Other examples include buying poor quality food and then having to pay for medical care, buying a cheap car that costs more in repairs, payday loans, ect.
buying poor quality food and then having to pay for medical care
I have seen this sort of thing mentioned, but I don’t think that it works.
Let’s set aside for the moment the somewhat tenuous and indirect connection between the food you eat today, and the medical care you will require, some years down the line. (If you end up with heart disease in ten years because you’ve been eating poorly, surely this can’t be any part of the reason why you’re poor today—that would require some sort of anti-temporal causation!)
And let’s also set aside this business of “having to pay for medical care”. (Even in the United States—famously the land of medical bills—the poorest people are also the ones who are eligible for Medicaid. You’re more likely to have to pay for medical care if you’re sufficiently well-off to eat well than if you’re very poor!)
Let’s instead consider just this notion that there’s a causal connection between being poor and eating poor quality food—and specifically, the sort of food that contributes to poor health outcomes—because you can’t afford healthy food.
There was a time when my own family was very poor. (We’d just arrived in the United States as brand-new immigrants, with little more than the proverbial clothes on our backs; my mother had to work two, or sometimes three, jobs just to pay the rent; even my grandfather, then already of retirement age, got a job delivering newspapers.) As I would routinely help my grandmother with grocery shopping, I was very well acquainted with how much it cost to feed a family on a very tight budget, what sorts of purchasing decisions needed to be made, etc.
And what I can tell you is that the sort of food we ate was not cheap-but-unhealthy. Rather, it was cheap-but-healthy. What was missing was luxuries and variety—not nutrition! You can, in fact, have a healthy (and even tasty) diet on a tight budget. I have extensive personal experience with this.
The difference between my family and the poor people who buy junk food is much more cultural than anything else. Specifically, the missing ingredient is cultural transmission of knowledge of, and expertise in, preparation of nutritious, satisfying food under severe financial constraints. My family’s cultural background contains a tremendous amount of accumulated wisdom on this topic. Someone who, for whatever reason, lacks access to such cultural metis, will be severely disadvantaged in this regard. But this has nothing to do with poverty as such.
buying a cheap car that costs more in repairs
This, too, is a dubious example. The key word here is “more”. More than what?
Do you mean:
(1) “Car A (which costs less), over a period of N years, requires repairs of cost totaling X; car B (which costs more), over the same period of N years, requires repairs of cost totaling Y; X > Y”
If so, then notice that this does not support “boots theory”! But perhaps you instead mean:
(2) “Car A (which costs less), over a period of N years, requires repairs of cost totaling X; car B (which costs more), over the same period of N years, requires repairs of cost totaling Y; (cost[A] + X) > (cost[B] + Y)”
This might support “boots theory”. But is it plausible?
The car I currently drive was bought used, at a cost of ~$13,000, in 2016. Since then I have spent ~$2,000 on repairs (not counting inspections and oil changes, which will apply to everyone equally), for a total of ~$15,000.
In 2016, I could instead have purchased a much cheaper used car, for ~$3,000. Suppose that this had been all I could afford. For this to have turned out to be a “boots theory”-supporting example, I’d then have to spend ~$12,000, in the 9-year period since, on repairs.
Seems improbable. Indeed, at that point, I could just buy another car. I could buy a new car four times! (And notice that this scenario would then still not support “boots theory”.)
payday loans
This is a complicated topic, and I am not qualified to opine confidently on it. I will say only that it seems like a highly non-central example of the alleged phenomenon.
Other examples include buying poor quality food and then having to pay for medical care, buying a cheap car that costs more in repairs, payday loans, ect.
I have seen this sort of thing mentioned, but I don’t think that it works.
Let’s set aside for the moment the somewhat tenuous and indirect connection between the food you eat today, and the medical care you will require, some years down the line. (If you end up with heart disease in ten years because you’ve been eating poorly, surely this can’t be any part of the reason why you’re poor today—that would require some sort of anti-temporal causation!)
And let’s also set aside this business of “having to pay for medical care”. (Even in the United States—famously the land of medical bills—the poorest people are also the ones who are eligible for Medicaid. You’re more likely to have to pay for medical care if you’re sufficiently well-off to eat well than if you’re very poor!)
Let’s instead consider just this notion that there’s a causal connection between being poor and eating poor quality food—and specifically, the sort of food that contributes to poor health outcomes—because you can’t afford healthy food.
There was a time when my own family was very poor. (We’d just arrived in the United States as brand-new immigrants, with little more than the proverbial clothes on our backs; my mother had to work two, or sometimes three, jobs just to pay the rent; even my grandfather, then already of retirement age, got a job delivering newspapers.) As I would routinely help my grandmother with grocery shopping, I was very well acquainted with how much it cost to feed a family on a very tight budget, what sorts of purchasing decisions needed to be made, etc.
And what I can tell you is that the sort of food we ate was not cheap-but-unhealthy. Rather, it was cheap-but-healthy. What was missing was luxuries and variety—not nutrition! You can, in fact, have a healthy (and even tasty) diet on a tight budget. I have extensive personal experience with this.
The difference between my family and the poor people who buy junk food is much more cultural than anything else. Specifically, the missing ingredient is cultural transmission of knowledge of, and expertise in, preparation of nutritious, satisfying food under severe financial constraints. My family’s cultural background contains a tremendous amount of accumulated wisdom on this topic. Someone who, for whatever reason, lacks access to such cultural metis, will be severely disadvantaged in this regard. But this has nothing to do with poverty as such.
This, too, is a dubious example. The key word here is “more”. More than what?
Do you mean:
(1) “Car A (which costs less), over a period of N years, requires repairs of cost totaling X; car B (which costs more), over the same period of N years, requires repairs of cost totaling Y; X > Y”
If so, then notice that this does not support “boots theory”! But perhaps you instead mean:
(2) “Car A (which costs less), over a period of N years, requires repairs of cost totaling X; car B (which costs more), over the same period of N years, requires repairs of cost totaling Y; (cost[A] + X) > (cost[B] + Y)”
This might support “boots theory”. But is it plausible?
The car I currently drive was bought used, at a cost of ~$13,000, in 2016. Since then I have spent ~$2,000 on repairs (not counting inspections and oil changes, which will apply to everyone equally), for a total of ~$15,000.
In 2016, I could instead have purchased a much cheaper used car, for ~$3,000. Suppose that this had been all I could afford. For this to have turned out to be a “boots theory”-supporting example, I’d then have to spend ~$12,000, in the 9-year period since, on repairs.
Seems improbable. Indeed, at that point, I could just buy another car. I could buy a new car four times! (And notice that this scenario would then still not support “boots theory”.)
This is a complicated topic, and I am not qualified to opine confidently on it. I will say only that it seems like a highly non-central example of the alleged phenomenon.