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Replay: Poverty Lines: What it’s really like to be poor in America

May 18, 2023 Brunch & Budget
Get Shameless About Money
Replay: Poverty Lines: What it’s really like to be poor in America
Show Notes Transcript

We did it. We are aired our 100th Bondfire Radio episode. We recorded it at our Airbnb in CA. It felt like it went by so fast. For the last 100 weeks of our lives, we created something and put it out into the world, never fail. Hopefully we educated and entertained people in the […]

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wasn't wasn't good afternoon and welcome to brunch and budget on bonfire radio with your host, Pamela capellan, a certified financial planner here to help take the bite out of your budget brunch and budget.com. I'm your sound provider dialect. And here's your host, Pamela palate. dialect. You've officially done that 100 times, man. So, show y'all does that mean I only have to do it 9900 More times who have mastered it? Yes, exactly. 1000 times 10,000 hours. Am I good enough at it? Y'all don't have to do it. I guess. I guess it'd be a 10,000 shows. Yeah. And then we will have mastered podcast. Yes, exactly. There you go. That was when you become a podcast Master is that like, like with the pokimane? Belt? Well, I think we evolved into like a larger, scarier podcaster. Oh, I'm into that. I can't wait. Only 9900 More shows to go y'all. So we are at show 100 Thank you so much for sticking around with us. We thank you all if you also just showed up to that's if this is what does it every show is somebody's first show. Every show is somebody's first show. Hopefully, or maybe this is your 100 shows. No, but that's what they say enough episodic formatted things that you know, you have to think about that every show was always somebody's first show. So you have to be aware of that. And if this is your first show, so you know, we ramble. We ramble. We're Ramblers, we're Ramblers, even in our 100th show. That's kind of our deal. So welcome, or welcome back. You know? So brunch and budget. I cannot I'm still like in shock that we reached 100. We've never missed a week, despite all of our traveling, despite all of our going around to places despite not being in the same state as a studio or sometimes the same country. 100 weeks we're very proud of ourselves. Still a little shocked that we stuck to it for this long. I'm not gonna lie. Yeah. As well as being Ramblers. We're also quitters. Yes, totally, totally. But we didn't quit this, y'all. We're still here. So today, we're going to be talking about something that I have been thinking about. And researching for a long time. And I know dialect has just knows a lot about it, in general, is gonna be less funny to you when she says, Oh, yeah, we're gonna talk about what it really means to be poor in America. Why we're villainized why sounded financial advice doesn't really apply to you, when you're poor, the high cost of being poor, there's been a lot of I've been seeing a lot of articles lately, either in my Facebook feed, or just like in general news, things about people kind of starting to recognize and be aware of the fact that being poor is really fucking hard. And it has nothing to do with how hard you work, or, you know, whether or not you're lazy or anything like that. And I feel like that it's really important to start addressing the topic now, because we we talk a lot about personal finance on this show, because it is a personal finance show. But the one thing that we don't talk about is what happens when you're at the point where you're just figuring out how to survive, you know, to give a little leeway to people out there. One of my pet peeves in life, is conflation of meanings, and lots of things, you know, rotatably mean one thing and they sound like they can be carried over to other understandings. And it's not a thing you can do. It's not a one to one ratio, or even sometimes comparable at all. And I think a lot of the problem is we talk about value, and the value of people versus the value of what they do, and then value and its relationship with money. None of these things actually mean the same thing. But because they're the same words being used, carries over Yes, totally. And then people start to make judgment calls based on that. And they start to think, Well, I was able to pull myself out of whatever situation and I did it, you know, bootstrapping, myself and all this stuff. And why can't you do it? Well, yeah, I mean, when that's privilege, again, that's another one where people end up complaining a lot of stuff and not getting it right. But when used in this context, it's talking about your ability to ignore the good things that have happened to you. Yes, you could take it for granted because you don't have to think about it. I was not born with a debilitating illness that dominated my entire life and thoughts. I got all my limbs. I have not had any major accidents happened to me in my life. Yeah, I've been able to be able, yeah, for a long time. And that has helped up my career immensely. And that's something that is really easy to take for granted. You know, I mean, I took for granted I know when I was a kid that I always had food on the table, and I never thought about the fact that I was ever going to not have food. That was not true. reality for me and my childhood, you know, and even that, like understanding the privilege in that and knowing that that is a lucky circumstance that my parents didn't lose their job. We didn't lose our house. My mom was able to like, keep it going, you know, well, your mom didn't lose her job at one time, right. But she was able to keep it together. Yeah. Until she got the next one. And you didn't even notice it was seamless. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I mean, there's a lot of there's a lot of luck. And there's a lot of circumstance it has to do with whether or not you end up poor and a lot of is just series of bad luck, or a series of good luck, too. So we want to explore that we want to explore, you know how expensive it actually is to be poor. And also what financial advice you can't really take when you are in a situation of poverty. And also, I have to say, people just don't like poor people, people and people hate them. People hate for beep oh my god. It's crazy, just like reading these articles. And then the comments about them, like you could read the comments for hours and just start hating yourself. It's crazy. So we're going to talk about that I'm going to do a super quick investment appetizer, the 100th show investment appetizer and AI. Investing when you're poor, or feeling like you're broke is really, really difficult to do. A lot of times, you just have to figure out how to make it. And what I really loved about FinTech recently is the fact that they're figuring out how to democratize investing. And one of my favorite apps that does this is an app called acorns. And