Some More News - SMN: Why Being Poor Is So Expensive

Episode Date: February 10, 2023

Hi. Conservatives love to label poor people as lazy and irresponsible, but America makes life incredibly difficult and expensive for the poor in ways that keep them at a stark disadvantage. Sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VqSoBpuab2HYj_dcboORMh-JYV8V_1CVGbpM9bMfaHc/edit?usp=sharing Please fill out our SURVEY: https://kastmedia.com/survey/ Support us on our PATREON: http://patreon.com/somemorenews Check out our MERCH STORE: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/somemorenews?ref_id=9949 SUBSCRIBE to SOME MORE NEWS: https://tinyurl.com/ybfx89rh  Subscribe to the Even More News and SMN audio podcasts here: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-more-news/id1364825229 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ebqegozpFt9hY2WJ7TDiA?si=5keGjCe5SxejFN1XkQlZ3w&dl_branch=1 Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/even-more-news  Follow us on social media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SomeMoreNews Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/SomeMoreNews/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SomeMoreNews/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@somemorenews Stop paying full price for streaming services and only getting access to a fraction of their content. Get your money's worth at https://expressvpn.com/morenews and get three extra months of ExpressVPN free. Explore a variety of NextEvo products for better sleep, less stress, or a boost to daily wellness in 2023. Go to https://NextEvo.com/podcast and use promo code MORENEWS to get 20% off your first order of $40 or more. Stop throwing your money away. Cancel unwanted subscriptions - and manage your expenses the easy way - by going to https://rocketmoney.com/MORENEWS.

What? This is utter nonsense. Tomfoolery, I even say. Oh, hey, hey there folks. Sorry about that. It wasn't porn this time. I have this tooth, it's been killing me, but I don't have enough money to deal with it.

So I'm trying to get a credit card, maybe something with wolves on it, but apparently I have crappy credit, and so I don't qualify. I signed up for creditbeast.com to see what I need to do. And they're telling me that I can increase my credit score by getting a credit card, which I can do if I have a good credit score, which I don't, like I said.

Nut butter, peanut butter. All right, don't be gross. ah, nut butter, peanut butter. All right, don't be gross. Penis nut butter. It's a real catch 22, you know, in the sense that I haven't thought about my teeth since high school, which is the last time I read catch 22. Hold on actually, you know what? Just gonna.

Mm, mm. Ah, that should take care of the pain, just long enough for me to get through this video, mm. Ah-ha-ha, that should take care of the pain, just long enough for me to get through this video, hopefully. Those pills were technically for large dogs, so I could just pass out halfway through. My goodness. Life is filled with these many paradoxes and ironies,

like trying to get a job that requires the exact work experience you are trying to get, or that time I traveled back in time and impregnated myself and then gave birth to my future self who impregnated my friend Bradley. And as you all well know, we on the showdy love to examine these various quandaries and conundrums, ker-bum-ba-doodles as we call them.

And so today's confounding ker-thunkery of Captain Cody's cool, testable, contrabulous show is why is being poor so expensive? Seems counterintuitive, right? Like if you're poor, wouldn't you think life would be cheaper? Or rather, wouldn't you think that it should be cheaper

to like help people not be poor? And yet, even though this cruel contradiction is very real, our society has taken extraordinary measures to hide this reality. In fact, the prevailing narrative in America is the exact opposite. As a wise man once said, mo' money, mo' problems. Or as Fox News has been telling us for more than a decade,

no money, mo' microwaves. It's less catchy. Robert, I'm just going to give our viewers a quick run through of what items poor families in America have. 99% of them have a refrigerator. 81% have a microwave. 78% have air conditioning. 63% have cable TV. 54% have cell phones. 48% have a coffee maker. I'm not surprised. They're only about 10 bucks. 38% have a computer. 32% have more than two TVs. 25% have a dishwasher. This, sir, Mr. Rector, is very different from what it was just a few years ago, isn't it? Nice touch putting the word poor in quotation marks, you silly little ghouls. But he's right.

Being poor just isn't what it used to be. I guess in comparison to when people were just starving all the time or something. Oh wait, that's still happening too. Okay, so it's exactly the same. Anyway, terrifying stuff how poor people are allowed to own basic appliances, or you know, rent apartments that come with appliances.

And though this clip is over 10 years old, this philosophy still persists that poor people not only have it easy, but are in fact living high on the hog. And you know how we feel about swine on this show. They make cute pets and we don't eat them. And as the narrative goes, this is especially true if you are a member of a vulnerable population. Welcome to the world of guaranteed income. All you have to do is be vulnerable

and live in San Francisco. And when I mean vulnerable, I mean you can't be a straight white male. This week, the city's just announced it's dumping another 5 million into their program that pays pregnant black women. Pregnant white women, you're out of luck. Real quick, San Francisco absolutely has programs designed to help anyone who qualifies, including pregnant white women. And perhaps the reason they have these new programs specifically for women of color as well as trans individuals, is because they are statistically more likely

to have trouble receiving federal aid. Just pointing that lie out. But sure, you know, those lucky, lucky, vulnerable people. As everyone knows, nobody has had it easier in America than poor black pregnant women. How dare we make sure their babies can eat? Anywho, we know this talking point, that being poor is not really all that bad.

