# Financial disacuity
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [December 22, 2014, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949 "2014-12-22T20:10:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 20
### Author:  [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2015, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/381 "2015-01-05T12:37:14Z")
> [@doreen](#):
>
> They start at about $16 for a 4 quart size and they are easily available- Walmart and Target carry them.
My Goodwill/Savers/Salvation Army, etc. always has tons of them in the under $5 range.
---
### Author:  [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2015, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/382 "2015-01-05T12:39:24Z")
> [@grude](#):
>
> Well it is ignorance too, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. If you don’t know you can do something it is hard to do it.
No doubt, but I think the ignorance is a byproduct of the culture.
---
### Author:  [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2015, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/383 "2015-01-05T12:55:04Z")
> [@Waymore](#):
>
> The immigrants aren’t buying their produce from dingy, vomit scented stores either. And I’m not scolding anybody. Folks can eat what they like, and I’ll continue to believe that neither poverty or food deserts are keeping people from eating healthier. It’s the culture that’s to blame.
You realize the immigrant families you are talking about largely have a stay-at-home parent? That actually is the big strategy, it’s not a mystery. Having someone at home to bargain hunt and watch over that shady thrift store crockpot is definitely a way of coping with food deserts. You are absolutely right.
Cutting out an entire earner, however, is hardly the model of fiscal austerity. Financially, these families are doing the equivalent (in lost income) of hiring a cook.
It’s not fair to compare the plusses of one person’s trade-off with the minuses of a totally different trade off.
---
### Author:  [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2015, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/384 "2015-01-05T13:03:46Z")
> [@grude](#):
>
> Well it is ignorance too, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. If you don’t know you can do something it is hard to do it.
Its hard to make that argument though when you have a social worker that is providing you with resources on how to do things like use a crockpot. My minister’s husband is paid by the state to take groups of people out shopping and teach them to cook on a budget. My school district - which has a large number of kids on free lunch - has been running those workshops for years. At some point it stops becoming just ignorance and starts becoming willful ignorance - people make a decision not to learn - even when the knowledge is being handed to them. Maybe because they don’t trust. Maybe because they don’t have faith.
The fact that there isn’t a good path off welfare and into the middle class due to the savings requirements is a huge problem.
---
### Author:  [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2015, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/385 "2015-01-05T13:33:31Z")
> [@Waymore](#):
>
> They don’t eat fast food for every meal, even though they move into the areas that are suppose to be food deserts. The same areas where poor, native born Americans have been eating junk food for generations now.
>
> What accounts for this change?
As mentioned - such groups typically have one person (sometimes more) who is a full time, dedicated “homemaker” with the time to take long shopping trips, cook from scratch, and so forth.
Do you know what happens when such a family applies for benefits? The homemaker is regarded as unemployed and, in my state, is told she has to spend 30-40 hours a week looking for work, and then get a job. Running a household, even household with multiple adults and a dozen children, is not regarded as work in our culture. A large immigrant family might be able/willing to carry such a person in return for the very real services she provides to the others, but a smaller family of born-here people might not.
I’m also going to point out that while buying large sacks of things like rice or beans sounds frugal a LOT of impoverished housing contains _vermin_ - large quantities of food can attract roaches and rodents. What’s the solution you’re told, when your living quarters rattle with the sound of chitinous legs in the dark middle of the night? Don’t have a lot of food around, keep all food in the fridge (oh, _that_ was helpful when the only one I had was a half-size model), throw out anything that MIGHT be contaminated (wait - how am I going to replace that?)… Sure, you _can_ get airtight containers (but woe to you if the bugs get in anyway!) but the effect can also be to discourage buying large quantities.
> [@Waymore](#):
>
> Who here is calling anybody a fraudster? I can’t speak for others, but if a poor person scrimped and saved while making sound nutritional choices, the last thing I would do is insult them. Just the opposite actually.
The problem is that a person who “scrimps and saves” while making “sound nutritional choices” _under the current system_, and stashes away more than $2k ($3k for a couple) **becomes a criminal.**
Now, it’s amazing easy to get away with that - hide cash and dole it out slowly/carefully, but the frank matter is that for all the howling about about poor people needing to save _the current system not only discourages that, but can also make it a crime._ Thus, the “spend it immediately!” meme gets reinforced.
