Hey, guys. It's Chelsea from
The Financial Diet. And if you have
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to join our secret society. But at minimum, subscribe. Support us. Love us. We need it. And today, we are going
to be talking about one of the subtopics within the
world of finance and economics that compels me the most. It is one of the
prominent reasons why talking about money in a
transparent and empathetic way is so important to me. Because often in
our society, we have a very, very clear if
unspoken, double standard between the behaviors,
purchases, and lifestyle choices of the wealthy
and the not wealthy. And we have seen this for years. Things that poor
people get mocked for will become cool aesthetics
on social media-- such as tiny homes, ripped
clothes, or even substance use. And not only are these
stereotypes unfair, they're often untrue. And they tend to be
characterized very differently depending on who does them. For example, the difference
between self-care and laziness often just comes down
to your income bracket. And I'm particularly
passionate about this topic, because as someone who used
to be poor and is now wealthy, I see on an everyday basis
and every aspect of my life, just how much financial
privilege not only changes the options you are
afforded, but the respect and the deference that
your choices also receive. Not only am I able to do a lot
more for myself and the people around me, my choices are
almost inherently given a pass. Because I can
afford to make them. I waste plenty of
money on my Starbucks. And although I don't enjoy
avocado toast particularly, I do love other frivolous
dining-out options. But no one's coming
for me about them. Because I just get to make
whatever choices I want. So let's take a
look at 10 things that poor people just
can't catch a break for, which rich people get
to indulge in undetected or even be praised for. Number one is being wasteful. We love to criticize the
environmental impact of things like convenience products,
McDonald's wrappers, or fast fashion. But it seems like we are so
often coming for the things that poor people use,
or in the case of things like plastic straws, things that
disabled people actually need. Now no one's lifestyle
is 100% eco-friendly. But trendy, eco-friendly options
do tend to be more expensive. For example, you could pay
close to $60 for a pack of four Stasher Bags. But when you're living
paycheck to paycheck, it just makes sense to
pay $5 for a box of 20 freezer-friendly Ziploc bags. Or you could pay
anywhere from $10 to $15 for zero waste bars of
shampoo and deodorant. But when you're scraping
by, $6 for a jumbo bottle of Herbal Essences probably
suits your life better, despite the fact that it
comes in a plastic bottle. And in reality, wealthy people
are often just passively making much more wasteful
lifestyle choices without ever getting
called on it. Take flying, for example-- it is prohibitively
expensive to many people. And yet in 2018,
commercial airlines burned $94 billion gallons
of fossil fuel globally. People who can't
afford to fly get to treat driving like a small
sacrifice to help the planet, while a lot of
poor families have to drive simply because it's
the only feasible option. But poor people also
aren't driving as much as the wealthy or
even the middle class. Statista estimates that
33% of American households have one vehicle. And 8% of households have none. The remaining 59% have
two or more vehicles. And there's a
positive correlation between income and
mileage driven. Wealthier people
drive more on average. Basically, the
wealthier you are, the more options you
have to be eco-friendly, and the less you
are stigmatized for your non eco-friendly choices. Number two is quitting
toxic work environments. Back to me and how fabulous I
am-- no, but once I did Tweet virally that a lot of things
that we frame in our culture as being courageous are just
really a question of having money, like for example,
calling off a wedding or distancing yourself
from toxic family members, or quitting a job. All of these things can be
representations of you really taking a stand for yourself
and setting healthy boundaries. But they're also usually
just a reflection of the financial
flexibility that you have. Because when you have a
substantial enough savings or income to quit your
job and potentially go without income
for months, you are going to be much
more empowered to be selective about the kind
of treatment or workload you'll put up with. And there is no
shortage of advice out there about how to quit
a toxic work environment, including on this very channel. And yes, doing so in
the right circumstances can be incredibly empowering. But for poor people, leaving
even the most exploitative job is just seen as
foolish, not empowering. Ironically, a 2019 study found
that people of lower incomes are less likely to be satisfied
with most aspects of their job quality, while richer
people get to toss off the shackles of their 9:00 to
5:00, eat, pray, love style. And poorer people have
to feel like they're putting themselves and
their families at risk for even wanting to quit. Number three is having
multiple children. All right guys, let's
crack those knuckles. Let's warm up those fingers. Let's start fighting
in the comments about this, because
I know this topic always sets a certain
contingent off. But let me be crystal
clear on this one. When it comes to the class-based
discrepancy by which we assess people's lifestyle,
choices, and behavior, few distill this concept down
more than having children, especially multiple children. Whether it is on message
boards, in political discourse, on social media,
in our pop culture, there is a very
commonly and deeply held belief that people below
a certain income level should not have children. While for wealthy
families, and I will quote one of
my favorite books on the subject of studying
insane rich people, Primates of Park Avenue,
having multiple children in extremely expensive
areas, especially in households where only
