I know one person that made little enough money and having 4 kids (raises the poverty level for you) that she was on welfare (in the form of free healthcare insurance). She used the ER a primary doc for her and her kids. For example, one of her kids had something minor (ie sore throat, cough, cold that won’t clear up), she’d take them to ER/Urgent Care. These were all things that would typically warrant an office visit at your local doc, but doing it this way meant she could take them whenever she had time to run them up there. And it made no difference to her since it was free.
In fact, in the 30ish years I knew her, she turned down marriage proposals because being married would raise her household income and she’d lose the insurance and she’d purposely keep her work hours down stay she’d stay eligible for it
It should also be noted that her insurance premiums would have been something like $300 a week for her and her kids. If she made, say, $20/hour, she’d have to work an extra 15 hours a week (not counting taxes or overtime) before she’d make any more money, and just to have considerably worse insurance).
Of course, plenty of people are barley above the poverty level so getting surprise diwht a $1000 ER bill can be devastating to your personal finances and credit.
Preventive health care, wellness as mentioned are big issues. As well as dental care. People wait until they’re really sick before going to the doctor, possibly requiring more expensive treatments including hospitalization. Working additional jobs/hours leaves less time to shop for and cook healthy meals. Possibly eating more canned or frozen goods for convenience and cost. Dental issues are ignored or tooth pulling is done because it’s cheaper.
Rental centers as mentioned prey heavily on low-income people. Pay only $10/week for two years and pay three times as much (factoring in next year’s model being a lower price)!
Not only maintenance for yourself, but also of your belongings.
I can pay for yearly or bi-annual maintenance of my lawn mower and my furnace & AC. I think I’m about to have someone come tune up my washer and dryer. I take my car for oil changes on schedule. Every so often I pay to have my deck power washed and stained. I pay to have my lawn treated and my house treated for bugs.
Granted, these are all things that I could learn to do myself, for much cheaper and lord knows many many people do. But I’m a single person who’s too lazy to do it simply after working my desk job. Imagine if I had a physical job, or a job with a different schedule, or if I had two jobs, let alone kids to look after or if I was of ill health or just too old. There are a ton of that wouldn’t get done around my home if I couldn’t pay to have someone else do them for me.
When you can’t afford maintenance, that’s when you end up having to do emergency fixes with no time to save or budget for them, and it can really throw your whole life off. Pretty much just like those ER bills, but for your home.
It makes renting much more appealing when you’re poor, but you end up without equity and at the mercy of a landlord. But it’s the smartest way to live for many.
Also, WRT interest…I figured out my boyfriend is going to pay about $10k more for his 2008 car that he bought used in 2015 than I will have paid for my brand new car I bought in 2016. Because of our wildly different interest rates, and the amount he’s had to spend on repairs. It’s a nightmare.
In urban areas with bad public transportation, a key issue is time. If you’re wasting all your time waiting for poorly timed connections or buses that run very infrequently, in cities where the jobs are not near affordable housing, how can you ever get training or further education?
Rich people think their time is so valuable, and that wasting the time of low-wage workers is no big deal. Wasting their time is just as expensive.
This would be the place to mention my favorite tax on poor people, yearly car inspections. The putative reason for yearly inspection is safety. Worn tires, brakes, etc.
This is in actuality just an extra bill for people with older cars. These inspections can usually find something that needs to be repaired on any older car.
Many states do without this inspection. Those states do not have a higher rate of injury from accidents.
The “system” makes no sense. I have a BIL who has some mental and emotional issues, and he’s on assistance. He works part time, but if he gets any more hours, they’ll cut his assistance so he couldn’t afford his rent. He’d managed to save some money for a car, but by the rules, he can’t have more than $2K in assets, so instead of being able to save more for a better vehicle, he had to spend his savings before his assistance was cut. He lives a frugal life and could easily tuck enough away to cover emergencies or whatever, but because of the $2K rule, he has to spend what he makes. If they audit his bank account the day before he pays his rent, that money is considered to be part of his assets! :eek:
When his car needed tires, had he been permitted to have savings, he could have bought them outright. Instead, his parents had to buy his tires, and he had to pay them back. So unless he hits a big lottery jackpot, he’ll be stuck wallowing in virtual poverty till he dies. He’s not allowed to plan for his future - he can just exist paycheck to paycheck.
