What's it like to live at the poverty line?

Ouch. I feel sad now.

The slowly breaking down house? Alright. Irregular utilties? Alright. Food stamps? Ok.

Clothing? I'll have them be, somewhat handmade (They had friends, thank god). Hand me down shoes are a thing, now. Probably mockery from her classmates. Stressed out parents, working overtime. Often alone.

Is it alright for them to be in the suburbs? Or would they be in an apartment?

 

Any good descriptions of the projects/ trailer parks?

 

My birthplace is Singapore.

We have no trailer parks. As for 'The Projects'.... I don't know what you refer by that.

 

Projects are usually the super low cost, government subsidized homing for struggling families. At least that's what they are supposed to be.

 

Supposed to be. I'm seeing claims of crime, poor maintenance, and lack of quality.

And constant budget cuts

 

Write it Singapore...no need to translate yourself to a trailer park; and there's no absolute truth/or definition of your poverty in your book. Characterise some people going about their business, ensuring only one thing - that you never use the line 'they were poor.' Imagine the pleasure you might bring in a book - to me - picturing lives that you have brought to the page

 

I can only speak to poverty in the western united states. It's caused mostly by the government. The whole idea of the "Poverty Line." reeks of government involvement.
Poverty is not the lack of money, it's the lack of goods. In a society of dog-eat-dog capitalism the poor always exist but it's not always the same folks doing it. A person ( by selling his/her talents and skills) works their way up from the bottom of the heap and then they are not the poor. Meanwhile, someone else has a bad run of luck and they end up on the bottom.

In the current welfare state, "poor" has become a profession. Women willing to stay pregnant or men claiming disability can get their rent paid. It's not a good way to live but it is sustainable. All you need is a willingness to surrender your freedom to the government and no personal pride whatever. Yes, I do know where-of I speak.
Poverty in America is not something that you can study in school, it's something that you have to do if you want to understand it.

https://www.writingforums.org/threads/sams-bear.159891/ A workshop entry
that didn't go over very well, but it's honest.

 

No, I believe us very wealthy folks might make a good stab - penning a well-rounded account of these creatures - habitats, for example:

their oil drums, the shopping trolleys, over-sized coats, nicotine fingers, nicotine babies tossed on the hearth simply for the aroma of a newborn in household, and such-like legend/folk-art.

 

Then there are the people who work really hard at menial jobs and don't get paid a living wage for them. These are jobs that need to be done, but they are not valued in terms of financial reward. Lots of poor people work really hard.

I personally have two friends here (now retired) but who worked at home care jobs, taking care of elderly and ill people, going from house to house, getting people up, showered, dressed, meals cooked, light housecleaning etc. And returned in the evening to put the patients to bed as well. They worked full time, a 6-day week. They were also responsible for changing catheters and other jobs that required some medical training. They not only got paid peanuts for this really demanding job but were only allowed to claim travel expenses (petrol) once a year. And when they did, they only got about 2/3 of what they'd actually spent, despite having receipts, etc.

Private companies run these services, and the companies don't bother paying a living wage to the women who bust their asses helping people who really need help. One of these women was okay because her husband had a reasonable job. The other one was poor, no husband, and on benefits the whole time. She had to retire early due to severe health issues, and because she could no longer afford to run her car.

Lots of poor people work really really hard for their substandard wage.

Not just in the UK either....
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/02/nyregion/home-health-aide.html?fbclid=IwAR20HxIpl6WR3LxKIot5M7bAn1gx9AwTuH6BBuz65m7J06t9J4NpnFz5a4g

 

And the parent companies are listed on the stock exchange, buying up all the piddly care homes, until we're just one living, dying organic face mask. Dollar bills squeezed out the ass [of the corpse wearing the mask].

Saying that, the Care Homes can be pretty spooky. All the locked doors and living dead sitting the surround of nothing in a rectangular room.

 

If they are in a big city, they are probably renting the space for their cafe. A rent increase can really hurt when you're struggling. And rents seem to always go up. The thing with the poverty line is that if you are under the line, you qualify for things like food and rent assistance (and actually quite a lot more things). But if you're right at the line, say you make $100 more a year, there really isn't too much help. I think the lower-middle class can struggle more. But I would say there seemed to be more of a middle class in 2010 than there is today. The government draws a so-called poverty line. Living at the line, you would be better living right under it than right over it if you're hoping for any kind of assistance.

Another thing to consider is the whole predatory lending thing that went on in America. This happened a little before 2010. But, basically, people were approved for mortgages the lenders knew would never be paid. This lead to foreclosures and such. It was a really big deal here and ruined people.

 

I say it's okay for these chaps who are all well used to visiting the labour exchange and stuff it's literally in the blood. I have standards, dignity, an education. You expect me to be means tested?

