[kirinan]

I lived this first hand. I grew up in extreme poverty (by the US standards anyways) where my electricity/water were cut off occasionally and occasionally would have to wonder if I was going to eat that night. Though this is still better than most of the world, it sucked. a lot. No christmas, no birthdays. The most interesting part is now im software engineer making really good money, I can still see the rest of my family with the same mindset that enabled that kind of poverty. While I live below my means, they regularly live above it. They lack the self control to regulate their spending, if they get money they spend it like it might go away if they don't. Its institutional in ways because their parents were poor. Although I broke the cycle, my brother didnt and shows a lot of the same patterns. This article hits the point head on. I wonder if there is a way to hack the cycle and reduce the institutional aspect of poverty.

[tomp]

There was a really good article a while ago (this one, I think [1]), about why the poor make bad choices. Basically, the gist of it is that long-term, it doesn't matter - even if they made "good" choices, they would still remain poor. So they make "bad" choices (unprotected sex, pregnancy, smoking, impulse buying) that give them short-term pleasure, and hope they will get by somehow.

Do you think this would be possible for your family as well? For example, maybe your mindset is "save" because you earn a good salary and you know that if you save, in a few years you'll be well-off and will be able to afford exponentially more, whereas the rest of your family objectively has no way out of poverty, so they don't even try.

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/21/linda-tirado-...

[evanpw]

I agree that savings and restraint in spending are not the main issue. But on the other hand, if you:

1) Graduate high school,

2) Wait until age 21 to get married, and wait until marriage to have children; and

3) Have a full time job (any full time job),

then you have a 2% chance of living in poverty, and a 75% chance to be middle class. So in order to argue that bad choices don't matter, you need to make the case that one of these three steps is impossible for most people who are poor. I think your best bet is #3.

[1] http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2013/03/13-join-m...

[tomp]

It's not clear from the article if those percentages include all of the society or just those that started out poor. If it's the former, it might be just correlation, not causation.

[evanpw]

I'm pretty sure it's the former. I don't find it plausible that these three things wouldn't have a causal effect on income, but it's a fair point that it would be more useful to see those percentages broken down by starting income level.

[kirinan]

I think maybe its subconscious but they view getting rich as a singular event like winning the lottery, gambling or a lawsuit (I wish I was kidding on the second one) and not an long term compounding effect using money as your leverage. That article is really good and I think sums that mindset up really well: if getting rich was a singular event then I will spend everything I have until the event happens to me.

[themartorana]

I think this is a pretty basic and important point. Even though money "doesn't by happiness" it can buy escape, even for short periods of time. That escape is as powerful as any drug when your day-to-day life is significantly depressed, with no foreseeable exit.

So for some people, there's not much difference in $100 and $100,000 without education and impulse control.

[MaysonL]

I wonder if there is a way to hack the cycle and reduce the institutional aspect of poverty.

Check out what Harlem Children's Zone is doing: they seem to have at least the beginning of an answer.

[kirinan]

Thats brilliant, seems well founded in research and well implemented. I really hope that it can continue to scale to more and more places. 445 communities is a smashing success already!

[pron]

> I wonder if there is a way to hack the cycle and reduce the institutional aspect of poverty.

Countries with lower poverty rates have traditionally done this with welfare, free healthcare and social programs all funded by high tax rates. It works, but it doesn't fit well with the American ethos of every man to himself, where "redistribution of wealth" is seen as an encroachment on liberty rather than its biggest facilitator (as it's seen in other countries).

[themartorana]

Mostly by people who receive a benefit of said redistribution.

http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2011/apr/22/rache...