Insanity - laws written by people who have never been poor…
Many towns in the US are terrified of raising taxes so they generate their income using fees and fines which fall disproportionately on the poor and minorities. A thirty dollar parking ticket can often balloon quickly into hundreds of dollars and a loss of license.
The whole bus thing is ridiculous. You have to wait on a bus that might be late or not show up at all. And if you work at night, you might have to leave early so catch the last bus. losing some hours.
I always wait for the third to the last bus to get to work on time. And I’ve had to walk home because the last bus did not show up.
May not be able to travel to a good grocery store far away so you’re forced to buy groceries at a gas station nearby with higher prices.
You can’t afford to buy in bulk so you spend more money on smaller items more often. Food_desert
You pay interest on everything; Payday loans, credit cards, car loans, and rent items from predatory stores. You buy cheap items that break and need to be fixed or replaced rather than more expensive items that last.
Sir Pratchett understood poverty
Rent can cost more than a mortgage on a comparable home, especially over time.
Purchasing real estate is expensive - down payments, savings for repair, insurance, taxes, and the need for maintenance equipment or contracts.
In my state, it’s a safety inspection, tires & brakes have a minimum amount of useful life left, so you can stop on time. Lights work, so others can see you & stop on time. Windshield wipers & windshield, & rearview mirrors all work so you can see to stop. They don’t care if your transmission is slipping or if you’re burning oil (though there is an emission component, which affects smog produced.)
If you had good brakes & tires, you would have come to a complete stop & not been in a fender-bender at all even though no one was injured in either scenario.
Banking may be difficult because of account minimums. Accounts with low balances often have fees.
Credit cards for low-income people may have annual fees along with higher interest and fees.
If someone doesn’t have internet, it may cost more to have paper statements sent and extra fees for sending in payment through the mail rather than online.
Regarding the emergency room visits for routine care, that also costs a vast amount of time. Time away from working, so there are double costs there.
My brother is in the same boat as the example FairyChatMom mentions. There is little incentive to move up and a lot of risks. If he went ahead and got a part time job he would lose state benefits - for someone like him with a medical condition there is no guarantee he would be able to keep the job, and once you lose the benefits you have to re-apply and go to the back of the line - it can take months to get health/dental restored. When our dad passed away he was worried about the modest inheritance - it would give him too large an asset, and he would lose those benefits - he either needed more in order to offset the risk, or none at all - getting a little bit of money ended-up being a huge hassle, and risk.
This is another big one. Income should be monotonic. If you work more, and get paid more, you should bring home more. But the system isn’t actually set up that way: If you’re down at those assistance thresholds, if you can’t make a very large jump in income all at once, it isn’t worth it to have any increase at all.
Ironically, the only time you ever hear people complain about this is people complaining about being bumped into a higher tax bracket. Where this problem doesn’t actually exist, because tax brackets are marginal. But nobody ever complains about the abrupt, non-marginal cutoffs for public assistance.
Or at least, nobody that anybody ever listens to. Which is another problem with being poor. If there’s something wrong with The System in a way that hurts well-to-do folks, they have the ability to make their voices heard, and get it fixed. When there’s something wrong with The System in a way that hurts poor folks, it stays that way, because the people with the power to fix it don’t have any reason to care.
This is another big one. Income should be monotonic. If you work more, and get paid more, you should bring home more. But the system isn’t actually set up that way: If you’re down at those assistance thresholds, if you can’t make a very large jump in income all at once, it isn’t worth it to have any increase at all.
Ironically, the only time you ever hear people complain about this is people complaining about being bumped into a higher tax bracket. Where this problem doesn’t actually exist, because tax brackets are marginal. But nobody ever complains about the abrupt, non-marginal cutoffs for public assistance.
Or at least, nobody that anybody ever listens to. Which is another problem with being poor. If there’s something wrong with The System in a way that hurts well-to-do folks, they have the ability to make their voices heard, and get it fixed. When there’s something wrong with The System in a way that hurts poor folks, it stays that way, because the people with the power to fix it don’t have any reason to care.