And in fact, it can be incredibly lucrative, especially if you're black or brown. You know, welfare queens and uncle sugar and so on and so forth. If I had a literal dog whistle right now, I'd blow it. Or you know what, maybe I can. Okay, sorry, I had to try. If you're someone who actually believes

that this stuff is true, that being poor is really cushy, or that our welfare system is designed to make poor people too comfortable, well, that's why this video you are now watching exists for you to watch. We're going to outline the many ways being poor is not only uncomfortable, but inescapable. A finger trap where the more you pull,

the tighter it gets until you end up in the ER with your jacket draped over your crotch. And while we will be presenting the broad data that supports that, we also asked our beloved Patreon subscribers to give us specific examples from their own lives. Warmbo blessed their hearts, I say. And a big thank you to all of our patrons

for putting themselves out there. We thought it was important not to prove that what we are saying is true, but to remind everyone that this comes down to real people going through real problems. Patreon subscriber Rob Jobin writes, "'My parents had to constantly buy junk cars "'and would spend thousands a year to keep them going.

"'The fear of breaking down was always there.'" Another Patreon supporter said, "'My four-year-old needs glasses. "'$100 for cheapest kids' glasses. "'Four-year-olds are bad at taking care of glasses. "'They break after two weeks. If we spend $500 on a decent pair, we only need to spend that once.

And user Ryan shares their story of living without dental insurance, saying, I went for a checkup paid for out of pocket and was told my wisdom teeth were completely sideways and would need surgery to remove, but as I had no coverage, could not get it done. I instead lived with the pain of impacted wisdom teeth until one broke the molar in front of it,

causing an emergency surgery they could not turn me down for. This medical debt hung over me in collection for almost a decade. Hey Ryan, I feel you on that tooth thing. In fact, hold on, just one more. Ryan, I feel you on that tooth thing. In fact, hold on just one more. Ooh, all right.

I'm a good doggy. Finally, shout out to Patreon subscriber, Captain Samuel Vines, who said, "'A really good pair of leather boots cost $50, "'but an affordable pair of boots, "'which were sort of okay for a season or two, "'and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about $10.

A man who could afford $50 had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in 10 years time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent $100 on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. Thanks for your support, Vimey. Oh, sorry. That last post is actually from a character

in Terry Pratchett's novel, Men at Arms, Innocent Mistake. That novel is actually why these examples are called the Boots Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness. You see, when you can't afford the top of the line, you have to settle for the cheap stuff, which ultimately ends up costing you more over time. The Boots Theory can be applied to many aspects of being poor, not just boots, but glasses, cars and teeth.

Also, the ability to buy things in bulk or efficiently heating or cooling your home because people with means can afford to properly insulate and avoid having to pay more for it in their energy bills over time. This theory also pretty much applies to just about any consumer product you can think of. Furniture, light bulbs, dildos, the light bulbs that go into light up dildos. It also applies to basic necessities.

Living in poverty also comes with a lack of access to healthy food options, which comes with an array of health consequences that can cause a person to miss work, develop expensive health conditions, and you know, get sick and die. Just one of the many reasons poor people die 10 to 15 years sooner than rich people.

You see, being poor is not just expensive, but incredibly costly in non-financial ways. Of course, the Boots Theory is just one of the many ways being poor is so expensive. It's a starting point. Start your engines. The engines that's so expensive to maintain because it was a cheap engine.

And if you can get a better one, it would be cheaper ultimately over time. But whatever engine you have, start it. Macroeconomic forces like inflation disproportionately impact families at the lower end of the economic spectrum. And recessions, depressions, and financial crises always hit poor people the hardest.

And government responses to these types of economic catastrophes help poor people the least. Just take a look at this chart showing how lower income homeowners in New Orleans had less of their hurricane damage covered by road home grants in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. And unless you're new here, you won't be shocked to learn

that all of these inequalities affect black and brown people the most. As the saying goes, when white folks catch a cold, black folks get pneumonia. Or to give it a snappy 2020s rebrand, black folks get the Rona. And to put the turdy cherry on top, or to give it a snappy 2020s rebrand, black folks get the Rona. And to put the turdy cherry on top,

the crushing costs associated with financial insecurity compound on one another, getting worse and worse like unpeeling a rotten onion or the chain of events in the film Glass Onion or the progressively worse ideas in Ben Shapiro's Twitter thread about Glass Onion. A rolling snowball of budget shortfalls and missed payments can easily turn into an avalanche of deprivation, which is why many families are just one minor catastrophe

away from poverty and or homelessness. Not having enough money to meet daily needs causes people to triage their expenses, which often leads to a downward spiral into the depths of destitution. Patreon user AwesomeSauceMcSparklePants writes, I used to alternate between eating one day and adding gas to my car on the next.

Never had more than one to two gallons in my tank. One time, my roommate's car broke down and they needed a ride to work to avoid being fired. I didn't eat for four days so I could keep working and catch back up. Hey, Mr. Sparklepants, that sucks to hear. I hope things are better now. And I assume they are because of the phrase used to

and your support on Patreon. Also on the subject of gas, don't ever try to swish gasoline in your mouth to numb a toothache. Turns out it doesn't work. Just a random tip that I read somewhere else. It's not an experiential thing. I read it randomly.

Somebody sent me, it was like, you would be interested in this fun fact about swishing gasoline in your mouth. And I was, and we're relaying it to you. Anyway, because of this snowball effect, the myriad ways that being poor is so expensive can be hard to categorize without losing sight of the big picture.

But we're going to try our best. Even though I'm starting to feel a little woozy. Maybe I just need more gasoline, whatever. Just so we're clear, the word expensive will mainly be used to describe high financial costs, but can apply to all sorts of other costs as well. Similarly, the word poor or poverty is surprisingly malleable in a way

that can coincidentally fuck over the poor. For example, the US government measures poverty by using a complicated and confusing formula that the US Census Bureau's website does such a bad job of explaining that it almost seems intentional. But by their own measurements, the official poverty rate in 2021 was 11.6%

with 37.9 million people in poverty. And though the act of measuring poverty by the government is extremely important because it can help lawmakers identify those in the most need and target their resources accordingly, you know, if they want to. The official definition of the poverty line is a little bit sus, as they say,

or suspicious, as they used to say. For one, their definition of poverty does not account for geography, which is pretty absurd considering how much the cost of living varies depending on where you live. As we will touch on later, it turns out that where you are poor actually matters a great deal.