it basically invests your change. So one of the things that it does is you link your bank account to it or your credit card. And what it will do is it will round up to the nearest dollar, and instead of just letting it sit in a savings account, and will actually invest it in an ETF or a mutual fund or a whole basket of them. And the thing with that is, instead of needing to have you know, $1,000 or $500, or even$100 in the bank to invest, you can start with a fraction of $1 and be able to participate in the stock market. And I think that's amazing. And I'm starting to see more and more apps that are democratizing investing, they're lowering the barriers of entry to being able to participate in something like the stock market, which very much is an has thought to be like a rich person's game. Yeah. And you know, we've talked a number of times about the penny stocks angle and how in a global it is, and despite I've talked to you at about every angle possible and your whole thought process on it has been it's not very good idea. The one of the biggest points about penny stocks is like, oh, I can throw in like my dollar that I've got, and have some modicum of being involved in the investing market. And so I totally get the appeal of that. And acorns allows you to do that and do it with stocks that actually have upside, and have much less risk than trying to invest in penny stocks. Because that's the only thing you feel like you can afford. Well, I mean, I think the thing is, you're better able to diversify with your small amount. Yeah, because the thing with penny stocks is like you throw your like $10 or $100 you got in there. And you can only get like one or two things. And if that one or two companies go down, then it's a wrap for all your money. And that's all your money. And you know, when you're in that position, you just can't afford to lose that. So acorns, check them out. If you want to invest really inexpensively also check out Robin Hood, they have$0 trades. So that's pretty cool. I'm just throwing stuff out there right now. But this is a little investment appetizer. If you just want to kind of dip your toes in investing Acorns is an amazing place to start. So that was your investment appetizer for the 100th episode of bonfire, brunch and budget on bonfire Radio. I'm sorry, I'm still like the 100th episode of bonfire week. No, they've actually, we've had 1000s of it. But they've had a bonfire. Yes. But brunch and budgets 100th episode and again, we are talking about what it is like to be poor in America. And I wanted to start with the advice that you can't really take when you're poor. There was this index card going around that someone had put, basically, they said you can fit all the best financial tips on an index card. So we would just pass around this index card. Yeah, it's basically like, hey, financial planning is really easy. You don't need you don't need a financial advisor. You just need to you know, put all your advice on an index card and remember all of this stuff. So things like max out your 401 K buy an expensive well diversified mutual mutual funds. Never buy or sell an individual security the person on the other side of the table knows more than you do. Save 20% of your money pay off your credit card balance in full and maximize your tax advantaged savings vehicles. Pay attention to fees, make financial advocate advisor commit to a fiduciary standard promote social insurance programs to help people when things go wrong. on. The last one is kind of a little bit out of left field. But you know, that's well that yeah, that doesn't quite sound like a personal financial plan thing. Yeah, that's I don't know if an individual would necessarily has the power to really make any change there. But yeah, well not like universally across the board. Yeah. So this index card was going around, and it just made me think of who could really take advantage of this advice and who this index card was really written for. And just looking at each of those things. First of all, most of them have to do with investments. And financial planning is way more than investments in general. But the other side of it is, most of those things you just can't do unless you already have money. And that's the thing with most personal finance advice, is you need to have money, even the stuff that has nothing to do with investments. Like think about it, you should buy in bulk to save money. Yeah, if you have the extra money to buy extra stuff, then sure that is a great idea. I love that's everybody's advice. One of my favorite things that people just like, I guess, like help and directions. Everybody's Where's if as long as they got somewhere like it's like, got to a place of like, well, let me tell you how to get to place. Yeah, let me give you the tip. Like you don't know that maps are a thing people be having the tips for you. And that's one of the main tips people be given swearing that this is some brand new information. Right? Exactly. Blow Your Mind. Check it out. You know, if you bought more of a thing at once you get a discount. So you should do that. Yeah, so easy, right? Yeah. First of all, do you have the money for it? Second of all, where are you going to put it? So buying in bulk? You can't do that? And if you got kids how you know, they're not gonna tear it up for real for real? Or your dog? Who knows? Dogs probably trained? Well, come on. Yeah. Okay, that's true. Dogs are trained. Well. So the other piece of advice that we saw on the card, and that I hear all the time is save a percentage of what you earn. Right? That makes that makes a lot of sense, like put away a little bit of money every month, and then you'll and then you'll, you know, be able to have a cushion for the future. Well, that one sounds like it kind of makes sense, right? Isn't that applicable across the board? Like maybe you have to save a different percentage, but unless you don't even make enough to cover basic expenses, right? That's the biggest thing. That's the critical thing is poverty. And being at the poverty line means that you are wall to wall paycheck to paycheck. And sometimes, you know, that's why payday loans exist, right? Because sometimes your paycheck doesn't even meet your needs. And the thing is, when you have an unexpected thing happen, that is not like an annoying thing in your day that is potentially like ruining the rest of your month. Well, and unexpected things happen all the time across all sorts of income spectrum. So like, there's really little you can do to prepare for that. Yeah, exactly. And if you don't have any extra cushion to even set aside, then when that happens, because they didn't ever doubly well, then that there goes your money. You know, there goes whatever little savings you even had. Yeah, and well, one thing to think about is when you're juggling, I don't know about you guys who have had to juggle bills, I've had to juggle bills before where like, this bill gets paid on