Why do people keep assuming that "lower income" = stupid, lazy and dirty?

Gee the same as people ,that think fat people are just lazy and bad eaters.

I’ve never understood this. Some of the most grueling, exhausting jobs pay minimum (or sub-minimum) wages. Survival requires working 2–3 jobs simultaneously.

@Love_my_doggie that’s right. So I don’t get where this stereotype even comes from.

Which people? I don’t think people in general think that.

What @SQUEEKY2 said.

The statistics are everywhere @Sagacious. Next time you see “Children from low income families are more likely to….” Read it.

It is the result of the pervasive indoctrination with propaganda like “everyone can become a millionaire” and “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” and the resulting ‘conclusion’ that if you are not rich, it is ”your own fault and you deserve it” fostered and driven by the upper echelons to distract from their own abuse and exploitation, and to justify their own existence.

I think the primary utility of such stereotypes is that they provide the rationale for the rejection and avoidance of poor folks. It’s a class thing. And it is particularly rampant and reinforced by a middle class ruthlessly driven toward social climbing. All of us suffer from it. And it is more pervasive than we realize. The proof is everywhere. For example, Trump is President this very instant because most of us just cannot wrap our heads around the possibility that a man can be both rich AND stupid. And it works both ways. How can a genius wind up broke and homeless? It is also necessary that those on the bottom be shunned, lest measures be justified toward their relief. Thus the poor are poor BECAUSE they are dirty, lazy, bereft of ambition—they choose to be poor, and are therefore unworthy of compassion or consideration. We don’t owe them anything. We are actually conditioned to shun those on the bottom as though the condition were contagious.

Here is one @Sagacious.
High income families are able to put more money towards their children’s cognitive development than those living in poverty. Parents with low incomes, on average, have less time to read to their children, no-funds for pre-school, and less stable home environments” Source.

Every bit of that is BS. There are plenty of free preschool options available to low income families, plus it’s not even necessary.

It should read, “The children of parents who don’t (spend 5 minutes) reading to them (or help them with spelling and other homework) are less likely to succeed academically.” It doesn’t take money to read to your kids and it doesn’t take that much time. If they have time to cook dinner they can listen to a kid read while they’re cooking.
If they have time to watch TV they have time to read to their kids.

“Less stable home environment”? Again, that goes right back on the parent and the choices they make. Being poor really has nothing to do with it.

We need to focus on the actual source of the problem, parent’s choices, instead of blaming something else.

And the worst part is, that kind of tripe does not help. I suppose it’s meant to, but it doesn’t. It just gives low income parents an excuse for their kids doing poorly in school. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy.

@Dutchess_III I agree, it’s bad parenting.

(I“m not a parent, but I think it’s common sense, to go over homework, reading, show up for events, etc….)

The statements are generalizations and trends that can be drawn from statistics. It isn’t that “being poor is an excuse for having poor-performing children”, it’s that there is a correlation between poor performance in school and low income, that statistics show these things to be true (due to a number of factors in this example, including the generally low performance of public schools in poorer areas. There are a lot of factors that contribute and it isn’t all poor choices on the part of parents). What one chooses to do with that statistical information is another story, but the trends being noted are not incorrect.

The answer to your question is moot. You are ranting about how poor people live and behave. Did you know that a lot of poor people are poor because they are on disability? And did you know that those who are disabled, whether physically, mentally or emotionally have a hard time doing things? Those who are disabled and not able to go on SSDI have to work to get any income in. That may take all their energy.
Hmm maybe they shouldn’t have had children then. Maybe they had children BEFORE they had those problems. It’s often not about time, it’s about energy.

Then their disability is the reason for their problems, and that can’t be helped. I’m not talking about things that really can’t be helped @anniereborn. But depending on the disability, they should still be able to read to their kids, or listen to their kids read. And have the kids help out around the house. If they literally can’t, then they can’t. Has nothing to do with money.

Lack of money doesn’t stop you from reading to your kids, or helping them out with home work. It’s something else, but not the lack of money.