> [@grude](#):
>
> Their parents and grandparents were accustomed to cooking from scratch in their native countries, and they were exposed to and taught how to do this from a young age most likely. They know it can be done, they were taught the little tricks and time saving tips. Basically they were exposed to the idea culturally.
>
> It is kind of like if you grew up in a family of car mechanics, you’d scoff at people going to Jiffy Lube for basic maintenance and paying a pretty penny for it.
^ This.
Cooking is a skill. It has to be learned. The more you do it the better you get at it. If you come from a family without cooks learning to do so on your own can be difficult.
Also keep in mind that if Middle Class Person screws up a recipe it can be thrown in the trash and pizza ordered. If you’re truly poor, if you’re on food stamps, that option may not exist. You may have to eat the dinner disaster assuming it is edible at all.
One reason I don’t use my crockpot as often as I might is because loading it up, even with cheap food, is taking a bit of a risk. If the batch gets ruined (and that can be as simple as another member of the household, concerned at seeing a hot, unattended appliance, turning it off so that six hours later you have Very Unsafe Food rather than dinner - er, yeah, it did happen at my house, why do you ask?) it’s a much greater financial impact.
> [@Waymore](#):
>
> I agree, it’s the culture that is different. There’s nothing inherent in the geography that keeps people from eating vegetables and whole grains. That’s why I’m skeptical of the idea of food deserts.
It’s not a matter of EATING vegetables, it’s a matter of OBTAINING them. When you lack reliable transport, when you’re dependent on bus schedules, when you have to carry groceries home on that transportation, when you’re working long hours… the obstacles add up. Despite being rather gonzo on eating decent food, a home culture of cooking, and a monthly bus pass when I lived in Chicago during a poor episode I found it difficult to travel a couple miles to get real groceries. There were times when I was just too effing tired and bought food from the local corner store which was only a block away.
Then there are the little things - used to be you’d get people selling bags of fruit, or individual fruit at El stations. These were typically folks who bought the food with food stamps and were converting them to cash, all sorts of unregulated and illegal of course, but the people buying an apple or banana on their way to work or wherever were often living where getting such was inconvenient at best. Was this free enterprise, nutrition, and capitalism applauded? Of course not! The sellers were typically arrested and led away in handcuffs. But wait - the person was employed, setting up their own business, making a modest profit! Oh, but it wasn’t a _legal_ business, therefore, no fruit for you!
No ONE thing is what creates a food desert, it’s the combination - inconvenience, lack of time and transportation, official discouragement of less traditional enterprise outside official sanctions. The end result are regions where nutritional choices are severely limited.
> [@Waymore](#):
>
> The immigrants aren’t buying their produce from dingy, vomit scented stores either. And I’m not scolding anybody. Folks can eat what they like, and I’ll continue to believe that neither poverty or food deserts are keeping people from eating healthier. It’s the culture that’s to blame.
Yes - and official regulation is promoting a culture that forbids savings (or you get cut off, or even prosecuted for fraud), discourages “homemaker” skills in favor of more and more hours of work because somehow working the poor to exhaustion on crap wages is going to make things all better, and otherwise leads to many of the issues better off folks complain about.
---
### Author:  [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2015, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/386 "2015-01-05T13:42:42Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#):
>
> Its hard to make that argument though when you have a social worker that is providing you with resources on how to do things like use a crockpot.
What? Your poor people get a _social worker?_
The only thing I got on my recent trip through the poverty tunnel was somehow who harangued me for not successfully finding work despite a college degree, tried to officially sanction me because I didn’t apply for a job where lifting 100 pounds at a time frequently during a shift was a basic requirement (I am a small, middle-aged woman - WTF?), and told me I should kick my husband out because he was also unemployed and probably wasn’t actually disabled, just faking it to be a freeloader.
Well - OK, some other folks did give me real help, but that was my “social worker”. Honestly. Of course, quality of social worker varies. (My first case manager was a former refugee from Ghana - HE was great, but then, he’d been in my shoes himself so had great understanding and empathy.)
It took me _five years_ to get help from the state on rewriting my resume and adapting my job search technique to the current environment, and that was largely to someone high up in the state bureaucracy FINALLY realizing that what “worked” for high-school drop outs with five kids wasn’t suited to people with college degrees who couldn’t find jobs in the Great Recession.