time. And then next month, it's going to be late while the other bill gets paid on time. There's no room to save 5% Right, when you're just trying to make your bills. So that's advice, it's really difficult to take because it will because you're even like if you were to do the saving 5% thing. And then now you've got two bills that are going into late fee. So that's going to obliviated all the money you save anyway. Right? Exactly, you gotta pay those two bills. And it's just, it's just just rolls over and over. So the other thing is, believe it or not, cooking more instead of eating out now that I feel like it's a lot of like basic advice like meal prep, cook more, don't eat out so much. And the interesting thing is just in like reading stories and anecdotes and research about this, there's a couple things about that that like, don't even make as much sense one is cooking more means you have to first of all be able to afford fresh food to cook. So there's that aspect of it. And then on top of that, you have to have the time to cook the food. And then Yep, and then part of cooking more means like buying a bunch of groceries at once. It's that buying in bulk thing again versus like being able to pick up something for $1 or two and having that be your meal. Well something that's really honestly true is there are places to eat out that are cheaper than your groceries. Yeah. It's just yo one of New York City. You want a meal that will fill your belly and will be cheaper than going to the grocery store. Get yourself one of those half rotisserie chickens with rice. Yep, man. That'll be a whole day for $5 that rice alone. I I've had entire days where I've eaten that's been that. Yeah, totally. I've had entire days where I've eaten a burrito. What happened the morning? What happened the evening? That's for our West Coast people. I don't know if you can do that with the East Coast? quite that much? Probably not. Probably not. So yeah, again, like even simple steps. So you can buy in bulk, it's harder to cook more instead of eating out buying stuff when it's on sale, not just when you need it. That's the thing about living on, like, basically, exactly what you have is that you can't plan ahead. You can't buy something on sale and say, I'm gonna buy this now, so I can use it later. It's like mama, like used to say a saline sale if you still can't afford it. Yep. Exactly. Exactly. So that's, I mean, you there's so many like life hackery things about like, you should buy grills at the end of the summer, and you should buy air conditioners at the end of the summer. And you should buy this in the winter and all that kind of stuff. And it's like, what are you talking about? Well, these life hacks are really popular amongst middle class folks. Yes. As you were saying that I was hearing white picket fences and seeing suburbia and I often think about people who are one generation removed from poverty or from a lower social strata. immigrant families in particular, love buying stuff in bulk. Yeah. You buying stuff on sale. And yeah, I was about to say and buying stuff on sale when they don't need it. And you'll be like, fine, why? Why didn't you get three pounds of I don't know, socks came in? Wait, why did you get three pounds? Because you could get it for$12? Right? Yeah, it's like, okay, we're just gonna have socks for the rest of our lives. That's great. So, um, yeah, this is the kind of stuff so I just wanted to start off there and give you an idea of, it's a completely different level of thinking that you have to have. And right after the song, we're gonna talk about why it's so much more expensive to be poor than we think. I know. Well, that's another misconception, right, is that the poor dad got money just just fine. When the government's giving it to you, so must be easy. I saw that somewhere. And I was like, what? I don't know. I may just sit in silence for that part. So we're gonna go to a song about poverty. It's called poverty from a group out of Queens, New York. You might have heard of the city's little town, New York. It's called up a notch. They got a song called poverty. Hosanna and Dan are the duo, the crew up a notch and there's some property and we'll be back in a minute retro budget by fiber Do you live in an apartment building that apartment building apartments, Basement apartments, to whom apartments where you share the bathroom in the kitchen, rather than having to work at places like Alexander's, which is a department store like Macy's, we're, we're extremely positive. So during during all that moving around, I'm seeing things I'm experiencing things. I see what eviction is actually what having your legs off is having to go through the winter by turning on the stove, which obviously isn't safe, which you got to do to do this. And also, my brothers were bombing trains. So seeing the graffiti and listening to hip hop was in play while they did seem trivial fact gruesome experience in New York. If poverty is apostate, I wonder how many infected cells have fake and within my brain how many of my neurons try to live above their means transmitting at a speed that could cause my brain and to go against my grain put up down payments just the floor some Bochy we accidentally no help to support it, like real cheese with diamonds, but no Wellsville for the sales fundamentals should be taught nutshell. And revolutions should be fought not dwelled upon does my nervous system nervously in prison breakdowns and jurisdictions were made spin from year made spin Pong but his in Natal instinct has shaped his home Tescan and breaks away me storm poverty is of my state let's take this so thanks so when stars aligned in the world in my hand, fight poverty the old low span wage war we've been so fixated on the man eat the steak, brain cells and chill self awake thinking could change to this page and the keys to this present Poverty is a man said the reality of our society right so we're saying that it's Paul won't land overseas on the show and nowhere for canned food or for a region and Civil War told me that she's rich because she's not in the mortgage perspective. Every day is like nothing less than true wealth isn't measured by one's possessions. The way that we measure success got to success will make you more money than we're able to spend because we'd have nice he's so used to not having that even when we get we can't get without bragging about it from the day we're born. We're constantly doubting someone become about a gesture reasonably shouted shouted cause couple more cribs than the IRS is knocking you can't pay your bills and property is apostate a whole man's rich life in depresses and upper debt mix is my gift I think so. This causal mind and the world in my hand fight poverty hold low span we've always been so fixated of the man we new thinking and we're back once you budget bonfire radio that was up a notch Hosanna and Dan and featuring Danielle die Watson with poverty. We like them. And