Also, other than adjusting for inflation, the way we calculate the poverty level has not changed since it was introduced in the mid 1960s. Even more sus and picious is that according to the Center for American Progress, the calculation doesn't take into account housing, transportation, childcare, or medical costs, which seems like a bit of an oversight if I'm feeling generous, but since I'm not,

that seems really silly and fucked and possibly insidious. What the fuck? According to a study by the United Way Alice Project in 2018, nearly 51 million households don't earn enough to afford a monthly budget that includes housing, food, childcare, healthcare, transportation, and a cell phone. Notice how that number is considerably higher

than the 37.9 million estimate. So we should probably change the method by which poverty is calculated is my point. But what do I know? You know, I'm just a YouTube guy who has a toxic relationship with a puppet. Literally, Wormbo's filled with asbestos. It helps keep him fireproof.

He's constantly trying to set himself on fire. It's the only cute thing he does. It's also worth noting that in 2017, a study by the Government Accountability Office found that 20% of families with a full-time worker earning minimum wage were living in poverty, which seems like it shouldn't be the case, but of course the federal minimum wage

has not been adjusted for inflation. And we're operating under the same minimum wage from a time when LeBron James was scoring about 30 points a game. Okay, maybe that's a bad example. Let me try again. We're operating under the same minimum wage from a time when everyone was talking

about the groundbreaking cinematic experience of the movie Avatar. Okay, one more time. We are operating under the same minimum wage from a time when Facebook launched an immersive experience designed since 2009. It's 2009. Since 2009, when the cost of living

was a whole lot lower than it is now. Boy, our culture has stagnated. Much like our minimum wage. So going back to definitions, for the sake of this video, when I talk about being poor, I'm talking about people who struggle to afford a decent standard of living.

And when I'm talking about a decent standard of living, I mean that you can afford not just the basic necessities like food, shelter, healthcare, and dental care, but also the ability to see a movie once in a while, go on vacation from time to time, and occasionally splurge on Star Wars customizable card game cards and be able to financially withstand that momentary lapse in judgment.

They're like Magic the Gathering, but much, much worse. I think being able to enjoy life should be considered a need because we need it, just like we need these upcoming ads for money. To buy more useless, useless customizable card game cards, and maybe dental care, I guess, if there's some left. And after the ads, we'll really dig our fingies into some more examples of how being poor is incredibly expensive.

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And we're now going to discuss more ways in which being poor is actually expensive and how being rich can be a real bargain. So let's do it. Are you ready and excited? That's weird. As you might be aware, the thing about being poor is that you don't have very much money.

That's, you know, a problem. And yet, if you want to continue being alive, you still have plenty of expenses. This is why low income families spend the vast majority of their income on basic necessities. You know, annoying stuff like food and shelter. But we also need extra stuff to be able to function in order to get the money we need

for those basic necessities. Transportation, education, Star Wars customizable card game cards. And for a lot of people, the only way to afford that extra but necessary stuff is by borrowing money. So let's say that there are two people who are both looking to purchase a car that costs $1,000.

One of them is a rich plumbing business owner two people who are both looking to purchase a car that costs $1,000. One of them is a rich plumbing business owner and therefore can afford fancy name brand clothes. And the other is poor and can only afford the knockoff stuff. You know, since his micro game company went bankrupt after people kept getting sucked into the games. The rich guy already has those 1000 coins. So he can just buy the car or cart, I guess, outright.

In fact, because he has all that money with him, he might even get a discount. The poor guy on the other hand, needs a cart loan. He's going to have to borrow the money from the mushroom bank and pay it all off in installments. But since the mushroom bank is taking a risk as in the possibility that they won't be paid back, they're going to make the poor person pay extra

to cover that risk. Not to mention mushroom bank fees and the inflation that will naturally incur due to paying over a longer period of time. So if the rich guy got his cart for only 900 coins after discount, the poor guy is gonna be paying perhaps 25 coins a month for several years on top of a bunch of extra fees. That's an additional 100 plus coins over time

just for the interest on the loan alone. And ultimately it's going to cost hundreds of coins more to purchase the exact same item as the enriched Mario. Fucking Mario. He thinks he's so much better because his mustache isn't crooked. And that's all assuming the loan goes exactly as planned. There could be additional medical expenses

caused by the constant strain from jumping so high that makes him late on a payment or two, which has cost him even more coins in late fees. He even missed a month altogether. And so his Mario Kart was impounded by the Goombas. That means he has to take work off as a barista in Diamond City and had to borrow even more coins to get his Mario Kart out of the impound shop.

You see how this all adds up. And this is the corrosive impact that debt has on the lives of people who don't have enough money day to day. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has found that Americans pay $120 billion in interest and fees each year. That's $120 billion, none of it going towards

the actual product or service purchased. That's essentially a tax levied against individuals and families that can't afford to buy the product or service purchased. That's essentially a tax levied against individuals and families that can't afford to buy the product or service outright. It's an additional expense that rich people simply don't have to pay or can easily absorb. Meanwhile, not only are rich people able to avoid these negative financial consequences,

but they often get richer because of them. In the same way interest rates drain the money of poor people who are in debt, those very same interest rates increase the value of rich people's money and investments. A rich person can put their money in stuff like real estate, the stock market, or simply deposit their funds into a savings account and just sit back

and watch their money grow. You know, like some kind of thing that grows and you can pick pieces off of them as they get bigger. A child? Yes, it's like a money child. In addition to the crippling impact of credit card debt, student loan debt impacts low income students the most, particularly women and people of color.