When I was laid off in 2007 I could get classes on child care (I don’t have kids) or getting my GED (I have a four-year degree) but not on how to cook on a budget, target my job search technique, or things that were actually _useful_.
Honestly, I sometimes think that, rather than teach crockpot cooking, they teach _microwave_ cooking. Not heating up a pre-made dinner, but _making dinner in the microwave_ which provides hot food quickly and if done from scratch is quite nutritious.
---
### Author:  [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2015, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/387 "2015-01-05T15:40:57Z")
> [@Waymore](#):
>
> The immigrants aren’t buying their produce from dingy, vomit scented stores either. And I’m not scolding anybody. Folks can eat what they like, and I’ll continue to believe that neither poverty or food deserts are keeping people from eating healthier. It’s the culture that’s to blame.
Yes, but it’s not _poor people culture_ that’s to blame. It’s American culture as manifested by poor people.
Convenience foods have been treasured by most Americans for quite awhile. Even Americans who pride themselves on their cooking sklls still rely heavily on pre-packaged/prepared foods. It’s just that the middle class family will likely have some leafy greens to complement their pre-packaged/prepared food dinner. And even those leafy greens are “convenienced” (bagged pre-washed spinach, pre-chopped tomatoes, pre-chopped brocolli, etc.) At my local bougie Krogers, all the pre-chopped, pre-washed vegetables fly off the shelves the moment they’re stocked. We bougie consumers are just as “financially disacuitous” as poor folks for spending all that extra money on convenience, but because we’re middle class and we’re eating healthy, no one gives us a hard time about it. But it’s the same mentality.
---
### Author:  [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2015, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/388 "2015-01-05T16:53:49Z")
> [@Waymore](#):
>
> There’s nothing inherent in the geography that keeps people from eating vegetables and whole grains. That’s why I’m skeptical of the idea of food deserts.
Then you have limited experience and are wrong.
I’ve lived places where it was impossible to get fresh produce at all, or reasonably-priced staples like rice, without maintaining a personal car. Nothing within walking distance. No legal and semi-safe bike routes (i.e., not crossing a highway or something). No public transportation.
I _did_ have a car, so I still got those things, but I certainly had many neighbors who did not.
---
### Author:  [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2015, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/389 "2015-01-05T17:01:07Z")
> [@Waymore](#):
>
> Folks can eat what they like, and I’ll continue to believe that neither poverty or food deserts are keeping people from eating healthier. It’s the culture that’s to blame.
You’ll continue to believe that even in the absence of evidence?
I worked in one of the poorest congressional districts in the country. The ‘‘fresh groceries’’ in that neighborhood were appalling. Appalling. The entire store smelled like rotting meat. And yes, there really was only one grocery store. But fast food joints were ubiquitous. Researchers have even found a link between food insecurity (not knowing where your next meal is coming from) and obesity. Yes, that’s right, having inconsistent access to food [may contribute to obesity.](http://frac.org/pdf/frac_brief_understanding_the_connections.pdf)
Willful ignorance works both ways, you know.
---
### Author:  [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2015, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/390 "2015-01-05T17:12:37Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#):
>
> Its hard to make that argument though when you have a social worker that is providing you with resources on how to do things like use a crockpot. My minister’s husband is paid by the state to take groups of people out shopping and teach them to cook on a budget. My school district - which has a large number of kids on free lunch - has been running those workshops for years. At some point it stops becoming just ignorance and starts becoming willful ignorance - people make a decision not to learn - even when the knowledge is being handed to them. Maybe because they don’t trust. Maybe because they don’t have faith.
>
> The fact that there isn’t a good path off welfare and into the middle class due to the savings requirements is a huge problem.
Or maybe because it doesn’t fit with their life, perhaps in ways you don’t understand.
I work in international development, and since the 1960s people have been flogging solar cookers.
Firewood is a huge problem for people. It can eat up to a quarter of a household’s budget. Foraging is dangerous, and keeps girls out of school. It causes erosion and deforestation. Smoke causes respiratory infections and other chronic health problems. Cooking over fire is labor intensive and makes it hard for women to have independent lives.
Solar cookers are a perfect solution- cheap, no smoke, and they free women up from many cooking chores. We’ve spent millions training people to make and use them, all over the world for the last sixty years. We’ve set up manufacturing plants, taught local craftsmen to make them, given them away, held countless lessons and demonstrations, advertised everywhere…anything we can think of to spread the word of these miracle inventions.