there's some really good stuff that they were dropping there. I love the comparison between liberal caddies was talking about I'm poor because of all the stuff and then the other guy who was like I'm rich, because I at least have my life and respective man perspective is great. Yeah, man. It's all relative. And just the the definitions of rich and poor that people have in their heads and what that really means to them, yo, I know we're going to talk about this more, but I I really can't stand we can talk about the poorest mentality and riches mentality. I bought into that when I was younger, and it's okay, if you've bought into that at a time. Don't feel too much like a jerk. Just feel like you've been played because that's what had to do and is playing you like that? Because yo all that like abundance thinking, yo, I could think I'm rich all I want to but when I can't pay the bill, it is what it is. Right? Yeah. And that's just reality. And I feel like that when you when you start talking about things and mindsets and the secret kind of talk, it's just, it just puts you in a worse place. Because then you give yourself these expectations that are unrealistic and can't get you out of the situation that you're in in the first place. You know, I love the power of positive thinking. And I really do think that positive thinking can lift you up out of things, it can help you finish your set and all that. But there's a difference between using something for motivation for an act you're doing and thinking that you're in a different position from what you are. And I've seen how that can be painful. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, and I think that I think that that's one of those things where it also gives people a reason to blame people for the situation they're in, you know, and put the responsibility on them. It's like, no, sometimes it's the circumstance of the system that has put people in the position they're in and we are definitely going to be talking about that today. Well, it's like, hey, for my religious people out there, my my Christians, y'all y'all notice those types of cats who love to? What is it they they will blame the people for the mistakes that happened, but anything good that happens? That's Jesus, right, right. Or it's like there. Yeah, exactly. That makes no sense. It's like, Wait, so who is it then? So let's talk a little bit about some of the ways that it is actually more expensive to be poor. One of the first things is just having a lack of job flexibility or options. So, first of all, it's really difficult to get a well paying job or a better paying job, when you can't afford to buy the clothes that you need to go to the interview. When you can't afford to take time off your current job when you can't get to the interview reliably. And so you just kind of have to take what you can get, you either have to take what you can get in the area where you can get through public transportation that's available to you take what you can get based on the types of clothes that you can afford. And so you're already in a place where your options are completely limited. And then on top of that, a lot of these kinds of jobs just treated like commodities. I read about this one woman who actually, not only was she getting not full time hours at her job, because otherwise they would have to give her benefits. But the job actually told her that if they found out that she had a second job that they would say, would have the right to fire her. I mean, that's happened in a number of things. There's a you know, corporate culture and all that they want you to be down for them. Yep. Well, they down for you. Yeah, absolutely. And they keep you under 40 hours on purpose so that they don't have to give you benefits. The other thing that is happening, and Walmart has been a Walmart listen to show number six, y'all. That is our show on Walmart, labor six, we Well, we started off like, Yeah, we're gonna get you. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I mean, Walmart is, you know, the most heinous, the most heinous example of all this stuff, I feel like But Walmart has been notorious and has been sued for and has been written about for wage theft, for basically not giving workers the amount of money that they clocked in for. They basically said they basically wait, wait, wait really? Well, they basically have said that you have to clock out right now even though the store is not clean, because we can't pay you overtime. So clock out right now, but you have to stay or you're gonna lose your job to finish cleaning up the store. For all of the skirting the line, not cool types of things. This is just that's just straight up illegal. Yeah. It's totally legal. And Walmart has been under fire for it. But no, they haven't. Hey, not a one of them in jail. Yeah. People just been saying stuff. Yeah, they got sued by whoever, you know, imagine if you went up and literally robbed a person. put you behind Andrew. Yeah. But that's a Walmart has been doing the other thing that they've started doing is paying some of their workers in prepaid debit cards. Yeah, this is a new thing. Oh, I think a number of places have been doing Yeah, yeah. Because, well, it's, it's this weird band aid to another problem in that a lot of poor people don't have bank accounts, either because they can't access them, or it's too expensive to have them. And so they've had to actually pay to get their checks, cash. And so this is this weird, like Band Aid solution of like, hey, why don't we just put your paycheck on a prepaid debit card? By the way, that means you can't save money, you just have to spend whatever's on the debit card. And if you want to pull cash, it'll cost you a couple bucks, right? Because it's on a prepaid debit card. Yeah. Unless you get cash back when you shop at Walmart, then you get your cash for free. Yo, so wait, are you telling me that these guys are paying you in store credit? Yeah, basically, basically. So I mean, you can use a prepaid debit card anywhere. But if you want some cash, you got to shop at Walmart. I mean, tell me again, why we're angry at the poor people who are working for Walmart and these other companies, because Walmart is the job creator, and they're doing this good thing by providing a job if if they didn't exist, then you wouldn't have no job. Right? And can't be that bad, or else you would quit. And let some illegal person take it. Yeah. You could just go get another job somewhere else, except for all the reasons that we just went over about why you just go to school and get a better job, right. That's how it works. You go to school, and they give you better jobs. That's what they have at school. That's exactly how it works. That's why hasn't anyone else thought of that before them guys? Oh, my God, let's not even go there. The other thing that tends to happen is that you are permanently a temporary worker. So they I read about the story of this factory who