one partner is working, is seen as a status symbol. But this discrepancy
in framing is problematic for several reasons. First off, it ignores the
fact that large families are not even actually
that common anymore. Fewer Americans even
want two or more kids, whereas in the 1940s,
most people considered four or more kids the ideal. So a poor person having
even two children can now easily be treated
as having a lot of kids. And this has even been part of
the highly offensive welfare queen trope, in which poor
women, usually women of color, are accused of having as many
children as possible simply for their benefits. Now let us be clear
about the fact that having several
children while not making enough to support
them financially, is not some one-way ticket
to a glamorous lifestyle. Most people who benefit from
social subsidy programs work. These supplemental
resources, whether it is actual money or food stamps
or other similar programs, is often just a result
of having to supplement large corporations,
Walmart being the biggest, who simply don't pay their
employees a living wage. When we think about
who we're subsidizing when it comes to
social programs, we often think that we're
subsidizing the individual. When at scale, we are actually
more accurately subsidizing the corporations who
can then get away with not paying their
workers a sustainable wage, and beyond the fact that
receiving social benefits is usually a necessity for
people who do actually work, the entire concept of
helping to subsidize families arises from the reality that in
order to function and prosper, society needs people
to have children. My husband and I are
child-free by choice, which means we are indebted
to the people around us who are having children. Those children are
the ones who are going to be not only
keeping the economy going, but taking care of
my husband and I when we're in our older age. The US is seeing
population growth on a year over year decline. And the fact that
fewer and fewer people are having children is a
massive economic problem. So subsidizing families to
encourage people to have more children is just good practice. It's why literally, every other
developed country in the world has a much more comprehensive
maternity leave than we do. If we continue to treat
having children as a privilege that only the ultra rich
should be able to afford, we will just continue
on a downward slope in population growth,
which will lead to serious social and
economic problems. By the way, for all of
the anti-immigration trolls in the comment section
and I know some of you guys love to hang out
on YouTube, I would suggest googling the extent to
which our country's economy has relied on immigration
as a supplement to population growth
over the last 25 years. But yet for as much as we
stigmatize lower income folks for having children,
in other circumstances, we often glamorize it, even to
the grotesque extent of 19 Kids and Counting, which I'm sorry. Listen-- people can have as
many children as they want. But 19, I don't know. Maybe see a therapist
instead of having more kids after the 14th child. And even for the
upper middle class and above families who
are deemed deserving of having children, we
often follow the first child with questions about when the
second or third are coming along, rather than
interrogating ourselves as a society, why we provide
so little resources to support families overall. Our framing of having
children as a luxury product isn't just enormously classist. It's also shooting ourselves
in the foot economically. Number four is buying
big toys for the family. Now one thing we love
judging poor people about is the things that they own. We make an automatic assumption
that if a poor person has it, they don't deserve it. Now not only does this
ignore that these items could be gifts. They could have been purchased
secondhand or at a discount. They could have been acquired
at a time when their income was higher or any other Number
of possible origin stories, it drives home a
continuing theme in which poor people
are essentially not viewed as being deserving of
enjoying themselves, especially because many of these big
toys are actually extremely economical for families who
can't afford to take vacations or put their children
into organized sports and activities. For example, a 6 by
10 inflatable pool can be purchased for
anywhere from $100 to $200, which gives a family multiple
whole summers of swimming in their backyard, as opposed
to paying for a plane or even a road trip to a
sunny destination for a short vacation. Or you can get a backyard
trampoline for around $300, which again, lasts for years,
and gives your kids plenty to do at home. If you compare that to taking
something like dance classes, even one class a week can
hit $300 in tuition costs by halfway through
the school year. And similarly to getting angry
at poor people for owning anything that gives them
a moment of pleasure, we also tend to get
down on them for owning any kind of tech device beyond
I assume, a rotary phone. We love talking about how poor
people have the latest iPhone. And honestly, even
outside of poor people, whether you are making
a thoughtful critique of capitalism or complaining
about bills that you cannot avoid, someone is always
likely to chime in about how you're doing that from
a brand new iPhone. But even if it's not
the newest model, if you're not essentially
using like a Nokia brick that has Snake on it, someone's
going to jump down your throat about how you
should be having your phone. Now aside from all of
the other assumptions which could not be accurate,
as with the previous point, there are many ways of acquiring
tech devices that do not require paying full retail. Mobile phones in
2021 are a necessity for key things in life,
including socialization and job mobility. You cannot get most jobs
without a phone number. And it helps to have something
from which you can email, phone people, browse for
jobs, complete your tasks, and yes sometimes-- shocker-- waste time
