Typo: That first listing should be $125k.
The very fact that someone has the luxury of posting here on the Straight Dope, means that they don’t have to face the conditions that even sven is describing.
If you put a bunch of crabs in a barrel, a few will fall out the top. That doesn’t mean there’s a way out for the ones in the bottom.
With proof like that, there just isn’t any room for argument. 
bolding stopped
Except that when I was in those conditions, I wasn’t posting to the Straight Dope. I acknowledge that I’m not in those straits NOW; my whole point was that at one time, I was, and by dint of work and focus, got out.
Now, how was I a “top crab” as opposed to a “middle crab” or “bottom crab”?
- Rick
And, btw, all it takes to post here is $15 and a library card. And the fact that **even sven ** DOES post here, despite her claim to real poverty, leaves one wondering all the more what the hell you are talking about.
Hey, I’ll take one never-say-die mentality of Magiver over 1000 defeatist mentalities of Even Sven…
My 16 y.o. son knows of many kids in school with the attitude “Why should I study math? I know how to add, subtract, multiply and divide…that’s all I need.” My son is always getting peer pressure from other kids to “just cruise and party through school”…I had these same types of kids when I was in High School. Everyone has had these type of kids in their school. Guess where they are now?
I tell my son that you take your algebra and trig and other higher math courses so you know in the future if someone is taking advantage of you…whether it’s with interest rates, mortgages, work estimates dealing with square footages, cubic feet, etc., picking the most cost-effective plan in health insurance, investments, etc…probabilities and statistics to find out that gambling takes more than dumb luck and should not be seen as an income. Damn, I could go on and on, and this is just math. I’ll leave english, history, science and other subjects to your imagination. Teachers (good and bad) can only do so much for a student, but caring parents and kids who don’t succumb to the constant peer pressure (to waste those important years to grow intellectually) matters the most.
This attitude has to be enforced waaaayyyy before college tuition is even a consideration, ES. I had my fair share of lame teachers who never pushed anyone’s envelope to learn, but I still made the effort to improve on my skills. I had an 8th grade math teacher who handed out 4 sheets of “busywork” every day, and then stuck his head in the newspaper for the rest of the period. I don’t know why I wasn’t selected to be in the algebra class next door to us, but I became very fast and proficient with these rudimentary skills to beat these algebra students at a year end math competition with my speed and accuracy. Like I said, it’s attitude that will probably determine your path in life, not rich people with an agenda to keep the poor people down. There were also crappy schools and teachers back then as well. I had my share.
My brother and I took different paths that seemed to diverge at the age of 7 (him) and 8 (me) with school grades. He constantly shot his own foot with his “don’t care” attitude. Did some stupid things in life that got him in debt, even after I told him how not to get into debt. He never graduated from high school, but he’s got his GED certificate a while back. He’ll be 40 later this year now…and I think he’s still paying for mistakes made when he was 18-25. He finally got his shit together, when he took my advice more seriously and started taking some classes that fit with his current job at a community college…I guess that’s a start, but he’s halfway towards retiring with no plan in place.
My mom was very poor when she separated from my bio father back in '67 when he started abusing her and us. She didn’t quite have a marketing degree from Univ. of Arizona, but had to leave Tucson for our safety. She took a job a mining town in the middle of nowhere (Eagle Mtn., CA) and we got by without any help of child/spouse support for 4 years when my mom married our step-dad. He wanted to start his own business instead of working as a staff optometrist at a hospital, but there was only enough money for a downpayment on a house and groceries, but as an optometrist, he worked and worked and worked and mom helped and I helped as well. I would alphabetize client files and forms, price and inventory frames, and even cut, bevel and treat the lenses by the time I was 13 (and yes, the math did come in handy for that). I almost ended up being an optometrist, but that’s another story. I guess we were driven to get out of being poor because we knew early on that it just plain sucked. That’s where I got my attitude from…
Is it really unfair for me to think this way when I see other people struggling? Maybe - maybe not. I’ve given advice to some of my employees who are struggling…especially the ones who get a job here and the feds/state levies a garnishment on their paycheck. Since I oversee this process, I do offer advice on how to reduce or avoid the same situation again. Some listen, some don’t. The ones that do listen usually tell me a couple of years later that I was a big help to them…the others tend to move on to other jobs to avoid the garnishment by taking jobs that involve being paid under the table…a step in the wrong direction. An employer who pays under the table is usually taking advantage of the employees to avoid taxes, workers comp, etc…a bad place for any working person to be in. I feel sorry at first for them, but when they still make bad decisions after I tell them it’s a bad decision in the first place, that feeling starts going away to the point where I think they actually feel “somewhat comfortable” with the lifestyle they chose. Just my observations of course…YMMV.