The only problem is, people don’t like using them. The only place I’ve ever see them stick is Tibet, where people use them to boil water for tea. Other than that, people just don’t use them. It’s not a resistance to change- these same people picked up cell phones and mobile money immediately. They just don’t want solar cookers.
Clever solutions are a dime a dozen. Solutions that actually work are a different story.
---
### Author:  [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2015, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/391 "2015-01-05T17:21:11Z")
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> What? Your poor people get a _social worker?_
>
> The only thing I got on my recent trip through the poverty tunnel was somehow who harangued me for not successfully finding work despite a college degree, tried to officially sanction me because I didn’t apply for a job where lifting 100 pounds at a time frequently during a shift was a basic requirement
> …
> It took me _five years_ to get help from the state on rewriting my resume and adapting my job search technique to the current environment, and that was largely to someone high up in the state bureaucracy FINALLY realizing that what “worked” for high-school drop outs with five kids wasn’t suited to people with college degrees who couldn’t find jobs in the Great Recession.
>
> When I was laid off in 2007 I could get classes on child care (I don’t have kids) or getting my GED (I have a four-year degree) but not on how to cook on a budget, target my job search technique, or things that were actually _useful_…
It’s interesting how “social services” folk seem fixated on the bottom rungs. I’ve tried to get a “menial” job. I can’t. I’m “overqualified”. But the jobs for which I am actually “qualified” are in high demand and it can be tough to get hired and stay hired.
I’ve had a sort of mild uneasiness about what would happen if I ever ended up in prison:
Prison Social Services: “We have some great educational opportunities here that can help you stay out of prison and get a job! We are starting another GED class next week. A GED can do a lot for you - take a look at this pamphlet!”
Me: “Uhh, I already have a bachelor’s degree and half a master’s degree. I’d like to see if I can finish the master’s, not spend time learning to do basic algebra again.”
Prison Social Services: “Uhh, ‘masters’ is not on the roster of approved educational programs. Did you know that 7 out of 10 prisoners who get their GED manage to get a job within six weeks of release?”
Me: “Is there someone else I can talk to?”
Prison Social Services: \ “Prisoner is uncooperative and does not see the value of advancing his education.”
Our local employment services agency (i.e. the “Unemployment Office”) touts the so-called [Career Readiness Certificate](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=566944) as today’s key to a better career. It’s supposedly based on the idea of [Skills-Based Hiring](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skills-Based_Hiring), where people would be hired based on what they know, not how they have prepared. I actually went and got one. I thought it sounded awesome - that you could get a job based on demonstrating actual skills and abilities rather than sitting through boring classes to get another certificate or bullshitting managers with your mad leet interviewing skillz. In reality, almost nobody has heard of it outside the unemployment office, and employers here don’t want skill scores. They want years of experience. Lots of them.
---
### Author:  [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2015, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/392 "2015-01-05T17:34:26Z")
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> What? Your poor people get a _social worker?_
>
> The only thing I got on my recent trip through the poverty tunnel was somehow who harangued me for not successfully finding work despite a college degree, tried to officially sanction me because I didn’t apply for a job where lifting 100 pounds at a time frequently during a shift was a basic requirement
> …
> It took me _five years_ to get help from the state on rewriting my resume and adapting my job search technique to the current environment, and that was largely to someone high up in the state bureaucracy FINALLY realizing that what “worked” for high-school drop outs with five kids wasn’t suited to people with college degrees who couldn’t find jobs in the Great Recession.
>
> When I was laid off in 2007 I could get classes on child care (I don’t have kids) or getting my GED (I have a four-year degree) but not on how to cook on a budget, target my job search technique, or things that were actually _useful_…
It’s interesting how “social services” folk seem fixated on the bottom rungs. I’ve tried to get a “menial” job. I can’t. I’m “overqualified”. But the jobs for which I am actually “qualified” are in high demand and it can be tough to get hired and stay hired.
I’ve had a sort of mild uneasiness about what would happen if I ever ended up in prison:
Prison Social Services: “We have some great educational opportunities here that can help you stay out of prison and get a job! We are starting another GED class next week. A GED can do a lot for you - take a look at this pamphlet!”