I feel like those kinds of statistics are disabling @Demosthenes. They don’t offer much in the way of encouragement.

I’ve read this “question” a few times, and can’t figure out what is going on. The question is phrased as a defense of “lower income” people, but the details are just a “let’s shit on poor people because I’m so amazing!” mess. Seriously – what is going on?

We need to give these people some hope is my point, and quit harping on their poverty. Stop with the stereotypes How can we give them the tools to do well in spite of their poverty?

If someone’s interested in a potential actual answer to the question subject, ignoring the details and other personal side comments, I would suggest that.

Maybe it tends to be a form of projection and ego defense. Many people are invested in there being some sort of universal truth in a correlation of income with intelligence, working for money, and other virtues. And resentful and/or afraid it may actually largely be an inaccurate mindset that they have suffered under for most of their lives.

Because lower income people are usually blue collar workers who are not college educated.

Not everyone does assume they are stupid, lazy, and dirty, but it’s part of politics today so it gets a lot of play in social media. There are plenty of voices out there defending the poor, stating the unfair situation they are in, and that they are often victims of their circumstances.

I think a lot of people want to believe the poor are making bad decisions so they themselves feel less vulnerable to becoming poor.

The poor often live in conditions that aren’t shiny and new, and their clothing may not be crisp and new, and so people might confuse that with dirty, but it’s too different things.

It’s cherry picking, because there is a portion of the poor who do make “bad” decisions, but there are just as many or more who don’t even have a choice. Every social class has people making bad decision. In fact, it’s more frustrating to me when people with high incomes are making financial decisions that keep then in a constant state of one step away from poverty. Anyone can make a bad decision, or have a bad circumstance hit, and suddenly they are poor. No one is immune.

Lastly, it’s frustrating to middle class and wealthy people to work at jobs they hate, and to not buy new things, and to make conscious decisions to save rather than have some things they might prefer, and then see the poor buy the very things the people with more money have sacrificed for financial security.

There was a poor jelly who said they don’t understand why people think poor people shouldn’t have nice things during a conversations about computers, smart phones, and TV’s. Well, we who wait for old equipment to die before we buy the newest piece of technology really don’t understand someone with very little money getting a new iPhone every 2 years.

I have a friend who would have liked to have had more children, but she felt she couldn’t afford it. It’s logical she might be resentful of supporting other people’s children through tax dollars. She is liberal enough that she is in favor of free public education K-12 and she would never want any children to suffer, but if she sees a single parent with 4 kids who has always been in poverty, not that they fell on a hard time, she probably judges that woman as making bad decisions. I guess that could be reworded as stupid decisions, I hate the word stupid though. We all make bad decisions, but when you have more money you have a cushion to help through the screw ups.

People born into poverty usually don’t have the access to the same information as the middle class, and in so many ways society is working against them. It’s so unfair. It’s way more expensive to be poor. The poor get dinged with fees and interest that people with more money don’t.

As far as lazy, it’s cherry picking again. The working poor typically work incredibly hard. They do exhausting difficult work, and they are anything but lazy. There are people who choose not to work when the money could really help. There are people who make sure they don’t earn too much money so they can maintain their government subsidies. I guess some people see that as lazy, or taking advantage. Plenty of rich people do this very same thing though. The wealthy pay lawyers and accountants to figure out how to get subsidies and help from the government.

@Dutchess_III I think your heart is in the right place on this one, but you are coming across as very judgmental towards people who were poor but didn’t manage it like you did.

I’ve been poor too. Let’s consider it a somewhat temporary poverty because I was a very young mother and needed to obtain my schooling while raising my child and working part time for $8 an hour. I had the luxury of having my parent’s education, time and availability to help with things like home repair and childcare. Those kind of social supports are NOT available to many/most poor people!

How can you possibly blame housing instability on parents poor choices? That baffles me. Think deeper. Just because you were able to maintain a home does NOT mean that most poor people can! Go read the book Evicted, for example. The systems are designed to benefit those with power/money… and housing is no different.