basically, they had 90 days to they could only hire workers for 90 days or less for them to be considered temporary. So they would basically hire workers for 90 days, fire them for a few weeks, and then rehire the same workers for another 90 days so they could remain temporary status workers. Well, yeah, well, this is that contractor versus employee type of thing a lot of businesses do that is just skirting the line there. One thing that's really crazy about it is when you look at how businesses get bigger, I feel like even your Walmart's or your you know other big corporations or McDonald's or whoever, when they were smaller, and if they were to be smaller, and you can actually look and talk to the person who does all of these decisions and be like, Look, it's me and the seven other guys who are humans, you Right and treat it like that. But when you get these, and this is again, my complaint about publicly traded companies, right? When you are beholden to people who have nothing to do with the actual humans, and all they're doing is looking at a quarterly report that got numbers on it. It's much easier to be like, Yeah, well, it's much better for us, if we make sure that we skirt these rules, right, don't pay as much as we have to put away better for the bottom line. Why wouldn't we do it this way? This is still legal, right? So so first of all, lack of job options is the bottom line. First thing you know, that is the beginning of the equation is what your income is? Well, and when you think about your lack of job options, it's also your lack of ability to get to different jobs. Yes, exactly. Well, and that's the next thing is having reliable transportation. And owning a car is freaking expensive, whether it's new, and or whether it's used, and most likely, you're probably in a situation where your car is used. And it is in need of repair on a more constant basis, because it's older. And so you either have constant car repairs that you can't really afford, or you're relying on public transportation if you can't even afford a car, and you know, what costs a whole heck of a lot of money? A monthly Oh, yeah. New Yorkers, right? I'm sure other places where the other types of cards totally, it's, it's a better deal, right? Yeah, it's buying in bulk. Right? You're buying your time in bulk. Man, that's a big chunk battling. And 120 bucks, like right off the bat every month, it makes you mad, because you look at the weekly that you end up buying. Yep. And the weekly is costing you more, but there's no way that you can put down the amount for the monthly every time, right, especially for my people who have some variance in their schedule. So you're concerned that I may screw myself out of a week, I may actually only need three weeks of the car, and I couldn't use that $30 Yeah, no, too well, and the idea of laying out 30 bucks instead of 120 is just like, Yeah, I'm definitely just gonna lay out 30 bucks right now. That's, that's what it is, you know, inability to plan ahead. Yeah. I mean, not being able to afford it. It's not it's just the reality of it, you know. And so even just paying for it is a big deal. And then making if you're not in New York City, if you're not in a big city, the idea of like taking public transportation could be so time consuming. That what if the bus is late and you show up late to work more often than you should? You know, where do you put your job in jeopardy? Well, what if the bus is a mile walk away from your house? Yep. Which is plenty of times the case. When I lived in St. Croix, I had to walk. I guess it was probably about two miles to get into town. Yeah, now my house is a by train, bus stop. They put one there. They waited until I left. But like I guess I had done that so many times. So if you live in Thai village, and you catch my train, you're welcome. Yes. You don't because people don't use it. But you know, yes. Thank you, dialect. Thank you for adding a bus stop to to a road in St. Croix. I love it. When people are walking to work. People are walking to work in miles, 10 miles to work. It's so crazy, because that's your only option. And what are you walking to right? And so the other thing is, then you make this money and you get to work. And you get this check. And if you're not working at Walmart or getting a prepaid debit card, you got to cash this cheque somewhere. So obviously, right for most people, they're like, Well, I have a bank account, and I just get direct deposit, or I just throw it in my bank account, or I go to my ATM. There are so many millions of unbanked people in this country for several reasons. I mean, one of the reasons that we did talk about the people not trusting the banks, yes, that's a huge thing is not trusting the banks. And I mean, another reason is really like not having not having access to a bank. So if you don't have a credit score, if you have bad credit score, then you actually can't get a bank account in a lot of places. For me, when I first came here, I had troubles because again, I thought that I had good credit because I didn't spend credit, but I didn't have no credit. I had trouble. And I for a good couple of months was going to check cashing places. And I was happy to do so because it felt like it was only taking a small amount out. Right. But that really adds up every time you have to cash a check whether it's a paycheck or a personal check, you're paying three to $6 every time and that really you're paying to access your money, which is crazy, and then you're paying your phone bill this or you're paying to pay. Yeah, yeah, it's just one of those situations where it is it's costing you money just to get access to the little money that you have. And then on the other side of it is when you can't meet your expenses based on your paycheck. And this is where payday loans come in. And, and predatory lending practices in general, or getting a credit card and needing to max it out and then not being able to pay more than the minimum and having to pay interest or having to operate in cash. And even if you do have a bank account, pulling money from the ATM and having ATM fees, and you're not pulling $100 at once, or $200 at once, you're pulling $20 and paying $2 Every time you do it, or $4 now and sadly enough, you again being penalized for thinking ahead and being like I don't want to have all of this cash new burning a hole in my pocket because I'm trying to ration out what I'm doing. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So often, often penalized for trying to make a plan. Yeah, it's so crazy. And then just keeping money in cash is just more dangerous. There's the risk of it getting stolen, and you can't claim cash or just being lost. Yeah, exactly stolen or lost. Like who knows. So lack of banking options is is a really big, big problem. And then just like lack of access to good food. That's another big thing. We talked about this right before the last song and just being able to cook. There's this woman, the woman that I keep referencing is Linda, Toronto, and she recently wrote a book called hand to mouth. And it is her story of living in poverty. And it started off as an essay that ended up on the Huffington Post, and then a blog. And now she's written this book and written a bunch of articles just about the realities, like the visceral like personal realities, what it's like to be poor. And one of the things that she talked about was that cooked food actually attracts bugs, and roaches. And so she was working two jobs. The idea of cooking food was like a time commitment. It was I have to prep the food, cook the food, eat the food, and then wash the dishes afterwards. And when she didn't wash the dishes right away. Cockroaches would just come. Yeah, you don't get the luxury of letting stuff lay while you run out and do your thing. No. Full disclosure about Lynda toronto, toronto, toronto, toronto, she's slightly controversial. There have been a number of right wing blogs that have called her a fake or a fraud. They seem to be conflating parts of her life where you know, she's got more money now after writing a book. Yeah, of course. But I just want to let Joe know for the, for the interest of full disclosure. Yeah. Oh, she didn't know her. Like she either state would have stayed poor, and just stayed poor or now that she's now that she's making a little bit of money. People are like, what making her a pariah. That's crazy. Well, you know, it's one of the things about being poor. Because, again, you know, being poor people think of as a mentality and or lifestyle. And if you're not still that thing, then you're not that thing. So you must be BS and just the concept. It's like, oh, yeah, I'm just living this lifestyle. I'm just, you know, it's so great. I'm choosing this. What I want to know, as soon as the first person to be like, This person is talking about how they're poor, and they're not enjoying it. Need to investigate that further. For real, me, that's terrible. That's crazy. I know. laughs So we don't cry. Right. The other thing is this hidden thing is poor people pay more taxes, percentage wise, just period. There's studies that have been done in 2005. They definitely pay more state taxes and percentage wise, they ended up paying more federal taxes because they can't take advantage of certain tax loopholes like mortgage interest deductions, or property tax deductions, or, you know, tax loss harvesting for investments or, you know, student loan interest. You know, like, it's, we'll talk about the social security thing that would mess my whole head, yo. Okay. So I don't know if y'all know this. But Social Security is only tax on up to 118,500 of your wages. So if you make more than 118,500, every dollar after that is not taxed for Social Security. So who's putting the most of their money into Social Security right now? Think about that. Think about how much money the 1% is putting into the Social Security system versus the top the I mean, the bottom 25% Yeah, I also want to throw in some numbers that were put together by a commenter I love reading. I don't know if y'all read comments and stuff. It's, it's harrowing and terrible, but fascinating. And there are times when you will find the real superheroes of the typing words world. This cat who only goes by the name of squirt had this really insightful thing about taxes. And this is where they are they didn't do their say where they they didn't say where they're at, but the numbers are given for untaxed check this out. So poor people say a family with an income of less than $40,000. So in the lower tax bracket, they qualify for child tax credit and earned income credit, if they have a qualifying child. They may not have any taxable income, and they may get a tax refund of 2000 to $8,000, depending on how many children there are. Right? That sounds good. giving you free money. Look at that. You're doing good. It's awesome report. Okay. Now let's look at someone who's been successful enough to buy a house. If you are paying a mortgage, the interest is deductible. Most mortgage payments are almost entirely interest in the first couple of years. Folks know that amortization Yes, yes, there was a limited limitation of 1,100,000 worth of the house. Very few places are hitting that unless you know you have your you know that right. Right. That's, you know, that's higher tech way higher tax bracket stuff. So in their area that ends up being 20,000 50,000 of income that can be deducted. So depending on what your tax bracket is, that can be around 3500 to $9,000 worth of savings. These are both tax breaks given to you from the government. Same thing? Yeah. So you person with house, you're getting the same type of cut that person who doesn't have a house, but has kids is doing they're also getting the amazing thing about getting money back? Well, the best thing is for the same reason, you are getting money from the government as the poor person lower tax bracket, so you can continue to be a consumer. And even though you're in a lower tax bracket area, you can spend money which will keep the economy stimulated and going. And the person with the mortgage, they want you to be doing that and spending more money even though you have a mortgage, so that you don't become all miser like that, and you continue to contribute to the economy. So it's the same type of thing. The same thing, nobody But yo, imagine, imagine someone wanted to take that tax credit away from home owners. Right? Oh, Lord, they were protests out in the streets. Yeah, we're real. But yeah, we just give too much money back support people. Insane, and folks are mad at that poor person, for living off the to the government. Let's talk about that a little bit. Because I feel like that we are in a very dangerous place right now a villainizing poor people and blaming them for the situation they're in blaming them for, you know, their circumstance, or their lack of intelligence or lack of like, I don't know, like their laziness. I don't even know what people are thinking, Well, you know, what it sounds like? Sounds like all the isms all wrapped up in one. Yeah. Sounds like, you know, the time back in the day, you know, I don't know if y'all know that slavery is a financial thing. Or excuse me, racism, American style, hating the black folks, you know, all that that's more of a financial decision than a truly emotional decision. You had your black folks who are out there working as slaves, and you had your white and tinted servants. And, you know, there really wasn't too much difference in how whipped cracking ly bad it was. But what the rich folks would say, and the laws they passed, gave certain rights and ideas to these white people, and told them that you're better, better than these other folks. Because they're jerks and they suck. And they started coming up with their own reasons based ignore just extrapolating the laws that they've been given them, right, and what they've