I wrote a long post, but then erased it and figured I’d stick with the facts.
Let’s look at the reality of going to college in California.
Rent for a room in Santa Cruz is around $500 a month. The rooms are mostly too small to share, but let’s assume you rent a really small one or share a large one at $400 a month. So your rent is $4,800 a year.
Tuition and fees to a University of California campus average $3862.
Books and supplies average $1,072 to $1,350. Let’s assume your prof is nice enough to put books on reserve in the library. You’ll still have to pay for readers and course material fees, so lets figure an even $500.
This leaves a total unavoidable expense of $9162
Minimum wage in California is $6.75. Let’s assume you work 30 hours a week (a heavy load for a full time student who spends a minimum of 18 hours a week in the classroom plus time studying, writing, attending labs and reading the book on reaserve in the library.
You’d make $10353.83 a year.
Leaving you $1191.83 to spend on gas, electric and phone bills, food, entertainment, healthcare, clothes, non-bus transportation (like visits home for christmas) and anything else. That is about $3.25 a day. Or just over one trip to the ATM a week. Buying a box of tampons will mean you’ll go foodless for two days.
It can be done, but barely. A full time college student working 30 hours a week and living in a flophouse isn’t going to have an easy time preparing economic meals of beans.
And yes, you could go to a state or community college. But then you are admitting- RICH PEOPLE HAVE SIGNIFIGANTLY BETTER ACCESS TO BETTER EDUCATION THAN THE POOR. And I don’t think that is just an okay state of things. I don’t think the rich should go to the good schools and the poor to the not-so-good ones. I don’t think the poor should be passed over, outpriced and unaknowledged when it comes to education. That perpetuates a system where the poor are truely limited in their ability to be upwardly mobile. The bright kids should go to the good schools, the kids looking to get their degree just because they’ve got nothing better to do can go to the wharehouses. THEY can work their way up to the better Universities.
I refuse to believe that the kids that grow up in poor areas grow up to be be poor adults because poor people just happen to be genetically stupid and lazy. It doesn’t fit my experience of an average mix of people with their share of smart ones and a few geniuses all in extraordinary situations. Many, perhaps the majority of poor people are poor either because of horribly unlucky circumstances (usually health problems or bad family situations) or because they background they come from, both parently and educationally, do not give them the resources they need to compete against those that are not poor. Although it is possible to escape poverty, the chips are stacked heavily against the poor and sometimes even smarts, hard work and determination arn’t enough.
I do not think that in a land that values oppertunity and says "anyone can be president (not that a particularly poor person- or even a non-white or female person- ever has) " we should allow this to happen. We need to equally fund our public schools so that the poor start out with a freaking chance. We need to see what we can do to counteract bad parenting and educational ignorance. With equal access to equal education, things will even out a little and maybe we can stop poverty from being passed down the generations.
I’ve got a little plan for this. Not much of one. But I think we need to recruit teachers from the poor just like we recruit for the military. We should pay their way through college in exchange for teaching in their own neighborhood. This will give more poor kids a chance to go to college, emphasize the value of teaching and education, provide teachers that understand and actually live in the community (hopefully providing a good role model and a basis for some new community values) and give that individual’s children a chance to grow up in an educated family.
Maybe I need an education on coding…sorry about that
Even Sven:
I can’t figure out if you’re deliberately distorting the facts or you really don’t understand what the situation is.