Me: “Uhh, I already have a bachelor’s degree and half a master’s degree. I’d like to see if I can finish the master’s, not spend time learning to do basic algebra again.”
Prison Social Services: “Uhh, ‘masters’ is not on the roster of approved educational programs. Did you know that 7 out of 10 prisoners who get their GED manage to get a job within six weeks of release?”
Me: “Is there someone else I can talk to?”
Prison Social Services: \ “Prisoner is uncooperative and does not see the value of advancing his education.”
Our local employment services agency (i.e. the “Unemployment Office”) touts the so-called [Career Readiness Certificate](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=566944) as today’s key to a better career. It’s supposedly based on the idea of [Skills-Based Hiring](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skills-Based_Hiring), where people would be hired based on what they know, not how they have prepared. I actually went and got one. I thought it sounded awesome - that you could get a job based on demonstrating actual skills and abilities rather than sitting through boring classes to get another certificate or bullshitting managers with your mad leet interviewing skillz. In reality, almost nobody has heard of it outside the unemployment office, and employers here don’t want skill scores. They want years of experience. Lots of them.
---
### Author:  [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2015, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/393 "2015-01-05T17:40:31Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#):
>
> Then you have limited experience and are wrong.
>
> I’ve lived places where it was impossible to get fresh produce at all, or reasonably-priced staples like rice, without maintaining a personal car. Nothing within walking distance. No legal and semi-safe bike routes (i.e., not crossing a highway or something). No public transportation.
>
> I _did_ have a car, so I still got those things, but I certainly had many neighbors who did not.
We can expect a lot more discussion about food deserts as poor people increasingly get pushed out to the suburbs, where even corner stores are rare. And because suburbs often lack sidewallks. Not only is walking in the street dangerous (especially in areas designed for the driver, not the pedestrian), but it’s a citable offense in some places. As is jaywalking, which is the logical thing to do when the closest crosswalk is hundreds of feet away and you’re carrying a bag of groceries.
---
### Author:  [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2015, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/394 "2015-01-05T21:11:50Z")
> [@even\_sven](#):
>
> You realize the immigrant families you are talking about largely have a stay-at-home parent? That actually is the big strategy, it’s not a mystery. Having someone at home to bargain hunt and watch over that shady thrift store crockpot is definitely a way of coping with food deserts. You are absolutely right.
>
> Cutting out an entire earner, however, is hardly the model of fiscal austerity. Financially, these families are doing the equivalent (in lost income) of hiring a cook.
>
> It’s not fair to compare the plusses of one person’s trade-off with the minuses of a totally different trade off.
I work with entire families of immigrants, often the mom works full time and the family still manages not to eat McDonalds daily. It’s not an either or.
Point blank, nothing but ignorance and apathy keep the poor from eating well. It’s not “anti-poor” to say so.
---
### Author:  [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2015, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/395 "2015-01-05T21:14:53Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#):
>
> You’ll continue to believe that even in the absence of evidence?
>
> I worked in one of the poorest congressional districts in the country. The ‘‘fresh groceries’’ in that neighborhood were appalling. Appalling. The entire store smelled like rotting meat. And yes, there really was only one grocery store. But fast food joints were ubiquitous. Researchers have even found a link between food insecurity (not knowing where your next meal is coming from) and obesity. Yes, that’s right, having inconsistent access to food [may contribute to obesity.](http://frac.org/pdf/frac_brief_understanding_the_connections.pdf)
> Willful ignorance works both ways, you know.
But there’s no absence of evidence. I laid it out in an earlier post. I’ve been poor and ate veggies, rice and chicken. I’ve known scores and scores who did the same.
---
### Author:  [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2015, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/396 "2015-01-05T21:49:31Z")
> [@Waymore](#):
>
> But there’s no absence of evidence. I laid it out in an earlier post. I’ve been poor and ate veggies, rice and chicken. I’ve known scores and scores who did the same.
It doesn’t matter. Your personal experiences do not negate statistical trends. Your understanding of the relationship between poverty and obesity is shallow. You’ve demonstrated that before.
I once talked to a friend who insisted that poverty is a result of culture. Then he said ‘‘Everything is a result of culture.’’ True enough?