on social media, Yes, poor people deserve
to go on fund websites too. It's also worth remembering
that for many low income homes, a smartphone is the
family computer. So not only is it essential
for the adult in the house, it might also be
essential for a child to complete their homework,
communicate with their teacher or in the age of
COVID, go to class. I actually think in some
ways, the most powerful litmus test for me in knowing
that I actually was a wealthy person was
last year when I dropped my phone in the
laundry room, and all of a sudden it started making
this horrible screeching noise. There was like flashing
lights on the screen. It was like, I have never
seen a device that broken. I thought it was
going to explode. And I literally didn't
even think twice about it. I ran-- I had to
actually on my computer, look up the directions by
foot to the Apple store, write them down on
a piece of paper, and ran my ass to
the Apple store, bought myself a new iPhone
without even thinking about it. And at no point in
that situation was I stressed out about
the finances of it. I was mostly concerned that
I wouldn't get to the iPhone store before it closed. That's it. I was like, wow looking back,
that means you are well off. If you do not care about
having to financially replace the phone, if that's
like it sucks-- I wouldn't love to do it. I'm not doing that for fun. But if that's not your concern,
that's when you're wealthy. And it just goes to show
the level of carelessness that we afford
wealthy people when it comes to this stuff,
versus the level of judgment that we give
towards poor people. Number six is drug
and/or alcohol use. Now this one can be dicey,
because some drugs are often stigmatized across the board. However it is undeniably
more stigmatized any time a user also happens to be poor. It basically is a joke now,
but think of all the times you've heard someone
discourage you from giving money to
an unhoused person, because they're just
going to append it on drugs and alcohol-- on your way to happy hour,
you effing hypocrite. However 2016 research has
found that rich people actually tend to drink more heavily
and more frequently than working class people. I mean no surprise--
booze is expensive. And plenty of celebrities have
gone through public struggles with addiction. People like Robert
Downey jr. and Rob Lowe have famously gone
through public battles with substance use disorder. And while yes, snaps to them on
their well deserved recovery, people in poverty don't often
get a chance to recover. A person who makes
$20,000 a year is 1/3 less likely to recover
from cocaine addiction than someone who
makes $70,000 a year. And besides the social stigmas,
there's also legal stigmas. There is no better
poster child for this than Ethan Couch, better
known as the offender whose lawyer popularized the
term affluenza, when under the influence of drugs. While driving under
the influence, he lost control of his vehicle
and killed four people, injuring nine more. Couch's sentence of
10 years probation was regarded by many
as extremely light. And in fact, at the time
of filming this video, he has already been charged with
violating his probation twice. But broadly, poor
people who use drugs are targeted more harshly
by the legal system. As of 2020, of the 2.2 million
Americans incarcerated, nearly half are
non-violent drug offenders. Poor people are already more
likely to end up in prison too. Because people who
make less than 150% of the federal poverty
level are 15 times more likely to be charged
with a felony. Of course, this also tends to
fall along race lines as well. But it's important to remember
that cost alone is often a prohibiting factor in people
seeking justice or being treated as criminals
in the first place. Number seven is
hypersexuality and sex work. Embracing one
sexuality and feeling empowered with how they wield
it can be a liberating choice for people of all backgrounds. But it is incredible
how differently we treat people who engage
in these choices based on their financial status. In 2020, actress Bella Thorne
publicly joined OnlyFans and said that her
intention was to quote help with the stigma behind sex. By now, you probably know
that Bella is joining up OnlyFans was controversial
and allegedly resulted in OnlyFans changing
some of its policies around payment and
maximum tip amounts, resulting in worse payment terms
for sex workers using the site, although the site has denied
that she was the reason. However, this is far
from the first time sex workers have been
screwed over by rich women. In the 2010s, pole dancing
became a popular fitness trend, with many proponents
calling it empowering. However, many enthusiasts also
tried to distance themselves from strippers, while
empowering themselves through the style with
hashtags like #notastripper accompanying many of the social
media posts about pole fitness. And by the way, for those
keeping score at home, home stripper pole setups often
cost between $300 and $400. And of course, the social
stigma around these things is only heightened when
you factor in race. For example, women of color,
particularly black women being judged incredibly harshly
for aesthetics and behaviors that break the internet when
Kim Kardashian chooses to do it. Number eight is liking
fast food or junk food. Much like with
wastefulness, people love to pick apart the dietary
choices of poor people, because junk food is often
associated with being as uneconomical as it is wasteful. But when mainstream foodie
color really started to take off and hit the middle class
in the last decade, creators like Epic Meal
Time or Matty Matheson achieved mega stardom for all
of their various calorie-busting fast food-inspired creations. And you have people like
former Simpsons showrunner Bill Oakley, who is now famous
for having various fast food items from around the world
sent to him to review, or the internet's
beloved, Reviewbrah. There's also the rising
popularity of Muckbang content in the US, from which
