It's just an endless array of easily-overcome excuses (mostly from people who have never been poor and don't actually know any poor people).
[0] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/09/working-hours-america...
I don't think this includes commute times or waiting in line for a security check. But maybe it does since these are all self-reported figures.
The answer is to alleviate the environmental conditions. You have mentioned in another post that you have benefitted from food stamps for a while (did I understand that right?), allowing you to eat healthy; other people need that and maybe a little additional help with food, housing and clothing (all of it basic human rights anyway and relatively cheap to provide for in a modern society) to reduce the pressure and higher order effects of not having that safety net.
Absolutely. There’s a false dichotomy that runs all the way through this entire debate, which says that in order to demonstrate that we are compassionate and that we care about the plight of the poor and working class we must also insist that their condition is never the result of personal choices, but always external factors. This makes no sense. It is not particularly hard to keep two sets of books, one that says we should help those who need it and another that tells people who can benefit from this message that they do have agency, that their choices matter, that they can do things to improve their situation.
People need to believe that their actions have consequences. And the good news: it’s not a lie. Actions do have consequences. There actually are things you can do to improve your situation. That’s a hopeful message, not a cruel one.
And yet, there will of course be people who for whatever reason are unable to improve their lot in life. We should help them. There’s no contradiction here.
Work hours are not usually the issue. It is the wasted hours on all the things where a high earner can trade $ for time, versus the poor person that need to use an hour to save a dollar of cost.
Upper-income earners have different choices than the poor. Travel choices - Uber versus the bus, a car that works versus an clunker that costs maintenance and heavy breakdown side-effects. Appliances save time: dishwashers, your own washing machine, and a clothes dryer. A comfortable bed in a quiet and safe neighbourhood with helpful neighbours. Upper-income earners can buy services that give them time: cleaning, takeaways instead of cooking, supermarket delivery, childcare, massages or other re-energisers, good healthcare, yada yada yada.
When you get $40 dollars disposable in your pocket after household expenses for 40 hours work (ignoring travel), spending an hour to save a dollar is sensible.
Ideally if they worked an extra marginal hour, they would get a large marginal increase in disposable income. Somehow that doesn’t seem to work in reality (for many reasons, sometimes perverse government incentives).
One commonality amongst the less-well-off people I know, is that they are all tired. They can’t decide to spend another hour at their job because they are physically and mentally drained after a days physical work, and dealing with stressful people/children all day. Doing an hour on something different can make perfect sense to “earn” their $1.
I am not disagreeing with your main point - I do also see my friends spend their time and money poorly (in my opinion from an outside viewpoint).
but hey, you're only a debilitating illness away from SNAP benefits!
Most of America has horrible public transit. I don't know if it would even be possible for me to get onto a bus from my house to the nearest grocery store without first walking a mile. Some of the bus routes in this town turn what would be a 15min trip in a car to a ~2hr trip with a transfer in the middle.
In 2011, I briefly lived in a house in Northeast Tacoma, right by Dash Point State Park. Beautiful area. No buses. There wasn't even a sidewalk on the road I had to walk along to get to the bus. It was a mile walk from my house to a bus stop in Federal Way. From there I could get to a hub and get on another bus to anywhere I wanted. It was awful.
This is not been my experience. Poor people having too many jobs to cook just isn't a thing that I saw growing up as a migrant worker (and with, very, very unstable housing, no hot water, abject poverty, etc.) If anything, most of the poor people I knew had no job or a side hustle under the table for cash because any income would reduce their benefits. Regarding transportation, again, people usually go with someone that has a car and pay in foodstamps or buy them somthing at the store or give a little for gas. Or walked if it was close enough. Granted, I did not grow up in giant metropolises, so it might be different there. Regarding disability, nearly every poor person I knew was trying to get disability classification, because it meant constant stable income. If you are disable and can't cook for yourself, in the US, you can get people that will come to your house and help you for free (paid by the government, I know many people that do this as a job).
They looked at what we had put together and said, "My kids won't eat that."
While they definitely had financial difficulties to overcome, it wasn't a lack of resources that was their biggest barrier.
This is very common for people I know these days (including my own kids, sadly). It is interesting that when I was young (and we were very, very poor) we (the kids) never had an option. We could eat what we were given or not eat at all, that was the choice we got. And we mostly ate what we were given.
That's just not true. People who live in actually impovrished countries don't eat junk food; they eat rice and eggs. The US has a %40 obesity rate. That doesn't come from "extending your dollar." Poorer people have an even higher obesity rate on average in the US. That doesn't suddenly mean that "junk food will extend your dollar further."
What we really need is to limit food stamps (or SNAP, EBT, whatever name) to healthier options. Junk food and fast food may be easier but becoming obease is a terrable financial decision which will increase medical cost, may cause diabetes, drain evergy ect. all which have a disproportionate effect on poorer people. I don't blame people for taking the faster and tastier option but the government should not allow food stamps to buy soda, doughnuts ect. in place of cheap eggs, rice and beans.
That'd be super fun for me, as a person with MS. I literally don't have the energy to cook a lot of the time, and am often only awake for 1-2 hours when I'm not at work, during which time I already have to shower, do chores, pay bills, etc.
Oh, and I'm hypotensive and on medication that often means I don't feel hungry. Junk food is great because it's so easy to eat even when you don't feel hungry. Eating healthy foods often results in me severely undereating calorie wise which causes more problems. Junk food is also easy to snack on at work because I don't get sit down breaks some days. A little salt every few hours keeps me from fainting.
And RIP anybody with any kind of dietary restrictions.
If it were restricted, I'd have major issues eating because what is and isn't healthy would be determined by upper-middle class people who work in think tanks and based off of some weird ideal diet, completely ignoring the varying health needs and ability levels of the people actually using SNAP.