Because if you are rich, you don't need to borrow money to go to college in the first place. And to make matters worse, according to an investigation by Kaiser Health News and NPR, 100 million people in America, including 41% of adults, are beset by a healthcare system that is systematically pushing patients into debt on a mass scale.

To add insult to injury, literally, a study by Stanford has found that medical debt is a double whammy for the poor. Economist Neil Mahoney states, "'It seems that the financial burden of medical debt "'discourages people from accessing important healthcare.'" Yes, it does seem like that, doesn't it? Also, if you don't have insurance,

you probably don't get regular checkups, nor do you get preventative care or anyone to guide you through your health. That's probably why there's a huge discrepancy between things like the diabetes rates in wealthy people versus people who are poor, like a huge difference even between middle and lower class. And so on top of the health consequences of this dynamic,

it also means that poor people and the uninsured often rely on emergency rooms for healthcare, which can be incredibly expensive. This study has found that Americans have at least $140 billion in unpaid healthcare bills sitting in collection agencies. Ah, yes, collection agencies. The insidious innovation that has induced

an immeasurable number of panic attacks upon tens of millions of Americans every time they get a call from an unknown number or God forbid, their good friend scam likely. Just one of the many, many costs of not having enough money, also known as being poor. But when it comes to debt, a lot of folks are so poor

that they don't even qualify for a loan, period. According to money.yahoo.com, about 16% of Americans have no credit score and an even larger proportion have a low credit score. In total, about 108 million consumers have a low a low credit score. In total, about 108 million consumers have a low or no credit score. That makes it tough for these people to get a car loan, a personal loan, or even insurance.

By the way, this quote is right below a link to an article entitled, "'Six Ways to Boost Your Credit Score' where the author recommends that you pay on time all the time." Cool, thanks for that advice, money wizard. Credatium Leviosa. Also, by the way, credit scores as we know them,

as in an official number that everyone has to have, wasn't invented until 1989. That's when The Simpsons was still on television. Oh, right, okay. Well, that's when they were making new Indiana Jones films. Fuck! It was 34 years ago is the point. Among those with low to no credit

are the approximately 6 million American families that are unbanked and nearly 19 million more who are underbanked. Being unbanked is just as it sounds. It means that they don't have a bank account in part because they can't meet the minimum balance requirements that many banks impose. You know about these minimum balance requirements

all too well, don't you, you little scamp? It's like when you don't have a lot of money in your bank account. And so they just take money out of your account as a punishment. And then you didn't realize that they did that. And so you paid some bill thinking that you had enough money but you actually didn't.

And then you get hit with all these overdraft fees which you don't notice until you are holding up a long line of people at the grocery store while you covertly tried to buy some Gardeo's and grape juice as the miserable clerk is telling you that your card just declined. And you're like, huh, that's so weird. There's no way, there must be something wrong

with your machine. You then try to flirt with the clerk and impress them, thinking they can like let you just take the items. But then while you're trying to roll a quarter on your knuckles for the first time ever, you drop the glass bottle of grape juice on the tile floor and watch in slow motion as it smashes into a million pieces and splashes purple liquid onto everyone around you.

And so you panic and just run out of the store. It's just like that common metaphor. Thankfully, Patreon subscriber Jason Lucky can back me up on this. Because my paychecks were low and my bills all seemed to hit at the same time, I started accumulating overdraft fees, 35 bucks per check. The bank was taking fees out

because I couldn't pay the fees they were taking out. They probably also had that grape juice problem too, I bet. The point is, it's understandable why some people might want to escape that fate and completely avoid the whole bank account thing. But what it means is that while folks with bank accounts and plenty of money are getting their checks either deposited directly

into their accounts or using the app on their phones to deposit funds for free, people who are unbanked are waiting in lines at check cashing places to pay an additional fee every time they cash a check. And if a person still finds themselves falling short on funds, many have to resort to taking out a dreaded payday loan,

which has outrageous interest rates and fees that can often ensnare people into a debt trap that is incredibly difficult to escape. Patreon subscriber Danny Wildcard writes, "'I needed a car repair and it was urgent "'because I couldn't work without my car. "'I had no credit cards, "'so I went to a payday loan place to get around $100.

"'Because of the massive interest on payday loans, I ended up not being able to make it to the next paycheck and had to take out another payday loan of slightly less before my next check. This loop continued for little over a year until I was finally caught up. It cost me over $1,000 worth of interest in the end. Let me tell you, if you have no morals,

the payday loan industry is a booming opportunity. They are expected to hit $42.6 billion by the year 2028, because it turns out that Fox News was almost right. Being poor is very cushy and lucrative for other people. We will talk about that a bit more later. Also, did you catch when I said that people have to wait in lines to cash checks? It should probably be noted that folks

with prosperous bank accounts can simply go on a few websites and set up auto pay for all their bills so they can just forget about it all. People without bank accounts are stuck waiting in line during their lunch breaks to pay for their gas bill, their water bill, their electricity bill, and on and on, all in person with cash. Because as Patreon subscriber Estance DH explains,

it's expensive to be poor, not just in money, but in time. And as we all know, time is something. Gasoline pills, whatever. And being poor means that you need to use a lot more time due to your lack of gasoline pills. Money, I mean money. Time is money. A simple example would be laundry.

