WaPo | The poor pay more for everything, from rolls of toilet paper to furniture. It's not because they're spendthrifts, either. If you're denied a checking account,
there's no way for you to avoid paying a fee to cash a paycheck. If you
need to buy a car to get to work, you'll have to accept whatever higher
interest rate you're offered. If you don't have a car, the bus fare
might eat up the change you'd save shopping at a larger grocery store as
opposed to the local corner store.
It's easy to feel that "when you are poor, the 'system' is set up to keep you that way," in the words of one Reddit user, "rugtoad." That comment is at the top of an extraordinary thread full of devastating stories about what it's like to get by with nothing in the United States of 2015.
"Growing up really poor means realizing in your twenties that Mommy was lying when she said she already ate," wrote "deviant_devices," another commenter.
You can buy only a single pack of paper towels at a time, rather than saving on a bundle of 10, as "Meepshesaid" noted:
When you are broke, you can't plan ahead or shop sales or buy in bulk. Poor people wait to buy something until they absolutely need it, so they have to pay whatever the going price is at that moment. If ten-packs of paper towels are on sale for half price, that's great, but you can only afford one roll anyway. In this way, poor people actually pay more than others for common staple goods.
You can't pay for health insurance, and instead buy medicine from pet stores, as "colorcoma" writes:
I buy "fish" antibiotics online because I can't afford health care. … Amoxicillin and such. Mostly for husband who has Lyme's disease. We can't afford our monthly health care rates. We are 30somethings in the US. Really feel like a "bottom feeder".
You can't also buy shoes that will last for more than a few months, according to "DrStephenFalken":
I'm making $150- $200 a week and I need new shoes. So I can buy $60 shoes that will last or $15 walmart shoes. So I buy the walmart shoes and some groceries instead of just the $60 shoes and no groceries. Three months later I'll need new shoes again. But I'll also have to pay rent and my light bill is due. So I'll pay the light bill and buy some "shoe glue" for $4 to fix my shoes for another few weeks until I can buy the $15 ones again.
Economists have documented the "ghetto tax," as the additional costs of living paid by the poor are often known. A Brookings study
from 2006 found that someone who is not able to open a checking account
will typically pay between $5 and $50 to cash a $500 check, and that
people in poor neighborhoods paid several hundred dollars more for
homeowner's insurance, or to buy a car of a given make and
model, than someone living in a wealthier neighborhood.