The work done by many poor people is physically demanding, often with an inconsistent schedule, lack of benefits, may need multiple part-time positions to make ends work. Many have lower levels of education than the average citizen, more mental illness, more disability, less financial wealth within their social circle, etc. Generally, there are less books in the home.

When I was a young teen parent working and going to school, I did not have the excess energy to help my kiddo with school like my husband and I can with our little ones now. My mom had a masters degree in social work and would do the leg work to find the best schools and let me know about scholarship applications for my little one. I literally would not have been able to find that out on my own. Living my difficult, sad, poor life and loving my kid/maintaining my home was as much as I could do. I remember reading a paragraph or two to my son at bedtime and being in tears with exhaustion and I just couldn’t do any more.

And just because many resources exist (think free preschool), not everyone has the time, energy, priority, knowledge, skill to find and utilize these resources. System navigation is actually a complex skill that many people lack, although if you have money you can usually find/pay people to navigate the complexity for you.

You frame things as choices (books in the home, utilization of community resources, housing stability) when they are just as much (if not more) dependent on education, priority, power, and systemic oppression. In my opinion, your framing is so narrow that you come across as very disparaging. My house was messy and I was always behind on dishes. My neighbors often cut my grass. You would call me lazy (“It costs next to nothing to wipe things down…”) You are ignoring trauma, mental health, isolation, loneliness, resentment, and a complete lack of energy after carrying the weight of your family on your shoulders alone. The options are far more complex than lazy vs. money. You can do better.

@Cupcake I actually take serious issue with the pressure put on parents to participate with their child’s education, including reading to the children. I think some of the research is not taking into account the education level and social class of the parents. In my generation, and my parents and grandparents, there was much less pressure for parents to be so involved. Many of them were immigrants who didn’t read and write very well in English. Many parents had much less education than their kids back then. My mom had a college degree, but she couldn’t help me with the classes I was most interested in—math and science. Somehow, that generation also were critical thinkers and got higher degrees and became very successful in life. I credit the availability of inexpensive higher education.

I do think reading to children is a good thing, children love to be read to in my experience, but I also think it was nice when the library and schools had people volunteering to do that too. I think the home has become even more work for parents rather than a time to enjoy the family, and part of it is the expectations by educators now. Some of this is changing. There is some backlash now against daily homework for very young children.

I learned a ton by talking to my parents, and listening to the adults discuss things. If I had been doing homework instead (a repeat of what was taught in school) I might not have heard all of those conversations. Plus, everyone needs time to relax and be creative.

@JLeslie I love your comment. I agree that there is too much pressure on parents. Also, why should schools rely on parents to help kids get their work done? I don’t understand common core math whatsoever, even though I’m getting my PhD and can handle very advanced statistical analysis and interpretation. I used to send in notes with my oldest that we couldn’t handle more tantrums and fighting over homework and he got as much done as we could handle.

In the way you describe, reading to kids is kind of like breastfeeding. Certainly beneficial and valuable, but not as approachable for everyone… so let’s not be so judgy.

@Cupcake Exactly. The tantrums and fights have to be counterproductive.

I think parents have a responsibility to make their children feel loved, safe, and fed. If they need the government to help with that fine, but my point is parents provide a situation where children are ready and able to learn, and not preoccupied with adult problems. School is where they get the specific subject matter.

That new math thing is a whole topic unto itself. I’m a math person and I think I would have had serious issues with it if I had young children.

@Cupcake The link didn’t read “housing instability.” It read ” less stable home environments” That means their household isn’t stable. As I said, I had kids coming into the classroom who didn’t go to bed until 3 a.m.
Kids who are kept up half the night by parents screaming and fighting.
That’s instability in the household.

To answer “why should schools rely on parents to help kids get their work done?”…the schools are simply begging parents to get involved in their kid’s education. I don’t care for core math myself, but the kids I taught did a good job of explaining it to me. The schools are asking parents to at least show some interest.

