Comment on Being poor is expensive
glibg@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Waiting for busses isn’t a poverty problem, it’s a policy problem.
It’s a poverty problem because you don’t have a choice but to rely on policy. That’s what all of those listed things are illustrating.
Hunting for cheaper insurance instead of getting the best coverage, waiting an hour for a bus instead of calling an Uber, searching multiple flyers for the best grocery prices and coupons instead of ordering takeout. These are all “frugal” when you have the money to do otherwise.
It’s poverty when you need to do those things or you just can’t afford to do them.
I see your point, well put.
I’m entirely in favor of raising the foundation of the social fabric, it just bugs me when busses are portrayed poorly when they’re underfunded, and made to seem as if they’re only a poverty choice. That is the exact sort of thinking in my city, and the bus service has suffered for decades because of it.
I wish folks would see busses as superior to personal automobiles, and they would be funded accordingly.
I’m entirely in favor of raising the foundation of the social fabric, it just bugs me when busses are portrayed poorly when they’re underfunded, and made to seem as if they’re only a poverty choice.
It’s probably by design to stigmatize charity and public policy, and brew the sort of hyperindividualized culture that sees no problem with policies that range from “inadequate” to “truly inhumane.”
It’s true “thinking buses are for poor people” could lead to underfunded buses. But that leads to questions about why underfunding resources for the needy is some people’s default presumption.
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
It’s both.
In fact, poverty itself is a policy choice of forced deprivation.