If you've got some resources, you're lucky enough to have a washer and dryer in your home or at least in your apartment building. But if not, well, then you have to get to a laundromat, spend some money on the washer and dryer and give your kids quarters to buy those weird sticky guys or play a 35 year old arcade game. Then you wait and listen to a podcast about HH Holmes

while glaring at your terrible kids and pray for the clothes to be dry on the first attempt. So you can fold them, pack them up, get them back to your home and put them in drawers and hang them in closets. And that could take a huge part of your day. Compare that to a well-off person who can afford a house cleaner or a nanny

or uses Instacart to deliver groceries or a chef to cook their food. If they could, they would probably even hire someone to feel all of their negative emotions and physical pain. Whereas a poor person has to clean their homes themselves, raise their children themselves, and pick up food, cook it, and clean up after it themselves. And of course, all of their pain cannot be outsourced.

You know, unless someone finally invents an affordable Cronenbergian flesh device that eats emotional pain, so maybe do that, but I'm guessing it would look something like this and we probably don't want that. Point is that whenever some rich butthead talks about how much they work or rather how many meetings they go to,

or say that poor people are lazy or just need to hustle harder or talk down about a healthy diet or give parenting advice or any of those extremely oblivious things. It's because they don't realize that everything takes way more time if you're not rich because they aren't actually doing anything for themselves. Also, apologies, in that laundry scenario,

I was assuming you had a car. It's very likely that you don't have a reliable mode of transportation either, which means you are relying on America's pathetic public transportation system, which not only drains you of even more time, but even more money. When it comes to percentage of income, the poorest get hit the hardest by the lack

of a transport system. For those making roughly $30,000 a year, their transportation expenditure was about 22%. And for many who live in extremely poor areas because of the limited job opportunities nearby, the costs and time associated with commuting long distances in order to find semi-decent employment is an insurmountable barrier

that ensures that poorer areas remain poor. Because it turns out that where you are poor matters a great deal. And that's what we're going to talk about after the ads. Specifically, that poverty itself isn't equal. But again, ads first. You know the drill. Drill!

Of course. I just got a brain tingle image, but you won't be able to see it. Unless you watch these ads. Drill. Sup, nerds? Seems like everywhere I go, people are playing this new collectible game. I forget the name of it, but it's the one where slips of paper are traded for goods and services. I forget the name of it, but it's the one where slips of paper are traded for goods and services. Some of these slips are more valuable than others. And you can even keep track of how many paper slips you have digitally on the Internet. But it's hard. Keeping track of all the paper slips is hard. So you might want to check out Rocket Money, formerly known as Truebill.

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Right. Right. That's right. It's called money. That's what was it was bothering me the whole time Welcome back. I'm feeling much better because I think I found a solution to my dental dilemma involves taking more of these dog pills And rummaging through my tool drawer

But first I have to finish the show and explain why being poor greatly changes based on where you are poor and who you are. In other words, not all states of poverty are created equal. There is a huge difference between being poor while living in a wealthier area and being poor while living in an area of mixed economic status,

and being poor while living in what is known as concentrated poverty. As you can imagine, a poor person who lives in a wealthier area has many more opportunities to escape their poverty. For starters, since education is largely funded through property taxes, a bad idea that maybe we should think about changing,

the school system in an area of higher home values is almost certainly going to be far more supported. This also means that there are a lot more networking opportunities. A poor child attending a wealthier school not only receives a better education, but also has access to some of the resources and advantages provided by their wealthier friends.

In fact, a recent study has shown that one of the best ways to escape poverty is to have rich friends. Quote, the study found that if poor children In fact, a recent study has shown that one of the best ways to escape poverty is to have rich friends. Quote, the study found that if poor children grew up in neighborhoods where 70% of their friends were wealthy, the typical rate of friendship for higher income children,

it would increase their future income by 20% on average. And when you live in a community that has the money to spend on stuff, the economy will also be more vibrant with more available jobs that pay higher wages. One study even found that poor older Americans are healthier if they live in more affluent communities. By contrast, a poor person growing up in an area of concentrated poverty has very few ways out of their circumstance. A school system underfunded through low property taxes means that a child growing up in an area

of concentrated poverty is very likely going to receive a substandard education. And because they live in a neighborhood where everyone around them is also poor, that means there aren't going to be a whole lot of businesses interested in setting up shop in an area where no one has any money, which of course means that there aren't very many

good paying jobs for the people that live in these communities. And it is extremely unlikely that the members of these communities are going to be making a whole lot of friends with rich people since they are nowhere to be found, unless it's an Aladdin situation where the princess sneaks out

and is so oblivious to the concept of money that she starts stealing produce. But I'm pretty sure that's a rare occurrence from a cartoon about another time and place. So why don't they just move, you ask? Apparently, being a person who has never had to move before and doesn't realize it's extremely expensive, not only do you have to actually find a place

that you can afford, take work off, and then pack and move everything out of your home, but you've got to pay an application fee and put a security deposit down on top of the first month's rent. And that's if you can pass the credit check that most landlords do. Asking a poor person why they don't just move

is like asking someone lost in the Sahara why they don't call a water taxi. They would if they could. Sadly, Uber camel hasn't been invented yet. Also, it turns out that for some reason, the people that live in these areas of concentrated poverty tend to have a bit more melanin in their skin pigmentation. According to a 2015 study,

poor whites tend to live in more affluent neighborhoods than do middle-class blacks and Latinos, a situation that leaves those minorities more likely to contend with weaker schools, higher crime, and greater social problems. Because of course, who you are has a lot to do with your level of poverty as well. I know people love to boil it down to a class struggle.