My point is, start targeting the actual problems. Stop using the umbrella of “poverty” to explain away instability, or to explain away children doing poorly in the schools, and start targeting the actual reasons these things are happening.
It’s like they’re saying, “Well, you know, if those parents were suddenly making $100,000 a year, the kids wouldn’t have these problems.”
Yes, they would.

@Dutchess_III 1000% agree.

Thank you. Some one stopped screaming long enough to hear what I was trying to say.

They need to start running ads about becoming involved in your child’s education.
Ads defining what it means to create a stable environment.
Lack of money doesn’t cause these things. Attitude and ignorance do.

@Dutchess_III And age. Some of my young friends having families think it’s okay to keep the kids out past midnight on school nights consistently. There’s just a lot of craziness for some kids now, not a stable, quiet, scheduled routine and they suffer academically for it.

$100k can solve a lot of problems!

The parents don’t need to work a second job, maybe they won’t be so physically and mentally exhausted, and maybe they can pay for help if they need it.

Money can’t cure a bad marriage or an abusive parent, but it absolutely can help a whole lot of things that affect the home environment.

That’s what liberals are fighting for. Better pay so the living environment is better. Safer streets, safe structures, healthy food, reliable transportation, parents home at night. Money does affect many things, to deny it is to deny reality.

Money is no guarantee of a better environment, but it’s statistically more likely.

@JLeslie “Well, we who wait for old equipment to die before we buy the newest piece of technology really don’t understand someone with very little money getting a new iPhone every 2 years.”

Are people seriously still not getting it at this point in time? Poor people aren’t going out and buying a new iPhone every couple of years. Few people are, even among those who can afford it.

Cellular service providers are subsidizing those iPhones, at little to no cost to the customer, in exchange for the customer agreeing to a service contract for X amount of time (usually 2–3 years).

You stated that if lower income children aren’t doing well in school it is because they get no back up at home. This tends to be true in single parent lower income students. The parents are struggling and don’t have time to get involved in their child’s education. Also if the parent is the second or third or etc., generation, it makes it difficult. Two, lower income children usually go to underfunded and over crowded schools. Making it also difficult for those who need special attention to get that attention.

It is a horrible stereo type that they are dirty or lazy. I have seen dirty and lazy come from middle class families to upper middle class families. And lazy can apply to rich up to poor. But when they say lazy, they mean that they don’t progress because of laziness. And not because of lack of education, or because their home life didn’t teach them how to succeed, or because of physical or mental issues that aren’t diagnosed.

I agree that success starts at home but some children from really messed up families have succeeded because they found other people to help them along the way, and also they are wired for success. Some people just have that drive and some feel defeated and alone when they can’t get help from home or from their schools or any other adult around them.
I remember this old saying. It takes a village to raise a child. This is true. It also takes a village to fail them.

Stereotypes suck, don’t they? Please remember this when you fat shame others.

Who me? I didn’t fat shame any one.

^^^^ Hahahahahahahahahahaha!

unbelievable

@Darth_Algar If you switch carriers or add a line. I haven’t seen free new latest iPhone if you are a existing customer.

I don’t mean all poor people either. The very poor don’t have iPhones, but there are plenty of lower income people spending everything penny check to check who could make better decisions. That’s true for the middle class too.

I wish the search worked, I would try to find all those Q’s that stick in my mind where low income jellies talk about their splurges on electronics, or not saving for reasons I just don’t understand.

My own niece and nephew, I try to tell them to save more. She gets her nails done regularly, has a BMW, rented a ridiculously expensive apartment, new phone, etc etc. She’ll never have anything if she keeps buying everything. She lives with her boyfriend and they make a nice income combined for their age. If they do things right they could really set themselves up for the future, but part of their risk is coming from families that don’t plan financially for the future. No one to reach and show them how it can be. I think her father maybe does plan somewhat, her parents are divorced, but the mother’s side readily accuses him of not being a good and loving father because he doesn’t open his wallet enough. At least half the time I agree with the father. I’m not talking about basic child support, it’s way beyond that.

