Posts Tagged backwards thinking

This article in the Washington Post describes the phenomenon behind the phrase, “Being poor is expensive.” I agree that people with little money sometimes end up spending more on the same items that those with more money can get cheaper. The article gives the example of urban poor having the choice of either riding a bus for a few hours to get to and from a grocery store or spending much more to buy the same items at a close-by convenience store.

When it comes to food, there’s not much to argue about. You’ve gotta eat. If you don’t live close to a grocery store and you don’t own a vehicle, your choices are pretty limited. But so many of the other examples given by the author ring false to me.

The poor pay more in hassle: the calls from the bill collectors, the landlord, the utility company. So they spend money to avoid the hassle. The poor pay for caller identification because it gives them peace of mind to weed out calls from bill collectors.

Here, the author seems to have confused “the poor” with “people who don’t pay their bills”. I get it. When you’ve got money, it’s easier to live within your means and pay your bills on time. It’s easier to weather an unexpected expense without falling behind. But that doesn’t mean that poor people don’t pay their bills too. As far as I’m concerned, this comment does a disservice to those poor people who live within their means and pay their bills on time.

The rich have direct deposit for their paychecks. The poor have check-cashing and payday loan joints, which cost time and money.

I’m sorry. Can poor people not get checking accounts too? It’s been a long time since I opened an account, so I browsed the web sites of several popular banks, and it looks to me like all you need is an address, a deposit, and a social security number.

Outside the ACE check-cashing office on Georgia Avenue in Petworth, Harrison Blakeney, 67, explains a hard financial lesson of poverty. He uses the check-cashing store to pay his telephone bill. The store charges 10 percent to take Blakeney’s money and send the payment to the phone company. That 10 percent becomes what it costs him to get his payment to the telephone company on time. Ten percent is more than the cost of a stamp. But, Blakeney says: “I don’t have time to mail it. You come here and get it done. Then you don’t get charged with the late fee.”

You “don’t have time to mail it”? Somebody explain this to me. You have time to go to the check cashing place, stand in line, and pay the bill, but you don’t have time to get a stamp and drop the bill in the mail? What am I missing here? Could poor financial decisions like this be contributing to Mr. Blakeney’s situation?

You ask him why he didn’t just go to a bank. But his story is as complicated as the various reasons people find themselves in poverty and in need of a check-cashing joint. He says he lost his driver’s license and now his regular bank “won’t recognize me as a human. That’s why I had to come here. It’s a rip-off, but it’s like a convenience store. You pay for the convenience.”

Losing your driver’s license is not unique to poor people, but nevertheless, you can get a state-issued picture ID at the DMV. Will that cost you in terms of time and money? Probably. But how many checks would you have to cash for free at your own bank, instead of paying $15/$100 at the check-cashing place, to make up that cost?

On a hot spring afternoon, Jacob Carter finds himself standing in a checkout line at the Giant on Alabama Avenue SE. Before the cashier finishes ringing up his items, he puts $43 on the conveyor belt. But his bill comes to $52.07. He has no more money, so he tells the clerk to start removing items.

The clerk suggests that he use his “bonus card” for savings.

Carter tells the clerk he has no such card.

I checked online. The Giant bonus card is free. You can apply for one and get it immediately at the customer service desk in any Giant grocery store. Why doesn’t he have one? Why doesn’t he go get one right now? The author of the article is more interested in presenting a sob-story than in actually examining the issue, and so does not raise questions like these.

I may be a Jack-Booted Liberal, but I’m not Liberal enough to sympathize with these stories.