I know people love to point out that white people are poor too, and lament that race is always brought into these conversations. So if you'd like, we don't have to frame it as black versus white at all. We can just frame it as a population of Americans whose ancestors were enslaved for nearly 250 years and then lived under a system of terror, mass murder, and apartheid for the next 100 years that denied them fundamental rights

and then were excluded from government programs designed to alleviate poverty and build wealth and continue to face discrimination and injustice based on superficial phenotypic characteristics to this day versus people who that didn't happen to, who statistically speaking are most likely whiter in terms of skin color. So yeah, you could just say all that if you want to,

but I'll save you some time and suggest that when you talk about this population, you can safely say black people, because while class is the lens through which we're looking at this problem and through which you should probably look at a lot of problems, who has been funneled into those classes via historical truths and government policy is very important.

And on average, lower income black Americans have a way harder time than lower income white Americans. As we mentioned very recently in our video about housing, policies like redlining and restrictive covenants purposefully relegated black people into specific neighborhoods and intentionally created these areas of concentrated poverty.

According to the Brookings Institution, today, neighborhoods that fall within once redlined areas are more likely to have a higher concentration of black residents, as well as lower incomes, lower home values, and other negative economic characteristics relative to the rest of their cities. As a result of this honky bullshit, on average, lower income white Americans

have a higher net worth than middle income black Americans. And unemployed white American households have a higher net worth than black households who work full time. This history also created a gap in generational wealth, meaning that a broke white person might at least have well-off parents or grandparents to help whereas a black person might not have

the same type of safety. According to one study, in 2002, the typical white child's grandparent's net worth was eight times bigger than the average black child's. And then there's this study that says, "'In the mid-2000s, 36% of middle-class black people "'had a parent living below the poverty line, "'as opposed to only 8%

of the white middle-class. And so while white families are far more likely to both receive help throughout their lives in the form of gifts from their family members and receive an inheritance, black and brown families are far less likely to receive an inheritance after their parents have passed away. It's just generally fucking harder to be poor

while also black. To quote Dorothy Brown in her book, "'The Whiteness of Wealth,' "'Blacks graduate from college with more debt, "'do not get jobs as easily as whites, "'are not paid the same wages "'as their equally qualified white peers, "'are steered toward lower paying jobs,

"'and have an unemployment rate twice that of whites, "'yet are more likely to provide financial support "'for extended family.'" Brown also goes on to explain how the tax system was designed to benefit the family structure of the typical white family and financially reward specifically white homeowners with no corresponding benefit to renters

who are disproportionately black. And so it is not just expensive to be poor, it's also expensive to be black. And while we're on the topic of entire populations being systematically disadvantaged by virtue of their very existence, we probably should mention that it's also more expensive to be a woman.

This phenomenon is often referred to as the pink tax, which is a markup on goods and services marketed to women and for which men pay less for similar products and services. That and of course the persistent pay gap and healthcare cost disparity, means that it is also more expensive to be a woman. It's also just like more emotionally expensive,

as evidenced by this horse shit. Does anybody have a pen? No, thanks. No. Thanks. With its fabulous styling and smooth writing, Bic for her is the only choice. No joke, that pen costs 70% more

than Bic's other identical pens. And while we're on the subject of official and unofficial taxes, the design of the tax code doesn't just hurt people of color and women. It also hurts poor people in general, regardless of race or gender. Despite the extremely dog-whistley makers and takers myth that rich people pay all the taxes,

one 50-state study found that the lower your income is, the higher your overall state and local tax rate ultimately is. Because while conservatives love to point out the differences in the total amount of federal income taxes paid between the rich and poor, which frankly just illustrates the problem

of economic inequality, it turns out that those aren't the only taxes that are being paid. And so when you include the existence of stuff like sales taxes and user fees, it turns out that taxes are just another way that it is really expensive to be poor. And wouldn't you know it,

the House Republicans' latest Fair Tax Act plans to make this problem even worse, not only by abolishing the IRS, but by repealing payroll taxes, gift and estate taxes, capital gains taxes, and personal and corporate income taxes and in their place, institute a 30% levy on all new finished goods and services. In other words, it drastically cuts all the taxes rich people pay and shifts the burden of taxation

even further in the direction of sales taxes, which are disproportionately shouldered by the poor. Thankfully, Joe Biden has pledged to veto the bill the next time he gets into the office to grab another cluster of classified files. By the way, the IRS also audits poor people five times more than wealthier people because it's just easier for them to do.

And as we've sort of been getting at for this entire show's history, they also audit black people three times more frequently. So if you're black and poor, that's like, that's probably, it's like five times plus three times more resulting in some impossible number. That's how the math would go, even though it's impossible math,

there's no way to do the math on it. Just know that it's a big old number. Yeah, and that's a big part of this. It's just generally easier to push around poor people because they can't afford fancy city talking lawyers and guard tigers and junk. And that's where we get to a concept known as the criminalization of poverty.

As a famous philosopher once said, "'If the penalty for a crime is a fine, "'then that law only exists for the lower class.'" And by famous philosopher, I mean one of the writers for the 1997 video game, Final Fantasy Tactics. No idea which writer, but you know, nice work. One of the most egregious examples

is the way we criminalize the unhoused population. Earlier this year, a new Missouri law made it illegal to sleep on state land or under bridges with a penalty of up to $750 in fines or 15 days in prison. Instead of treating people who suffer from mental illness, we of course incarcerate them. And it's worth noting that people living in high poverty neighborhoods exhibit worse mental health

outcomes compared to people in high poverty neighborhoods exhibit worse mental health outcomes compared to people in low poverty ones. Just another one of those costs of being poor I had to throw in there. Between 1999 and 2016, out of the total imprisoned population, 57% of men and 72% of women were living in poverty before they were arrested,

compared to an 11.8% rate in the nation overall. This is in part due to the disastrous war on drugs that has targeted poorer areas and black and brown people. And when a poor person does find themselves swept up into the carceral system, they often have to contend with cash bail, which they can rarely afford to pay, which is the reason Sandra Bland was forced to spend that terrible weekend in jail

that ultimately cost her her life. And beyond incarceration itself, there are all the violations and fines and fees and late fees for parking tickets and traffic violations and et cetera, all of which are easily afforded by rich people, but are often crisis inducing for a person living paycheck to paycheck.