Firstly, there are student loans that many people take advantage of. That’s how I did it. Took me 10 yrs to pay them off, but it was worth it.
Secondly, you will NOT remain in poverty because you want to San Jose State (or even West Vallye JC) instead of UC-whatever. Sure, the UC schools are better that the State Colleges. But the engineers hired with a BS from Berkeley don’t make more (or much more) than the ones from SJ State.
It might be hard to go from lower class to billionaire, but there is absolutely no reason you can’t go from lower class to comfortably middle class by getting a decent education at pretty much any inexpensive state school.
Or you could go to a California State school and get tuition, books, room and board for under $10,000 as a California resident, according to the California State University, Sacramento web site.
Also, you probably can take summers off to work more than 30 hours a week. I often worked two jobs for about 60 hours a week when I wasn’t in summer school. Sucked. But it can be done.
I grew up poor, my family was poor, I went to a poor, rural public school with no AP classes, no SAT or ACT prep, no career fair, textbooks so old they were falling apart (in 1992 our history books were so old they did not reach the Korean War), and a serious lack of equipment for the physics, chemistry and biology labs. The biology lab had 2 microscopes, for example.
I read lots of books, I studied real hard, and I got accepted into college, which neither I nor my family could afford. I bit the bullet, I took the student loans knowing full well that I’d be paying on them until I was at least 32 (33 as it stands now). I considered those loans to be an investment in a better future than being a coke oven worker like dadsix.
I went to an in state school, I borrowed the maximum on my student loans to help with rent, I worked nights during school in the campus computing labs, and I spent summers shoveling asphalt for the state department of transportation because although it was really hard work, it paid more than McDonald’s. I ate like shit, I slept like shit, I studied my ass off, and I eventually graduated.
Now, I’m paying back what I borrowed because the investment paid off. I have an engineering degree and a fairly good job which makes enough although not a ‘lot’, and I’m currently looking for the next opportunity to move up to another job at a higher salary.
I will admit that I had one small speck of inspiration. I watched my cousin work his ass off at the same in state school about 10 years earlier, slogging pizzas to make money and going from poor kid to wealthy as hell. It can be done. It is not in any way easy, but if the drive is there, the means can be found.
Well, I can’t speak to if you are a non-minority, but John Mace already talked about student loans. From my own perspective, I received multiple grants from various hispanic organizations for tuition and books and such…which you have also conviently left off your totals (btw, such grants don’t need to be payed back either, though I’ve made donations to the organizations that granted me the money…to help the next generation of hispanic kids get ahead here in the US).
Like Bricker I was from a poor imigrant family (from Mexico actually), and put myself through school (granted in Arizona instead of California) by working various jobs for minimum wage. It certainly can be done and you are over stating the case.
Was it easy? No, not at all. Even with the loans I didn’t live in the lap of luxury but shared rent and food with 3 other guys. Food consisted of anything that we could buy that was cheap…but I never starved. I didn’t have a lot of that ‘entertainment’ you listed so I did stuff for free. I didn’t drink or smoke in college because I couldn’t really afford it unless I was invited to a party where such things were free.
However I came out of it with the ability to fully speak and write in english (well, I’m still improving), a bit of polish that college invariably gives one, and most importantly a degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the UofA, and today I’m doing very well financially.
To the OP, I’m sorry but your reasoning is flawed, as several have pointed out. If you are poor and through either hard work or luck you come into money no one is going to discriminate against you buying a better house in a better neighborhood, no one is going to prevent you from getting a better education, etc. They aren’t really going to discriminate even if you remain poor in fact…if you have the money to purchase something you can. If not, then you can’t. Simple as that, with no discrimination involved.
Racially though there certainly is still a low level of discrimination in the US (and it even flares higher from time to time…even between the various ‘minorities’), though its not like it was when I was a kid.
-XT
If you code your bold quotes as [ b ][ quote ]blah blah blah…[ /b ][ /quote ] instead of [ b ][ quote ]blah blah blah…[ /quote ][ /b] It will make the Bold That Will Not Die. I guess Vb is picky about nesting order.