 

My late Uncle Bob was a cook who was in the position of owning his own restaurant from time to time. He never made much money at it, though. Business would drop off as the neighborhood changed, rents would increase, and he'd find that he couldn't sell the business for what he'd paid for it. He'd end up in debt and working for somebody else to pay the debt off. He was really an excellent cook, but not a good businessman.

Here's another thing about growing up in poverty that's worth considering: in a recent study of kids growing up in poverty Baltimore, it was found that they display all the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder that soldiers, firemen, and other stress-related occupations do. They see parents fighting and neighbors fighting, they go hungry from time to time, they see violence on a scale that suburban kids don't, they live in fear of authority figures like cops. The stress takes its toll.

 

At least they're prepared for the future.

 

Totally true if you're talking about owning the building and mondo expensive restaurant kitchen appliances, but tons of small business owners live at or below the poverty line. Tons. Most, whether thriving or struggling, rent the space in which they run the business they own. In the restaurant world, this can include a kitchen full of huge ovens, washers, etc. that have been in the building for years through multiple failed businesses. Restaurants crash at a much higher rate than other types of businesses, and landlords rent the place as is to the next dreamer. Even if the business owner bought all of those things themselves and had a kitchen built, it would likely involve a small business loan (30-100k) that could keep them from turning a profit for a very long time. Even when a business is doing well, debt can outweigh cash on hand for years.

You're describing my childhood. Good observations.

The older kid(s) too. Every parent has a friend or sibling with older kids. Almost nothing I wore was new. My little brother's hand-me-downs were just one generation older than mine.

Camping and fishing, maybe a trip to a cabin owned by a friend or relative.

All this stuff about a business being worth money is untrue for people operating in the red. I'm a fourth generation entrepreneur . You can absolute have a negative income some years. Businesses aren't part of your worth unless they're turning a profit and worth something themselves. If I sold my computer store, it wouldn't be worth a thing beyond a name and maybe a couple of thousand dollars worth of equipment. Maybe. Many business owners qualify for all kinds of government assistance because they are officially below the poverty line. The going advice from experts is that you shouldn't start a business unless you can live for 3-5 years without bringing in a penny. If you have a savings on which to live, then you're probably starting out above the poverty line. If you rely on borrowing, you could have a negative income and live well below the poverty line for years. Debt absolutely counts when calculating a person's financial worth. Net and gross don't make a difference at that point.

People with a dream, like owning a restaurant, will often keep it open long after closing it becomes the only smart thing to do, desperately hoping they don't have to give up on their aspirations and reenter the job market a failure. They will leverage themselves so far past the point of bankruptcy and live under conditions unthinkable to the rest of the working class. "I think I can turn this around! I believe in my vision! Customers will come! You'll see!" This can cause a great deal of strife at home. Marriages are broken up over this sort of thing all the time. Children, if they're old enough to understand their situation, can be resentful about the fact that one or both of their parents are working twice as hard as anyone in the middle class, but they have to swipe the poor kid card in the cafeteria and wear off-brand, or ragged clothing. When my father opened his store in 1989, within the first year we lost cable TV, I had to quit every extracurricular (soccer, scouts, violin,) and we couldn't buy anything that wasn't an absolute necessity for years. These are very real, extremely common circumstances in which small business families live all the time.

ETA: Also remember that 2010 was a horrible time for small businesses, especially restaurants. The 2008 crash caused people to stop spending on things like eating out. Every day, the media was doing pieces on how to stretch a budget, and the number one advice was always "eat at home." The first job hit by the crisis was food service. The number of unemployed waiters/waitresses skyrocketed, and restaurants closed en masse. Good Morning America and the like helped almost destroyed the industry. (Bloggers too. This was early in the days when they were finally being taken seriously.) Your characters would be acutely aware of how and why they were losing so much business.

 

It's still not cash on income hand. It's worth no more than a $2000 car.
(typo)

 

Food banks in the UK (a total disgrace that they need to exist!) ask that you donate food that doesn't need to be cooked, because most of their claimants have no way to cook food because their electricity has been cut off. So don't give them pasta, give them canned pasta.

And the food banks can only give out enough food to last a person three days. And that's once per month.

 

You can't be a '4th generation entrepreneur' - not on a writer forum.

 

I can be a fourth generation astronaut and still want to write.

 

...in the sense that 4th generation AND entrepreneur are contradictory. It's okay as jargon.

Soz for being a big c**t

 

We each started completely separate businesses. My great grandfather owned a movie theater, my grandfather owned several over the years, but primarily an auto parts store. My mother briefly co-owned an office supply store, and my father and I each owned computer stores, but they were different businesses in different cities.