been told. And that's why you have today your weird issues of poor people of different ethnicities being mad at each other rather than being well, just to go back to Walmart, because why not? Right. Like, honestly, think about who you're actually subsidizing. I feel like people are angry at poor people, because they're like, why am I paying for them to stay poor? It's like, hold on, who is keeping them poor in the first place? It's not you. It's the people who are paying them, right. So let's stop and think about this. Walmart is under paying their workers to the point where their workers need government assistance, but they don't even work full time. They're so lazy. Yeah, seriously. So they need government assistance. And you as the taxpayer are providing that government assistance. So because Walmart will not pay their workers enough, you are paying their workers for them. The other thing is Walmart doesn't provide health care. So these workers are going on Medicaid, which you as a taxpayer are also paying for because Walmart will not provide health care for them. These big companies will not provide health care will not pay a living wage. And so that's how that happens. Why are we blaming the person who has no power or no control over how much money they're getting paid, versus the people who are making billions and billions and billions of dollars off of them? Walmart gets free land, they get tax subsidies, they get property tax abatements, all to put a store in place. that you as a taxpayer, whether you shop there or not, are going to subsidize the fact that they are not paying their workers and only paying them enough to also shop at Walmart. Yeah, come on you guys. It will and you know, I hate the straw man it but I've had heard so many people who made that angry argument. And then I say, Well, what why are you going to shop at Walmart? You're like, well, it's cheaper. As if you listen to episode six, you'll see again, we explained a little more in depth how that is literally and totally not true at all. Yes, there are ways to pay your workers a living wage, and even pass on the extra cost to the consumer, and not have the consumer even notice that costs a little bit more. It's literally a difference of a few pennies to be able to pay somebody a living wage. So here's the thing. And there's a reason why we made this the 100th episode. And it's because we need to start empathizing with each other. And understanding where the source and the root of the systemic issues are going to benefit us. It's only going to benefit us we cannot continue to villainize people who are in the most vulnerable positions and who are in the situations where they just don't have any control. Well, no, this has been illustrated in what we've said and can be found in any number of metrics. The amount of effort versus the amount of income, have no correlation. And even when they do it's often a negative correlation. The hardest working people are getting the least amount of money. So true. Don't try to play me and tell me CEO of whatever Corporation is doing more physical and or mentally strenuous effort than the person who was working in the field. Then the person who was working in the mailroom the person who was cleaning your toilets at the hotels, the person who is cashiering, and on their feet all day, every day the person who was running around those freaking Amazon warehouses all day for 10 hours. Don't tell me that they're not working hard. Yeah, and don't tell me that they're not using their brain. Yeah, man I wouldn't My first job was working in the mailroom and I had all number of not quite my job, but my job because they was gonna find me other words, CEOs can say stuff like, that ain't my job. And ain't nobody gonna tell them nothing. Yeah, but when you work in the mailroom you I wrote, no one paid me for this. I wrote a campaign speech for the partner who was running for mayor I was like 18 or 19 I was not qualified but you know, but it suddenly became your job because somebody told you that it was your job because you had no control. Yeah, so crazy. So I think we got to go to a song before our brains explode Yeah, yeah, we're gonna take it to the UK because you know they got the same type of problems out there. It's amazing if you read UK things you'll think you're reading about an American people for the longest time. We're going to this r&b artists name nostalgia. 77 Warabi jazz producer did lots of great stuff. This song called just a few feet from the gutter button style just 77 and we'll check here in a minute budget on Fire Radio. Just a few feet from the God on a dark stream all alone they tried not to go but I had to find some. Hey there Manchester and pay the lady don't you can see But I'm not a lawyer shoulder on the golf ball and we're back budget budget bonfire radio that was nostalgia 77 on London, UK, just a few feet from the gutter. Yeah, man, talking about perspective and giving it to you, man. It's really difficult thing when you're actually able to see the poverty line. It's not on the horizon. It's like not to trip you. Yeah, you're right there. It's so crazy. It's so crazy. So yesterday, we were talking about what it looks like to be poor in America, what it means and how poor people have been villainized. And why we have to help lift people up from this versus blaming them for being in this position in the first place. And yo, people hate well, people don't just hate poor people, people hate victims in general, there is a psychological thing about how the human mind wants to remain within the status quo. And this need, what it does is when something happens outside of that, or that presents a world that is not the status quo, that they think it's their brains fight hard to reject, and try to find a scapegoat. Yeah, totally. Well, they need someone to blame period. You know, it's sort of like, you know, when someone gets abused, and then you're like, oh, oh, and you used to get abused? Well, that's not the world that I live in, in my brain. So that wouldn't happen to me. And then you start listing off all those tips like, well, I'd have done this, I wouldn't just let it. I can't believe you stuck around. You're like, no, that's not how it works. Well, and then it becomes, you know what? That's hurtful. Yeah, that's how did it get hit in the face? Just think about that guy. I mean, come on, you've seen that perspective. And that perspective carries over in victim or I mean, we definitely see it with in terms of the black people who've been getting murdered by the police. You see tons of people go on, say, as long as you don't do A, B, C, and D, well, then you won't get pulled over by the police. Because that's the world that I live in, in my brain. Yep, exactly. It's so crazy. So I want to leave with a couple thoughts. Oh, my God. 100. Show's almost over. How weird is that? All right, we're gonna just have our 101 show next week? I guess. So yeah, I think that we're not