The Cognitive Cost of Poverty 459
An anonymous reader writes "It's a common trope that most poor people are poor because they're lazy or just inherently bad with money. But a new study (abstract) makes a fascinating find: being poor actually reduces your cognitive capabilities when thinking about money. 'In a series of experiments run by researchers at Princeton, Harvard, and the University of Warwick, low-income people who were primed to think about financial problems performed poorly on a series of cognition tests, saddled with a mental load that was the equivalent of losing an entire night's sleep. Put another way, the condition of poverty imposed a mental burden akin to losing 13 IQ points, or comparable to the cognitive difference that's been observed between chronic alcoholics and normal adults.' This makes the difficulty in climbing out of poverty much easier to understand. The researchers also demonstrated causality by showing that thinking about a very small expense led to no impairment, while thinking about a very large expense did. They confirmed this by looking at a group of farmers in India who tend to receive most of their income at one time — immediately following their harvest. Shortly before that payment, when the farmers had very little money, their scores dropped as well."
Re:FTFY (Score:5, Interesting)
But they must be good at something...if only at stealing.
Homeless people are good at things too, a lot of them. If you go out and talk to them, you'll find a lot of them have very good skills. I knew one guy who was good at construction (and management too, just not managing his own life). The guy could easily pull down $2000 a week, and yet half the time he was out on the streets. Why? Because he spent it all as fast as he got it. On booze, or horse races or in one particularly bad situation, on a woman. The money just burned a hole in his pocket.
If you talk to homeless people, you'll find that almost all of them have horrific money management skills, even though often it's because of psychological problems etc.
Re:Strategy (Score:3, Interesting)
Whats you strategy? 1) Kill them while they're young 2) If they somehow survive, give them more welfare 3) Increase taxes on productive people to finance the ever-increasing welfare state 4) Greece, here we come
Same Story, New Data. (Score:5, Interesting)
This isn't actually really new news for some folks in the US. Public Educators have know this sort of thing in the form of other studies for many years.
For example, studies have shown that people who are low-income, tend to favor larger quantities of food. Middle-class/income favor higher quality foods, and when it comes to upper-income/class, they are more interested in the quality of the presentation of food.
We have long since known that low-income families have higher risks for needing additional aid in learning, because they do carry a much heavier mental/emotional burden than other families. They're constantly worried about if they'll have enough money to put food on the table, to keep the lights on, or even pay the rent. If low-income families first pay rent, food, utilities and transportation, they are in a completely different mental/emotional position than if they're worrying about one of those basic areas not being covered.
Re:FTFY (Score:5, Interesting)
And then it's only a common trope amongst the right-wing ultra wealthy crowd. Many of which were born into money.
Sorry, no. It's also a common trope amongst the right-wing wealthy-wannabe crowd. Including the ones who are pretty damned poor themselves and will only be rich, or even well-off in their dreams.
Been "rich". Been poor. Poor makes you feel like you're jammed inside a tin can with limited options. Even if you're poor with money in the bank, but unsure when you're going to become rich again.
Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy your way out of a lot of everyday problems. It can also offer a buffer in case the way out turned out to be a bust and you have to try something else. When you have money you can afford to make mistakes.
In short, I already knew this firsthand.
Soda saves me money (Score:4, Interesting)
by drinking water instead of three sodas a day
I have a mental disability whose treatment requires stimulant medication. I went on Diet Mtn Dew (caffeine) at $1 per day to get off Strattera (atomoxetine) at $4 per day plus the cost of regular doctor visits to renew the prescription.
they can easily afford in-state tuition at a good university.
But would that cover textbooks, room and board, and the like? If you mean that the kids should go to school in town and live with parents, that would require the parents to spend even more to move within public transit range of the school.
Re:FTFY (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it's rare that someone is driven to the streets due to a single fault as well. People often assume that homeless people are lazy and that's how they ended up on the street, and if they would just care enough to get off the street and get a job, they would be off in no time.
There have been lots of studies of the homeless. The one thing they found in common was that homeless people had no social networks. When people have family or friends to help them, they don't wind up on the streets. The people who wind up on the streets are those who have no one to help them.
I remember seeing some studies that found that half the homeless were mentally disturbed, and the other half were alcoholics or drug addicts.
One of the surprising things they found out in New York City was that they could simply give people housing, without social services, without counseling, and most of them did OK. Whatever the underlying pathology, it improves things to give them normal housing. Homeless people resist living in shelters that are run in some ways like prisons, but they usually are willing to live in normal housing.
I think it's comforting to people to tell themselves that were they in that situation, they could EASILY identify the problem and fix it in a snap. That way, they don't have to feel sorry for said people, and don't have to worry themselves about what they would do if they ever end up in such a situation. "Oh, I'd just not be lazy, and bam, I'm off the street."