Patreon subscriber Briar writes, I got pulled over and ticketed for an improper lane change and missed the court date because my boss threatened to fire me for my minimum wage job. A warrant was issued for my arrest and I had to pawn or sell most of my possessions to post my $600 bail before a judge would let me have a new court date.

My money minus the court fees and original $125 wasn't returned for nearly three months and I lost nearly 15 pounds rationing food to make rent waiting for my money back, ACAB. I think that stands for Alley Cats Ate Bananas. Weird thing to say at the end there, but I support it. And yet those living in poverty are often preyed upon when it comes to these violations.

In the aftermath of the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, a DOJ investigation found that city officials work together at every level of enforcement, from city management to the local prosecutor to the police department, to make as much money from fines and court fees as possible, ranging from schemes to raise total fines for municipal code violations,

to asking cops to write as many citations as possible. And of course, these efforts were specifically focused on the black residents of Ferguson, where 25% of blacks live below the poverty line compared to 11% of whites. You see, we don't just make it really expensive to be poor in this country, we also make it a crime to be poor.

And at least one of the reasons that's allowed is because it makes other people money to do so. In Ferguson, those fees and court fines amounted to $2.6 million, otherwise known as the city's second largest source of income. And Ferguson isn't unique. Most cities make a huge portion of their money

specifically from ticketing the poor. As I mentioned before with payday loans, the existence of poor people is directly tied to the profits of others. Landlords, for example, are twice as likely to overcharge and exploit their tenants in high poverty areas. Even those who are supposed to be implementing our social safety net are often working hand in hand

with private actors who are siphoning off billions of dollars meant for our society's most vulnerable population in what author Daniel L. Hatcher calls the poverty industry. Hatcher writes, states and their human service agencies are partnering with private companies to form a vast poverty industry, turning America's most vulnerable populations into a source of revenue.

The resulting industry is strip mining billions in federal aid and other funds from impoverished families, abused and neglected children, and the disabled and elderly poor. And if you really think about it, much of the social safety net is not really functioning as assistance to poor people, but rather as a bonus to the profits of wealthy corporations

who don't want to pay a living wage. The people working for them are forced to rely on government aid. And so our social safety net is essentially subsidizing the profits of large corporations. It's basically trickle up economics, a thing it has always been. And while we're talking about the act of receiving aid,

we should probably note that even that is designed to be more expensive if you are poor. Specifically because the United States government absolutely loves hurling as much bureaucracy as they possibly can at poor people. If you've ever applied for something like food stamps, you probably know how incredibly time consuming the paperwork is.

Compare this to something like those PPP loans during the depths of the pandemic. People with means who had preexisting relationships with banks and fancy city talking accountants and guard tigers were able to access PPP loans and small business loans quickly and easily. While the working poor had to wait hours and sometimes days in line to even talk to somebody

and months to receive their unemployment benefits if they ever received them at all. Even Ron DeSantis admitted that the Florida unemployment system was designed to fail, though he did so for craven political purposes and to cover his own butt by blaming the Florida system's failures on the previous administration, which is what we have come to expect from Ron DeSanctimonious and I don't care what anyone says, it's a great nickname.

You still got it, King. The pandemic, of course, really shined a light on this hogwash. With the total inadequacy of our social safety net on full display for everyone to see, even Trump and the Republicans were forced to acknowledge that the best thing to do was to just give people money. And wouldn't you know it, it worked.

Researchers found that the Trump transfers and then later the Biden bucks significantly improved Americans' ability to buy food and pay household bills and reduced anxiety and depression with the largest benefits going to the poorest households and those with children. Patreon subscriber Joni writes, "'I could only ever afford one tire at a time

"'if something happened to one. "'So for years, I lost a tire once a year. "'Stopped happening after I replaced all four at once "'with a stimulus check.'" And to his credit, while Republicans were fixated on Mr. Potato Head's butthole or spud hole or whatever, Biden included an expanded child tax credit as part of the $2 trillion American Rescue Plan,

which provided monthly payments to a majority of working families that amounted to between $3,000 and $3,600 to each family per child for the year. And though the legislation was somewhat means tested, there was a notable absence of the restrictions and red tape typical of most safety net programs. There were no drug tests or work requirements

or mountains of paperwork or overnight police stakeouts. There were essentially no strings attached and go figure the plan worked. According to a report by the Brookings Institution, the child tax credit lifted 3.7 million children out of poverty, significantly improved financial security and food security, and resulted in healthier eating.

Eligible families had significant declines in credit card debt and were far less reliant on high cost financial services, such as payday loans, pawn shops, and also had reduced rates of selling blood plasma. They were better able to pay their bills, withstand emergency expenses, and had many fewer evictions. Those who received the child tax credit

were also able to afford tutors for their kids and spend more time with their children. And this impact was felt most acutely by the poorest Americans. It basically made many of the costs of being poor that we've described in this video just a little bit more manageable. It's like hope, a breath of fresh air

for so many Americans suffocating under the massive weight of poverty. Truly, we saw a step toward a brighter future with the child tax credit, a peak into a better America filled with possibilities for all. And so naturally they dumped it. Of course they did.

