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Could you live off of $438 a week?
What's it like to live in poverty? Unless you've been there, it's hard to know. But every day, millions of Americans have to make tough choices about how they will survive, what they will eat, and where they will live. When you have very little money, the financial decisions you are forced to make are not only difficult, but also life changing.
Marketplace Money -- in collaboration with the Wealth and Poverty Desk and KPBS in San Diego -- have focused on these important decisions in a special called "Tough Choices" airing this weekend on Public Radio stations and the Marketplace Money Podcast.
One story from the show explores how people who are not poor can experience what it's like to live in poverty. They take part in a nationwide Poverty Simulator, a real-life workshop that requires them to face the tough choices that people make when living at or below the poverty threshold.
The Poverty Simulator program is intensive, but we've condensed the experience into a simple interactive game above. Try it out above to see if you can get by supporting a family of four on just $22,811 in a year.
SPECIAL REPORT: Listen and read more stories and interviews from the Marketplace Money special report, "Tough Choices." Read more.
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I agree with your criticisms of this extremely watered down version of the poverty simulation. I participated in one earlier this year and was wondering how Marketplace was possibly going to have a simplified version of this very complex exercise. This online overview simply doesn't do it any justice. Yes, there are referral agencies that will steer people to various agencies for help. However, because resources are federal, state, and sometimes city/county dependent, the resources and assistance available between one state and another can vary in the extreme.
My family of 4 survives on $388.01 a week. It is weird to think that, based on these numbers my family and I live in poverty. When I think of poverty I think of people who sometimes go to bed hungry, who eat at soup kitchens, who have torn clothes, who live in shelters. My family lives in a 3 bedroom apartment, we have tv cable, phone, 3 of us have cell phones, I have a laptop, the only thing we don't have is a car, which I'm trying to change. We always have food. It is scary to think though that we are considered poor. One emergency and that is it, we could end up in a much worse place.
If you're annual income is $20,176.52 per year for a family of 4 you are poor and living on the edge. Don't have a serious health emergency particularly if you don't have adequate or any health insurance. It will be made very clear to you how poor you are. No one should have to face ruin from health problems.
It depends on where you live. And if you live with someone else.
I survived on $401 per month with 3 kids, but I lived with my partner who worked at GM, making $28 per hour. We lived in the Metro-Detroit area where the cost of living--I wrongfully thought--was very low. Rents were low, wages were high--so I thought. I was comparing myself with those rents in New York City,
I was disavowed of my ideas when I moved to rural Michigan where the rents are EXTREMELY low. They currently are more than $100 per month cheaper than the cost I paid 10 years ago in the Metro area for a one-bedroom in the ghetto.
The child care costs are very low here.
BUT: The poverty levels & the unemployment levels are very high right now. There are many abandoned homes. Jobs are scarce. And there is very limited public transportation. If someone cannot afford a car, they cannot get to job interviews or work. And with the rising cost of car insurance--esp. for those with low education & bad/no credit & a non-homeowner, I have NO idea how a person can make it unless they live with friends or relatives.
I had to give up my car because my insurance agency started take into account my credit score & home ownership status, which raised my rates to where I could no longer afford them. My driving record was great, but the rest was messed up.
I was coddled when I lived in the Metro area. I didn't know it then, but I know it now.
I guess I just had to vent.
I raised a daughter as a single Mom often on half that...sheesh does that put me in less than poor category? Destitute category? It hasn't been easy but we lived simply and did not go hungry in the least. I used food stamps a few times, and got State help for 1st year after my daughter was born, which her father had to pay back. Since I don't have health insurance, the state is going to cover shoulder surgery so I can work at full production again. I have always worked hard. And no Mr Romney I am not a victim! I have taken 1 real vacation in all my adult life, managed to visit some other countries, and have experienced richness in this world without a lot of financial means....sure, I'd like to do better! But compared to some poverty I have seen...I look like I live high on the hog! I do not consider myself poor....
How does a poor person have a cell phone?
Because they don't have a home to put a wired phone, so how else do they communicate?
Cell service costs as little a $20/month. A used 1990's cell phone cost nothing.
Thats just $240/year for communications. When poverty line is $22,000/yr. that's 1%
Ask the rich guy how much he pays for communications?
My wife and I raised three kids at and often below the poverty level. Our lowest yearly income was $18k, and we made it without going into debt. The choices presented in this simulator are far too narrow and unimaginative, tailored towards people living in the city who have extremely limited choices due to lack of education and/or intelligence.
Day care or insurance? How about Medicare for the kids and work from home? Car plus repairs and gas v. public transport? How about do your own repairs?
Our biggest advantage has been living in the country and buying a home with an FHA loan, bringing our monthly house payments down to $650/month. We're certainly not "poor," with four running cars in the driveway, 5 computers, and hummus and brie in the fridge.
Poverty is a lack of choices, not a lack of money.
You live in America the richest nation ever, we buy $2.4-billion dollar planes to bomb dirt-farmers, and you only make $18k/yr?
You''re on public housing, you use public schools, you use Medicare, and have to stay home to work because you can't afford day-care, aren't you embarrassed that you can't support your family?
You should be. This is the kind of freeloading that Rmoney is talking about. You have no choice but to abuse the system, you can't even leave your house to find work.
You don't expect much out of life, but there are some of us who have potential and a world that needs people who can do more than subsist upon public charity.
Not everyone has the opportunity to have a job where they can work from home.
It takes special skills to get one of them types of jobs.
In the real world, just the cost of car insurance alone is outragious! The poorer you are, the more expensive your car insurance is.
They now can take age, educational level, credit scores, homeowner status (if you do not own a home, your premiums are more expensive), & medical coverage (do you have health care? If you don't, you pay more for car insurance.) into account when evaluating premiums.
I had to give up my car when my premiums reached $180 per month. I had a great driving record though.
Davka,
It is the total lack of education about the governmental systems available in a given area that put these people in the situation they are in. Agriculture is not taught in school anymore. Nor is Home Economics or Shop Class. So the very people who need to know how to do for themselves do not have the tools or skills to do so.
Twelve years ago I was being laughed at by my co-workers because I grew my own vegetables around my Mfg Home in the suburbs of Silicon Valley and canned the surplus - I decided to pay it off with a windfall so I only worry about the Space rent and the semi-annual property tax. Now I'm considered a successful gardener and people ask me for tips on what/when and how to grow veggies.
I was comfortably employed. Now, I work 2 days a week if I'm lucky because of a Workman's Comp injury. Do I feel poor? No, I don't. But I have learned to use the systems available to my family to keep a roof over our head, food in our bellies, our bills fully paid.
Since we don't have children that is not an issue - but elder care was - we took in my maternal grandmother and cared for her until her death. Not easy by any stretch but less expensive than placing her in a facility.
We went from being a 2 SUV family to 1 car and 1 motorcycle. The motorcycle was purchased only after extensive research showed that it was less expensive to operate on a monthly basis than buying and adult monthly bus pass.
But all of this required lots of diligence, patience and above all EDUCATION in how to think a problem through and find an answer - even if it is not the one you want.
Unfortunately the last 20 years of education has not prepared our citizens for the current times.
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