Sorry this dude for example is a slumming jackass not someone with legitimate experience of poverty: http://www.racialicious.com/2008/02/26/has-class-trumped-race-part-35-an-aside/

I also agree that where you come from affects your spending behaviour. I come from a very poor background as does my partner (parents struggling to afford food and pay bills). We both have good jobs now and have had to learn to spend. Because of our frugality (although for someone very poor we do not live frugally) we have paid off our mortgage in a nice house in a good area and have savings. Friends joke about our addiction to deals – we collect vouchers etc. for holidays, meals out, etc.

Friends who in some cases earn quite a bit more, seem poorer as they don’t have any savings and are short of money after holidays and Xmas. But waste (in our view) a lot of money.

I think part of the confusion is that the “cost of poverty” in terms of time and money focuses on people’s economic capital or material resources, which is only one part of what makes up class.

In this sense, anyone who by economic necessity is forced to use check-cashing places, crappy public transport, laundromats, etc. is “poor,” even though they may not be “low class.” I think that is where SK is coming from, that a starving artist is in a different (and more privileged) class than a janitor, which is completely true, however, if they are both waiting in the bus for 20 mins in the rain, they both are paying the “cost of poverty.”

Secondly, classes look very different depending on where you are in the ladder. Interesting research has shown that the criteria people use to discuss class differ widely in different groups, with lower classes tending to define “class” based on economic capital, whereas the middle classes define it more based on access to opportunity, whereas upper classes use yet another criterion (I forget what).

Another point is that people with different access to cultural, linguistic, symbolic capital etc. often live very differently even when poor (likewise, people who start of poor and suddenly make a lot of money tend to spend it very differently than people born rich, etc.). A large part of what marks someone’s class is spending priorities, i.e., not just how much money they have, but what they do with that money. (Within certain constraints of course) So in that sense, a grad student vs. a janitor both making $15,000 might spend that money very differently, however they both are constrained by the fact they have to first pay for basic necessities, which is where both often get dinged by the cost of being poor.

Not only that, we have so much of this thread jacked by a class discussion which was conflated with poverty. The article is talking about the expense of poverty, not the expense of being lower class. Starving grad students may have a community around them and middle/upper class friends and expectations of better future, but they are still starving.

Isn’t this not just on the internet? I think I remember reading that people want to think of themselves as middle-class even when they’re not for some reason.
That is a good point about going to school when the job markets bad. I have heard from people that this is a good time to go back to school because you can get loans and get more education when there aren’t many jobs out there. Indeed, I’m glad to be in teacher’s college in September and not job searching.

Secondly,
One thing that is so pernicious about the “grad students are secretly trust fund babies, so shouldn’t complain/get food stamps/have the right to unionize” is that it helps perpetuate class stratification of who can go on to get higher education. If you make so only upper-middle class/rich people can go to grad school, it’s a self-fulfilling prophesy. In effect, to argue that higher-education should not be made available to people who are not independently wealthy is one of the more odious claims anyone can make, and is indeed, a right-wing talking point cloaked in a “more-poor-than-thou” righteousness.

To me, it seems a much better approach is to alliance of low to moderate income people to demand better public services for all classes (like universal healthcare, workable public transit, better policing, more equitable resource distribution, etc), which overall can lower the cost of living and make life better. Arguing that because some people are in grad school, they’re not really “poor” and therefore getting mugged/going to the laundromat/taking the bus is somehow cheaper and more enjoyable for them to me seems counter productive.

That’s not what I said, but okay.

I find it hard to talk about class on the internet, because the working definitions I have for certain terms can differ from the people I’m talking to. That’s why I always try to preface my comments a little with the who-I-am and where-I-come-from—to give clues as to what my definitions are. My experience on the ‘net has been that the default assumption for “middle class” is what my default assumption is for “rich”. In my Local, the term “middle class” means “what electricians earn.” I had to adjust my assumptions for what middle-classness is after being on the internet, so I won’t be misunderstood. I’ve most often seen the term “middle class” on the ‘net to refer to large houses and private schools/clubs, six-figure family incomes and such.

A couple of things stand out to me though. This comment is one of them:

Well one thing is, if it is poverty then it is chosen poverty. (regarding grad school—though frankly the same thing could be said about attending college at all)

This stands out to me because living wage jobs are really difficult for a person without a college degree to come by. Granted, I have one, but I have what is a effective equivalent in the five-year apprenticeship and journeyman card. Considering how education serves as the best preventative medicine—especially for a woman—against poverty, I don’t think you can frame that as a “choice”. No one “chooses” poverty. No one for whom poverty is a realistic risk “chooses” to go without post-secondary education—if they have the opportunity, they take it. (or, that’s been my observation. the only people I’ve ever seen throw opportunities away are those who can rest pat in knowing more will come along—the well-born/well-connected. YMMV)

What also went unmentioned is how women (and most especially single mothers) and displaced workers use college as a substitute for a piss-poor job market and lack of resources. BFP had a post about this not too long ago. What happens when you get out of school and can’t get a job? Or, a job that can pay the bills? Going to grad school gives you access to loans to live on that you’d never qualify for otherwise, and a lot of schools have subsidized child care resources for students. So, people take the gamble that maybe the job market will be better in a couple of years, or that their resume will look more attractive to an employer with some more alphabet soup behind it, or even that their kids will be old enough to not need child care (or more expensive child care—again, I want to emphasize that I live in the “cheap” part of the U.S. and child care costs are $800 a month for an infant and $400 for a school-age child).

So, while that “poverty” is different from the poverty of someone who doesn’t even have access to that potential ladder out—it’s still no guarantee. But my default for “grad student” is someone who grew up working class and wants to get the economic stability that no longer exists for working class people (you know, the factory jobs are gone and the trades’ jobs aren’t regular enough—time to try for something in the white-collar area). I assume that a grad student’s only financial resources are student loans and work-study (or a part-time job). If your image of grad student is someone with wealthy parents that provide money and a car, yeah, I can see how the temporary “poverty” of eating ramen noodles but knowing that money is only a phone call away could grate one’s last nerve.