Silly Cody flirting with hope and then dropping his bottle of grape juice. After all, think of the pawn shop and payday loan owners. How dare we deny them their prey? I mean, we all knew this was the likely outcome when the bill was signed. We even mentioned it in a video at the time, but it's still just, it's so fucking kerthunkery

that we could pass a law that cut child poverty by 46%, the lowest on record, and then just let it expire. All of the Republicans opposed it, of course, and Joe Manchin came out and suggested that the recipients of the expanded child tax credit were probably spending the money on drugs with zero evidence, and then the whole thing just got left on the cutting room floor.

Fucking pathetic. And as a result, wouldn't you know, the child poverty rate is rising again ever since the expanded child tax credit expired. Surprise face emoji. And this whole ordeal with the child tax credit kind of reveals the brutal truth. This country is not collectively interested

in actually solving the problem of poverty. It would be easy to say that this country hates poor people. And I mean, yeah, that's true. But it's also worth thinking about the fact that our society goes to extraordinary measures to make sure that poor people stay poor. If we truly hated poor people so much, wouldn't we want there to be fewer poor people

by like giving them money or something to make sure they're no longer poor? But the truth is that America loves poor people. America needs poor people. They need them the same way that the Joker needs Batman. If Batman was a single black mother on welfare, which I'm pretty sure he isn't. I haven't kept up with the comics.

I don't care for that woke stuff in my comics. I like it back in the day when there was no woke stuff. And America needs poor people, not just because it makes money from them, but because a lot of people want the prospect of poverty in our society to serve as a motivator for the working class, the carrot or the stick, right? Maybe you'll get rich one day, but in the meantime,

you better work hard or else you'll be poor. It's this. That'll show those poor. Why are you cheering, Fry? You're not rich. True, but someday I might be rich and then people like me better watch their step. But of course, the secret lurking behind

the carrot and stick analogy is that there are plenty of carrots to go around if it weren't for the people lurking behind the carrot and stick analogy is that there are plenty of carrots to go around if it weren't for the people hoarding all the carrots, you know? That's why I'm suspicious of every horse, something to think about. And so again, why is being poor so expensive? Because we designed it that way.

The system is not broken, it is working as intended. This entire video has essentially just been a description of the inner workings of capitalism, a framework that intentionally encourages and rewards the act of squeezing every last drop of profit you can from anywhere and anyone you can, particularly the most vulnerable who, uncoincidentally, don't have the means to fight back.

And part of the reason this is all able to persist is because the many myths that serve to uphold capitalism obscure the unfairness inherent in the system and justify the intrinsic exploitation and coercion at the heart of it all. A rich person earned what they achieved, and a poor person deserves what they get. And to be clear, when I say myths, I mean lies.

I mean false promises. Because the promise that all you need to do in order to succeed in this country is work hard is contradicted by the fact that the greatest predictor of whether or not you will grow up to be rich or poor is whether or not your family was rich or poor. And this fact alone pretty much destroys the myth that our current system of capitalism is an apparatus

that upholds the ideal of equal opportunity. And while capitalist stands love talking about equality of opportunity over the dreaded equality of outcome, the latter is clearly the answer in this case. Though no mainstream politician is actually advocating for equality of outcome, the fact is that creating outcomes that are more equal

is one of the best ways to create more equality of opportunity. We literally just saw this happen with the stimulus checks and child tax credits. And we've seen it happen time and time again in the various guaranteed income test cases. That shit works. And so the only reason someone wouldn't want it

is because they like the fact that poor people are punished. And I don't know, I think that's bad. I think we should be aiming for a society devoid of poverty altogether. A brave stance, apparently. Because you see, money is fake. We made it up, like Santa or Alex Cross or the shackles of modesty.

And we know the things that human beings need to survive. We now have the capability to produce and distribute these resources. And yet we put a price tag on those things and turn them into commodities to be bought and sold for profit. Because when it comes right down to it, the reason it is so expensive to be poor

is not because God willed it to be so, or because it's a fact of nature, but because it was a choice we made. Poverty is a choice, not a choice for the poor mind you, but a choice that our society has collectively made. The continued existence of poverty in America is a policy choice. To quote Patreon producer Martin Kaye,

"'There is nothing new about poverty. "'What is new is we now have the techniques "'and the resources to get rid of poverty. "'The real question is whether we have the will. A real producer we have. Don't look it up. I said, don't look it up. Fuck, fine.

It's Martin Luther King Jr. and not a patron. I just, I wanted to look important. Also, the dog pills are just ravishing me right now. Oh, that reminds me, I'm gonna solve my toothache. Maybe avert your eyes, but have a nice whatever. How committed to the bit am I? How committed am I?

How am I gonna do it? I eat a bunch of garbage on this show, I ate all the eggs. I'm not gonna do it obviously, you freaks. Fucking sick freaks. You fuckingaks. Fucking sick freaks. You fucking, you sick ass freaks. You want me to drill my mouth on camera? You fucking sick freaks. What the fuck?

Are you happy? I did it, okay? I told them, I'm just kidding. It's another prop. Thank you so much for watching and we hope you liked the video, subscribed to the channel, all those sort of things. Check out our patreon.com slash some more news.

Thank you so much to our patrons who sent all the messages. They're ones we didn't get to include. We love you and appreciate your support and all your help with this. Make sure to check out our merch store with the puppet on stuff. We mentioned the puppet in this episode. So if you're new here, sorry for when you finally meet the puppet. We've got a podcast called Even More News. We've got this show as a podcast. It's called Some More News. Both of them are where the podcasts are.

And I think that's all the stuff I have to say for this part. So I'm just gonna go cry about how you wanted me to drill into my mouth on camera. Because again, fucked up. Fucking sick freaks. Love you.