a new Corvette, even when his house was past due. It's hard to argue those aren't poor choices that keep people in the cycle of poverty.

[conflictgirl]

99. But that's expecting poor people to behave differently than anyone else

It is now the norm in American society to spend more than we earn (let alone save anything), so why would you expect poor people to do anything differently? People expect the poor to somehow be MORE virtuous about saving money and making responsible spending decisions than they expect from people in other economic classes, I guess because the effects of those decisions are more visible. Do you equally direct your "concern" toward the members of the middle class who are spending more than they earn, instead of living within their means and saving for retirement?

[bling bling]

103. I could have written your post. Except for the Georgia part.

I also have a few family members who are at the poverty mark who have made poor decisions over and over, despite our trying again and again to help educate them about finances. My husbands mother eats fast food pretty much every meal. When she gets her paycheck it's gone in just a few days. She doesn't have enough to pay the electric bill but she gets a manicure and a pedicure. She's declared bankruptcy twice. She refuses to open a bank account so she PAYS to have some check-cashing place cash her check. I could go on and on about the poor choices she makes. Choices, that ultimately affect us as a result.

My husband and I had to buy my her a car so that she could get to work when hers broke down. What choice did we have? If we don't, and she loses her job, she'll lose her apartment and then she'll need a place to live. I've been there, done that with her in the past and I don't want to do that again. When she retires she'll have nothing in savings. Her Social Security most likely won't be enough to live on. Of course, we can't let her be homeless, but we can't afford to subsidize an apartment, food, and utilities for her so what other choice will there be but for her to live with us? I don't even want to think about that right now....

I'm not saying she could be living in the lap of luxury right now if she'd made different choices. But when you multiply the wasted money per month times the last 30 years, it adds up. She could have bought a house with all that money and have a place to live when she can't work anymore.

On the other end of the spectrum is another woman I know who lives in poverty. Her husband of 17 years left her for another woman and quit his job so he wouldn't have to pay child support!!! She was suddenly the sole provider for her children and she didn't have any job skills. Now, she works 2 jobs as a janitor and still doesn't have enough money to cover the bills each month. She doesn't even live paycheck to paycheck, she lives each month figuring out which bills she HAS to pay and which bills she can delay till next month without getting in too much trouble. This is the type of poverty that makes me angry. It makes me angry at the system, minimum-wage, the politicians, the Republicans in my state who are stripping people like her of health care. God forbid any tax money go to poor women so that they can stay healthy to work their 2 lousy jobs to feed their 5 kids, you know? Even though it isn't rational, I even get angry at middle-class and especially upper class people for not giving a few bucks a month to her (or people like her) so that she can stay above water and not lose her wonderful spirit.

So this was a long way of saying that I agree, there are definitely different categories of poor people.

[mhatrw]

111. Check cashing fees, having to take a bus & an hour to get to nearest

grocery store. The list goes on and on.

[Blue_Tires]

115. i can attest to this

having lived in both low-income, crime ridden areas and white-flight cushy exurbs....prices of gas, groceries and auto insurance showed the biggest discrepancies to me

[Barkley]

116. A "dollar store" in Riverside, CA sell cigs for 25 cents each

Riverside is about 60 miles east of downtown L.A. but poor people are being taken advantage of there too.

These merchants are particularly hostile to black customers.

These are the things that lead to stores being torched in riots.

I refuse to shop in such places.

[erknm]

119. Time to stop smoking.

I do not think that is much of a markup. A pack of 20 costs between $3.50 and $4.00, thus around 20 cents each if you purchase by the pack.

Rioters do not think that logically. They do not walk around the neighborhood saying, "Let's torch this place, they charge too much!"

During the LA riots, rioters destroyed more black owned stores than white owned stores.

FH

[Barkley]

120. "rioters destroyed more black owned stores than white owned stores"

Where did you get that information?

I've been in some of these stores run by non-blacks and the owners treat black customers very poorly.

With outright contempt...

Many poorer people shop in these places because they lack transportation.

In my hometown of Cincinnati, two "Pony Kegs" one black-owned the other non-black are less than 1/4 mile apart. The black-owned firms wasn't touched in the 2001 riots.

I know for a fact that had to do with the difference in attitude and treatment of blacks who patronized those stores.

Of course this doesn't explain or justify violence or retribution.

But attitude does make a difference

[6000eliot]

122. How did this get in the paper?

The corporate bosses must have been on vacation.

[kineneb]

128. suggested reading: A Framework for Understanding Poverty

by Ruby Payne.

It discusses the differences between situational and generational poverty. I read it to understand the teens with whom I volunteer. I recommend it for anyone who is interested in this subject. The book goes a long way to explaining why what middle-class people view as "wrong" choices are considered "right" choices by those living in generational poverty, both urban and rural. She will be coming to our school district to lecture on the subject this month.

http://www.ahaprocess.com

excerpt:
Ruby Payne started her educational career in 1972. Throughout that career, she had the opportunity to work in schools with students from a wide variety of economic backgrounds. Those experiences taught Ruby that "hidden rules" exist in economic classes. More importantly, when those in positions of power and authority come from a class with rules different from those they work with, understanding and communication can break down. For instance, a middle-class teacher with a classroom of students largely from poverty often expects them to behave in middle-class ways - and is perplexed when they do not.

Misunderstanding, or being unaware of hidden rules, also makes it very difficult for people to advance from one social niche to another.

As Ruby discussed these insights with other educators, social service providers, government officials, and members of the clergy, "aha!" became a typical response - first in Texas, then all across North America. Recognizing the limited impact of spreading the word one person at a time, Ruby wrote A Framework for Understanding Poverty.

From that foundation, aha! Process, Inc. has developed a comprehensive set of books dealing with poverty in such areas as education, social services, faith communities, and leadership. In addition, it has produced videos, audiotapes, transparencies, and guides. The organization conducts approximately 200 seminars each year in the United States and Canada. aha! Process, Inc. has become a leading force in facilitating understanding between economic classes.

[Miss Chybil]

129. The less money you have, the more of it you have to spend. nt