Oh, so you’re not actually talking about people with “very little money” afterall.

@Darth_Algar I’ve talked about the poor and middle class having no money on this thread. Spending all your money every pay period is spending like the poor. The very poor have no choice, but there’s poor and there’s poor.

I don’t remember if I said it in this thread, but I clearly remember a jelly who was living with her mom, had a baby as a teen, got pregnant again, and her answer when people were critical of her expensive laptop that she didn’t understand why people think the poor shouldn’t have nice things. To her credit she was studying to be a nurse if I remember correctly, but her choices didn’t look too good to a lot of us. I’m not even judging her first baby, because she was young, and any of us easily could have had it happen, but the second one? While still living with her parents and not able to support herself? She is putting herself behind the 8 ball financially before she even gets out of her parents home.

If she was studying to be a nurse then that laptop was likely vital to her schooling, as more and more schools gravitate to e-learning.

^^I’m sure she needed a laptop, maybe it was a very expensive one and that’s why the jellies made a comment, it doesn’t change her comment about the poor, and it doesn’t change that upper middle class and even 1%er jellies didn’t have such fancy gadgets as she did. Especially, not when they were young and low income. People who have money know how they amassed it over time.

The book The Millionaire Next Door comes to mind. I know a couple who the husband worked construction and the wife a waitress and then later a teacher, who had six kids, who wound up millionaires at retirement time. They weren’t buying the most expensive gadgets, or always the “nice things” believe me. They were not leasing a new car every three years that’s for sure. You become a millionaire not only by making money, but by not spending it. You need money to generate money. They weren’t poor, because they were married and had two incomes in one household. Being single also is usually an obstacle to building wealth. I’m guessing most construction workers and teachers who buy lots of nice things don’t wind up millionaires.

Like I said, it depends on the degree of poor. Someone making minimum wage doesn’t have room to save.

Falling into debt at a very young age is a disaster. Saving at a young age is a road to wealth. When I hear a healthy 22 year old making $25, 000 a year has $3,000 debt on a credit card, and she goes to Starbucks every morning for coffee, gets mani-pedis every 3 weeks, and gets a $10 alcohol drink twice a week when eating out, and is paying the minimum payment due every month I just shake my head. $2X7 $14+$20+$20=$55 a week or $2,850 a year just with those things I named there more or less.

In 5 years that’s going to be $15k debt rather than saving $15k. That’s a $30k spread. I’m rounding numbers. Anyway, one 27 year old now has high debt, and the other can take a vacation, or splurge a little on restaurants, or take 2 days off for her sister’s wedding, and her money will be earning money while she does it.

That’s how I started out. Having $3k in my savings seemed like a lot of money to me when I was in my early 20’s. Other people are looking at $50 minimum payment on their credit card as a small amount of money, not understanding the impact over time.

Is it stupid? It might simply be ignorance, but once they are told the ramifications and they keep on, that’s not looking too smart. Get married and now maybe the couple has $60k. In 15 years at 5% that doubles to $120k without having added a penny during that last 15 years. 27 years old plus 15 is 42 years old. 15 years more at 57 years old that is $240k not having saved any money the previous 30 years. For 30 years they can spend all their income and wind up with close to a quarter of a million dollars in savings heading into retirement, because they made their own coffee and painted their own nails while in their 20’s.

Do you consider $25k poor? I think it’s above the poverty line, I don’t know. It’s more than the federal minimum wage. Still, it’s a modest salary. In some parts of the country it’s very poor obviously, other areas you can get by, especially if you live with a roommate or with your parents for a while.

I see what you’re talking about all the time, @JLeslie. I work for the government agency that gives out “welfare.” When I see the recipients, many, not all of course because I don’t see all, but many have the latest phones, ladies have beautiful handbags, beautifully manicured nails. and many are standing around smoking (cigarettes are over 10 dollars a pack in NYS, not sure exactly what a pack costs but it’s not cheap).

