the economics of poverty

DeNeen L. Brown over at The Washington Post wrote a really valuable article about the high cost of poverty. It is absolutely worth reading. Here's an excerpt:

You have to be rich to be poor.

That's what some people who have never lived below the poverty line don't understand.

Put it another way: The poorer you are, the more things cost. More in money, time, hassle, exhaustion, menace. This is a fact of life that reality television and magazines don't often explain.

So we'll explain it here. Consider this a primer on the economics of poverty.

And the above image was photographed by Lois Raimondo for The Washington Post. The caption read "Harrison Blakeney pays his phone bill through a check-cashing operation that charges 10 percent extra to send the payment. 'That's how they make their money,' he says."