Okay, fine, so basically using the word ‘‘culture’’ as an explanation becomes meaningless. It’s as meaningless as saying obesity is caused by eating too much and exercising too little. While true in the most literal sense, it is a useless paradigm through which to view the problem. Cultural behaviors are a reflection of how people adapt to and respond to environmental circumstance. A given behavior does not always serve the best interests of the people, but it exists because it serves a specific adaptive function within that community. You can’t change a culture without understanding that adaptive function and providing a meaningful alternative.
It’s not enough to give someone a crockpot. Changing behavior requires the crockpot to be a better alternative than whatever system is currently working. If people aren’t into it, it’s not a better alternative, it is a bunch of people who don’t understand the problem collectively deciding to do something regardless of whether that something is actually useful.
---
### Author:  [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2015, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/397 "2015-01-06T00:21:00Z")
> [@monstro](#):
>
> Yes, but it’s not _poor people culture_ that’s to blame. It’s American culture as manifested by poor people.
>
> Convenience foods have been treasured by most Americans for quite awhile. Even Americans who pride themselves on their cooking sklls still rely heavily on pre-packaged/prepared foods. It’s just that the middle class family will likely have some leafy greens to complement their pre-packaged/prepared food dinner. And even those leafy greens are “convenienced” (bagged pre-washed spinach, pre-chopped tomatoes, pre-chopped brocolli, etc.) At my local bougie Krogers, all the pre-chopped, pre-washed vegetables fly off the shelves the moment they’re stocked. We bougie consumers are just as “financially disacuitous” as poor folks for spending all that extra money on convenience, but because we’re middle class and we’re eating healthy, no one gives us a hard time about it. But it’s the same mentality.
I agree totally. American culture is pretty screwy when it comes to food.
---
### Author:  [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2015, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/398 "2015-01-06T00:27:59Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#):
>
> It doesn’t matter. Your personal experiences do not negate statistical trends. Your understanding of the relationship between poverty and obesity is shallow. You’ve demonstrated that before.
Where’s the data supporting the idea of food deserts? If you’re asking me to dismiss both the evidence of senses and the basic common sense, it’s going to take solid science. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#):
>
> Okay, fine, so basically using the word ‘‘culture’’ as an explanation becomes meaningless. It’s as meaningless as saying obesity is caused by eating too much and exercising too little.
Not at all. Culture is why some poor people eat well and others don’t. Obesity is primarily caused by chronic caloric excess.
Knowledge of those facts are not enough to fix the problem, but that doesn’t make them meaningless.
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#):
>
> It’s not enough to give someone a crockpot. Changing behavior requires the crockpot to be a better alternative than whatever system is currently working. If people aren’t into it, it’s not a better alternative, it is a bunch of people who don’t understand the problem collectively deciding to do something regardless of whether that something is actually useful.
I’m not trying to solve the problem. You can lead a horse to water and all that, I’m just giving my opinion.
---
### Author:  [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2015, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/399 "2015-01-06T00:33:25Z")
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> As mentioned - such groups typically have one person (sometimes more) who is a full time, dedicated “homemaker” with the time to take long shopping trips, cook from scratch, and so forth.
The idea that every immigrant family has a dedicated, full time homemaker who doesn’t work outside of the home is a canard.
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> The problem is that a person who “scrimps and saves” while making “sound nutritional choices” _under the current system_, and stashes away more than $2k ($3k for a couple) **becomes a criminal.**
>
> Now, it’s amazing easy to get away with that - hide cash and dole it out slowly/carefully, but the frank matter is that for all the howling about about poor people needing to save _the current system not only discourages that, but can also make it a crime._ Thus, the “spend it immediately!” meme gets reinforced.
What you’re posting here is a damning indictment of the way welfare is distributed, but it’s not proof of food deserts.
As an aside, if I were personally in a position where I had to choose between continued dependence on a system as screwy as the welfare system and the US and travails of being on my own, I know which I’d pick.
---
### Author:  [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2015, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/400 "2015-01-06T00:46:08Z")
I have a few questions.
Would a place be inundated with fast food and shitty convince and liquor stores if there wasn’t a demand for it?
If there was a reason for a retailer to think there was a demand for vegetables and lean meats in poor areas - which cost no more than fast food per serving - why would retailer not provide those products?
How do explain the fact several poor areas that become ethnic enclaves experience a reduction in the number of fast food places and an increase in ethnic groceries, that often sale fish, fruits, vegetables, etc. etc.?
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949.md?page=19)
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949.md?page=21)