I have brand new handbags (average quality, like Kohl’s quality) which have tags on them and I’m looking to donate them somewhere. There’s a homeless shelter right across the street from where I work. I could bring the handbags there but I know the residents won’t consider them to be up to their standards.

My job is having a big holiday party and one of our coworkers said she had to back out of coming. She had over $500 worth of parking tickets and got a boot on her car. She said she couldn’t come to the party without a professional makeup job, new shoes, manicure, and getting her hair done. She wasn’t using that as an excuse, because she didn’t need an excuse, but really? A professional makeup job? The former County Executive’s wife had told me once that when she had a big event to attend, she would go to a fancy department store like Bloomindales and she’d get the girl at the makeup counter to do her makeup. Then she’d buy a lipstick or something because that’s the goal of the free makeup “consultation” – selling makeup, so she’d buy something small but she scored the free service. Smart.

@JLeslie “I’m sure she needed a laptop, maybe it was a very expensive one and that’s why the jellies made a comment, it doesn’t change her comment about the poor, and it doesn’t change that upper middle class and even 1%er jellies didn’t have such fancy gadgets as she did. Especially, not when they were young and low income. People who have money know how they amassed it over time.”

Sure, those jellies didn’t have such fancy gadgets, especially not when they were younger. Such gadgets likely were not needed (or maybe didn’t even exist) when they were younger. They are now. Nowadays you pretty much need internet access for school. The school likely has specific software that must be used to do this work. That software likely has specific system requirement, hence the “fancy” laptop. Perhaps the laptop is even provided by the school. Since the woman is poor then I’m assuming she has loans, or even some grants to help cover the cost of her schooling. Maybe that grant paid for that laptop.

People are always so quick to make snap judgments about others. You might look at someone, see that they’re poor, but they have a laptop or some other “fancy gadget”. But you don’t know how they may have come into possession of that item. Sure, maybe they spent all their money on it instead of essentials. Maybe they even stole it. Or maybe they got it by signing a service contract with Verizon. Maybe they got the laptop because they got a Pell Grant. Maybe a relative bought it for them. Maybe they won it in a giveaway. You simply do not know.

@Darth_Algar Think what you want. I can’t find the Q. There was another jelly in there who was low income who admitted to having lots of computer equipment, and he said it’s the thing he splurges on, because he’s really into it, and I didn’t judge that at all. I am talking about an overall attitude about spending and multiple big ticket items.

20 years ago we absolutely could have spent $2k on a Mac or $700 on a different computer. I do all my work on my laptop, I don’t have a very expensive laptop. We could keep our old TV, or buy a new expensive flat screen (back when flat screen were easily $1,500—$2,000). I see a lot of waste by people who really can’t afford it. Maybe they have the money to buy the things, but they are living check to check. @jca2 just gave more examples. I have 3 purses I interchange regularly. They each cost about $45. I’ve had them 3–5 years. I have one that was $120 that was given to me by my husband as a gift 7 years ago. I have a few others that I’ve had for over 15 years that are for special occasions. I can afford any handbag I want.

The question is, are they saving anything? If not, then they are in a terribly precarious position. One bad thing happens, God forbid, and they can’t pay their bills. That means you pay. Society pays.

Again, I am not talking about so poor there is no room to save. I’m talking about poor enough that if they took some steps they could be in a better situation. Some people do it, some don’t.

I’m so happy I don’t have to work full time. The only reason that’s the case is because for 20 years I didn’t buy expensive things, I didn’t buy very expensive cars, purses, clothing, when I could have. I have Porsche’s, most jellies know that, but we bought our first 911 when we were 40 years old, when we could afford it. I had Honda civics, Miatas, I drive a Kia now. My husband did have a corvette a few years before that.

We don’t drink alcohol, or even soda a lot of the time at restaurants, it’s expensive. We don’t eat out much. We don’t do a lot of things I see a lot of people spend money on regularly.

I could have had more expensive cars all along, but then I would not have the FREEDOM to not work hard now. I’ll take the freedom.

Like I said, some people understand the pay off in the long term, some don’t.