That's known as the fallacy of the just universe: "The world is just, therefore, if somebody is having problems, he must have done something to deserve it."
Corollary: "Therefore, I shouldn't have to pay taxes to help them."
And the explanation the psychologists give for that fallacy is pretty much as you describe.
Re:FTFY (Score:5, Interesting)
In New York State it was pretty clear what happened.
The institutionalized mental hospitals really were snake pits. They were badly run by incompetent, underpaid aides, and made their residents worse.
Psychiatrists found that the best way to help most of that population was to move them into supportive housing that was as close to normal living conditions as possible. It also made a big difference if they were living among friends and family, in a city for example, rather than off in an isolated prison-like hospital. A lot of these patients never should have been institutionalized. They were capable of holding jobs and functioning pretty well.
And there were new psychiatric drugs that helped with a lot of the worst symptoms of mental illnesses like schizophrenia.
Deinstitutionalization was very popular among liberal and conservative politicians, because it was cheaper than traditional mental hospitals. Their argument was, they would close down the institutions, and use the money to create community residences and mental health services.
But then, after they closed the hospitals, they didn't use the money for community residences and mental health services. They set up for example community mental health centers. But it was a lot cheaper for them to treat women with housewife blues than to treat schizophrenics.
So then these former residents wound up on the streets. Fortunately, the Partnership for the Homeless sued New York City, and then other cities around the country, to force them to provide housing for the homeless, as they were usually required under the "provide for the public welfare" provisions of most city and state constitutions.
There were a very few people who really did need to be institutionalized, because they were a danger to themselves or others. But we still don't have anyplace to put them. According to a recent New York Times series, those residences are still hellholes. Attendants were raping patients and kept on the job.
Re:wouldn't you love to be wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
First of all, you are correct to be proud of your father, and you are also correct to take a responsible outlook on your life. That sort of attitude will get you far. But you really just aren't grasping the arguments people are putting out to you. Hopefully my perspective is helpful for you to understand why people are disagreeing with you.
Let me break down my budget for you. I currently make $13/hr. After taxes and health insurance (which I am fortunate to get an an affordable rate from my company) I bring in $1600 net every month.
I am very fortunate in that my work provides a free place for me to live. Therefore I do not have to worry about rent or utilities, which is a huge boon. I am also very fortunate to live in an area with a very affordable community college. The tuition and books every semester runs me around $2000. Going three semesters a year, this comes out to almost exactly $500 a month. Food costs me about $150.
My community college is about 25 miles away from where I work and live, so I have to drive a lot. I spend about $200 a month on gasoline, $100 on insurance, and $150 on my auto payment. Should have saved up and bought a cheaper car cash you might say? Well, I had a cheap, reliable car. Someone t-boned me and ruined it. I got $2500 for it, but you can't buy a reliable car for $2500 so I had to take out a loan to cover the other $4000 I spent. So there was step one pushing me into a shitty situation.
Out of the $500 that is left over, most goes to service my consumer debt, of which I have about $4000. Again, you might criticize me for using credit unwisely but I can assure you that nearly all of that was imperative. I have only had free rent for less than a year, meaning my budget was inadequate in the past and I financed car repairs, medical bills, anything unexpected and unavoidable on credit. Because I literally had no other choice. Each of these situations has, in the past, caused me to stop going to school for a short time while I got my finances together, which included me working multiple jobs at the same time. Never janitorial, but some pretty shitty work nonetheless.
So here I am, 26 years old, and I'm working my ass off 40+ hours a week on top of going to school full time trying to make it happen. And it will happen. But I will not finish school before I'm 30, even in the best case scenario. I probably won't be out of debt until a few years after that (once I hit university tuition jumps to $10k+ a year for a couple years and I will almost definitely have to stop working so much in order to succeed, meaning large student loans). The idea that I could be flying around in a Learjet if I only I bucked up and worked a bit harder, or that I could pay for my tuition by giving up soda is so fucking ludicrous that it's hard to even take you seriously.
You known how I can tell you don't have any perspective? You haven't said a single thing about yourself. It's all "My dad did this" or "my dad did that." You obviously had a father who kicked ass and did very well by himself, and I don't mean to discount that, but what about you? Do you really think that if you were born poor and to lazy ass parents that you would be in the exact same place you are right now? Think of every dumb mistake you have ever made. Every time you made a poor decision and it somehow worked out ok for you. There is somebody out there that made that same decision and had it blow up in their face. There's somebody who wasn't given the opportunities you were and is having to scrap it out tooth and nail. Be grateful for how fortunate you have been, and don't patronize them with stupid ass arguments about giving up soda and paying for university tuition with the difference (I don't drink soda FWIW).