the top creators are making some serious cash. Now on the one
hand, you could say that our love affair with
junk food in this society is helping to destigmatize
some of these food choices for the poor among us. But that connection doesn't
really seem to be happening. Because it is still
as popular as ever to make those posts about
how you can buy a bag of rice and beans and some
bananas and feed your family for a month on $1,
as opposed to buying a Big Mac. Now of course,
all of those posts don't take into account things
like cooking and prep time, the ability to store food
for longer periods of time, things like food
deserts, or the fact that many low income
folks don't even live in a place with a kitchen. But we'll put all
of that to the side and get back to how we
perceive the food itself. Even if poor people
are no less likely to consume fast food than
middle class and rich people and research shows that
it's actually fairly even across the board, they are still
perceived as consuming more. Local governments
have tried to place increasingly tight restrictions
on fast food restaurants. And the limiting of junk food
and sugary drinks purchased by SNAP recipients
has been floated in several jurisdictions
over the years. Number nine is laziness. And now in general,
we are much too obsessed with hustle culture. Speaking generally, we could all
afford to scale it back a bit when it comes to
overworking ourselves. But it is important that
we confront ourselves with the question of who gets
to be lazy in our society. Because it is a common
conception not only that poor people
are lazy, but also that they are poor
because they are lazy. When it comes to physical
activity for example, it has been long
believed that people of higher socioeconomic status
are more physically active than those of lower status. However a 2016
meta analysis found that it's a bit more
complicated than that. For one thing, poorer
people who are less active tended to be so
because they didn't have as good access
to parks, gyms, pools, or other such facilities. They also found that
while they tended to be less physically active
in their leisure times, this is because they tended
to work more physical jobs. You cannot blame someone
who spends the majority of their working hours
in high physical stress, on-their-feet jobs for wanting
to just sit down on a couch and chill out in
their free time. And of course, when a rich
person makes that same choice, it is perceived as self-care. Number 10 is looking
good or looking messy. And this is just one of those
situations where poor people cannot win. Since the days of heroin
chic, high fashion has long been
inspired by poverty. It's why companies
like Nordstrom can get away with
a $530 shoe that looks like it's falling
apart and taped together. What the hell? Of course, this is
the same mentality that made dumpster diving in
tiny houses go mainstream. When a poor person
does it, it's yucky. But when a rich person does
it, it's a cool aesthetic. Similarly to a
no-spend month, it is a sweet personal finance
hack for those that can afford discretionary spending. It is just how you have to
live every month if you're on a super tight income. But the thing is
poor people also can't seem to get away
with the opposite. When they look good, they're
judged harshly for it as well. And we judge people
by how they dress. This is especially
true in scenarios where a good impression is
key, like a job interview. For example, studies
show that men in suits tend to be perceived more
positively than men in jeans. And women tend to be
perceived more positively when wearing makeup. Except that quote "poverty
with pretty nails" has pretty much become
a trope at this point, with the cliche
question being how can she afford to get her nails
done if she's so poor. In fact, spending and really
not that much, on nails, makeup, and accessories is often
a way for poor people to feel empowered while
making a good impression. We are constantly
admonishing poor people to find ways to better
their station in life and to move up
corporate ladders, but yet, totally
undermine the extent to which present yourself
in a certain way-- having a working smartphone,
dressing sharply, being clean and well-groomed,
having enough free time to be responsive during an
interview process, are all key to being
perceived in a way that will allow you to advance. When poor people look sloppy,
that's a judge in time. When they look
fancy, well, you know that's a judge and time too. Ultimately, I think the
most compelling thing about these
discrepancies and how we perceive behaviors
is that it reveals the extent to which our
criticism of the actual thing itself is pretty damn hollow. For example, if a poor
person can get away with posting their
cute top they bought from Zara or their day's
Starbucks drink, which again-- no judgment. We're not saying
that there's anything wrong with these items. We only take them to task when
a poor person is doing them, because we fundamentally believe
that only the wealthy should be able to have any kind of
discretionary spending or joy or even in certain cases,
opportunities for advancement, such as having a
working smartphone. Ultimately, one of
the best phrases I think, on this subject that
sums it up very well is that old saying "the only
time you should ever be looking at your
neighbor's bowl, is to make sure
that he has enough." Policing each other,
especially lower income folks, over their various
spending choices, is just an effective
way to distract from the real societal ills
that are keeping us all down, such as Jeff Bezos bringing
his extremely divorced man energy to space for 5
seconds, while his employees have to urinate in
bottles on the job because they don't get enough
time for bathroom breaks. Let's point the fingers where
they deserve to be pointed, and that's on the stuff that's
super rich people are doing. As always, guys, thank
you for watching. And don't forget to hit
the Subscribe button, and to come back every
Monday, Tuesday and Thursday for new and awesome videos. Ciao.