gonna talking about we're definitely not done. If you couldn't tell, it feels like we just really started this conversation, we're going to do a couple more shows about it. We're going to do some kind of series on this. There's so much to unpack here. And I feel like maybe the next 100 shows. Yeah, you know, I want to leave, I want to leave you all with this one that I'm gonna quote, dialect actually. When we were researching this, he said something that I think was really smart. And he said, we all have the thing with poor people is I feel like a lot of people are like, well, they just need to take responsibility for themselves, if they just were responsible. And like, if they stopped like fucking around, then you know, maybe they wouldn't be in this position. And the phrase that I see most commonly is usually in all caps. By the way, if you are reading internet comments and stuff, the way that you can know someone is, is incorrect, or is speaking from emotion rather than their brain is when they start using caps. certain sections if that's you, then maybe you should edit the thing before you put it out. But often in caps is the phrase personal responsibility. Yeah, and I'm gonna quote you and you said, we all have the same level of personal responsibility. It's about having the ability to recover from those mistakes. We're all going to fuck up. That's just what happens. We're human beings. And the thing is when you have no wiggle room to make those mistakes and you as a human make them anyway, then you just it's not a matter of personal responsibility. It's a matter of circumstance. It's not your fault. We all mess up, we all make mistakes, and shouldn't we all have the right and the ability to be able to get out of them and not have to completely ruin our financial life? Well, my thing is like fault, small, like, what does that how does that have to do with anything? Yeah, that's not really the point of whether it's your fault. You know, we were talking before we did the show about what happens if your car gets impounded. When you have the money to pay for it right away, you're fine, you throw him a couple 100 bucks, you get your car back, everything is all good, right? You're like a little annoyed, and then you forget about it. When you can't afford it. You may lose your car did not happen to you. Sorry to blow up your spot. But that nice Subaru Legacy was my mom's. And I couldn't afford to get it out of it. I mean, mind you, it was my fault. I've lived in Manhattan, because that was the cheapest rent that I could get. At the time. I had Hell's Kitchen, this awesome thing. And I used to park it in East New York where people used to tear pieces out of it all the time. I used to have to get stuff repaired and stuff like that the car was such an expense. And you know, I wanted to have it because you know, gives you opportunity. But it didn't give me opportunity. It just drained the money and drain money. And I started working extra shifts to try to pay off the the impounding fee, daily growing storage fee. And I had to sit down with my girlfriends, I was parking by her in New York at the time and made the decision together that we just didn't make sense. I couldn't afford to keep it so I lost several 1000 to not lose 1000s. And I think that's the thing that we don't think about enough with people in poverty people in rough situations is people aren't able to move forward when they have to make decisions. Not to go backwards. Yeah. Oh, that's another quotable. Oh, man. Let's just end with that, y'all. Thank you so much for listening. Thanks. So thank you so much for tuning in. If you liked the show, please leave a comment on iTunes. Please subscribe so other people can find us? Yeah, that's 100 talking about this a lot more though, because we are just getting started, y'all. We're just getting started with the party. But we're ending with the show. And we're gonna leave you with one more song. It's by bad trip out of Denver, Colorado. It's called the high costs for low living. And we'll check you next week and the week after that. And after that something well in the end. Do you have ideas feel free to say throw us ideas? If you have questions if you have qualms? Hit us up. We're always down to listen and make it a safer thanks so much. We're very proud thanks to quiche thanks to conscious thanks to all the broadcasters who are doing great work on bonfire radio and we will check you next week. Peace gospel low 1996 triple double drive by type of beats high cost below living See ya go cowboy. Was my stadium downtown from last weekend? Op Urrea just got a big deal. So please hurry. So once again my keys and my 12 Games Day I'm searching for my homies but it's in the driver monitoring guy missing Denver Police NO MAN Hey asking me about a song that I'm on we got smoke in the major halls magmatic versus baby mama wasn't little red Google murder rap. I wish it was a cartoon killer struck the struck handcuffed in the court room. He struck a blur with the students now we gotta sell round up and we like us with the luck stopper Mulholland film is how we got off with the murder so how looking for answers in the lift the bottle genie bottle by Matthias wish King Colorado that trip. Brad Pitt is triple double just like my hand live web across from you practice your own room. He writes to you look like the surface of the moon. is fast and so good to see I go cowboy. Most of us was trying to get it on the diamond spinning as fast as you can country for low live in Seattle cowboy. Most of us trying to get it on a dime a spin in the minute I got to share with you that a lot around in town if you don't like pushing go away and drive around in gas go to Chevy flip Professor spray 96 avails spoke fast muscle I hit the highway and move in like an ambulance going to see my handy and she got some special one to pass by see like Eileen malleson mo one to last year no Iranian she practice out of the rain dance. Everybody know me like the gang TAs and we were I felt was like the show which line man is running from the pole you know broke broke gotta run fast got to keep the wheels moving like a crankshaft first Weifang for criminal when nama neighborhood found not to make it because the Bible's been bad he's good second why temple sighs Pocahontas next mix every day we drink a full gallon watching Netflix and you can bet this normal living ranked list catch me in the moment hidden away skipping breakfast. Original bench ago non fictional dependable memorable lemma mistakable Have you ever nigga bro bad reputation mine I will suffer liquored up. Redemption no my mind like another Bryce pay attention to the sign running now to get my money as fast and to pay for loans. See I go cowboy. Most of this was trying to get it on the diamond spinning in the minute you get money money as fast potential country back to low living. See I go cowboy. Most of us try to get it further down the spinning in the minute in the middle