**
You act like I’m bragging about working hard to get ahead. All my high school friends came from families without any college degrees, and they all worked their way through school. Every one of them did better than I did because they worked harder. I would call my effort minimum at best.
It never occurred to any of us to make a career out of jobs that we worked at in High School to get spending money. That’s how we all bought our first cars, which we would use to go to a community college (which WASN’T free). Our cars were modest by anyone’s standard and we kept them running with coat hangers and Bondo. Our colleges were also modest by anyone’s standard.
Nothing I did was in any way spectacular or required special qualities other than perseverance and common sense. What made it all work, was a set of high school educated parents who instilled the basic values and skills needed to be a productive citizen. By your financial standards I was a poor child. By my standards I was wealthy beyond measure. Yes, my parents provided a safe place to live and grow. That’s what parents are supposed to do.
I wish you well in life’s journey. **
Is the OP whooshing us? I notice poor people is all one word. Something’s amiss…
My original thought as well. Didn’t stop me from stepping in it.
I’m someone else who grew up dirt poor and managed to work my way into a comfortable life. I worked part-time from age 14 on. Delayed college for three years while I saved money. In college I worked part-time at two different jobs, and full time all summer. Lived in a basement suite with a roommate until I was 24 years old, eating ramen and Kraft Dinner.
It was a great time. A great childhood (even though I never had a Dad and my mom worked most of the time). I read, I learned, I made a chemistry ‘lab’ in my basement, took care of my budgie, and hung out with my friends. They all came from similar backgrounds, and every one of us wound up successful. And had fun doing it.
Life is what you make it. You keep looking for excuses for failure, and you’ll always find some. Then you’re free to fail.
The people we need to help are the disabled, the mentally handicapped, and other people for whom making a living may be flatly impossible.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg1713.cfm
I found that link very eye opening about poverty. Its by the heritage organization, so its as biased as anything Rush Limbaugh would come up with but their statistics are most likely true, although i’m sure not totally complete.
As far as poor people being ripped off by rent to own places (these places sometimes charge 300% annual interest rates), all people of all incomes get ripped off. The middle class got ripped off by stock advisors who were getting paid to push a certain stock. There were tons of class action lawsuits about it. The middle class is also victimized by things like Enron or other swindles like that. My aunt and her husband were middle class factory workers and I think their company lost their pensions. The rich are easily the targets of swindlers too, everyone who has any money has people trying to take it. Besides, no one is required to go to a rent to own place, you can just get a layaway, or put some money aside each week or use a credit card (which would be a good idea as these charge 21% annual interest instead of the 300% charged in Rent to Own places). You can also become good at spotting good deals. A little education about risk and spotting truly good deals can really help a person no matter what their income bracket.
And at the risk of sounding racist, i don’t know if poor people are at more risk of STDs, violence, substandard housing unless they are minority and/or live in a large city. I grew up in a 98% white, small town of about 5k people in the midwest. The poor there lived in adequate housing (just a little smaller than what the non-poor lived in), and as far as I know I didn’t see any violence or STD rates among them. At the very least there were no gangs and no STD epidemics. Then again there was no huge ‘poor subculture as far as the eye could see’ like there would be in the ghetto, just poor people peppered out among the various middle class people. Which is what the OP seems to want happen. If so then it seems to work because I didn’t see any difference between how people in the trailor parks and the tiny houses lived compared to the people who lived nearby in the 4 bedroom houses.
Layaway is entirely different from renting to own or financing (you don’t get your item until it’s paid for), and RTO is aimed at people who can’t get credit cards.
True. However looking through the classifieds until you find an item is much more efficient than an RTO. An $800 couch may be $2300 in an RTO and be $200 used. A $600 refrigerator may be $1700 at an RTO and $120 used. Although I agree there are legitimate problems the poor face if they are willing to spend $2300 on an RTO instead of setting aside $10 a week for 20 weeks to buy a used couch they just have poor budgeting skills.