Dire warnings have begun to echo across the press: The number of formerly stable, well off middle class families that have slipped into poverty is slated to jump dramatically in the months ahead. An NPR segment last week claimed that 30,000,000 American families were now living at or below the poverty line — and that number was going to increase dramatically, perhaps reaching 50,0000,000 before summer.
And that just might be the one silver lining around this economic mess. For many of these families, it will be the first time in their lives they have had to experience the injustice the poor live with every day of their lives: The sad reality that it costs more to be poor.
Suddenly these families will discover that, at the very time when they’re already having to choose between feeding the kids or themselves, they’re going to be Bit By “The Shell Game”, and have to watch helplessly as their formerly helpful bank bleeds them of money like a vampire. They’re going to be astonished to find that their $50 phone bill is now $60 or $75; that the minimum payments on the credit cards and lines of credit that they lived on when they still had hope have nearly doubled, even though they haven’t borrowed more money for months; that the $100 utility bill is now up to $150, even though they’re turning down the thermostat, cooking smaller meals, and militantly turning off every light in the house they don’t need.
And why are they going to discover that all those bills going to be higher, even though usage is down? Because, they will sadly find, companies quite legally charge late fees and penalty charges to customers who do not have the money to pay their bills by the “due date”. And then, also they also quite legally charge interest on the balance — which includes the late fees and penalties.
In other words, in our society (in Western society, in point of fact), we have a defacto poor tax! And our newly minted poor are going to start having to pay it.
So what’s the silver lining? For twelve years discussions about poverty and the poor have been off the table. It’s been as sacrilegious in the halls of political power as discussing prostitution or the porn industry. But, with formerly middle class families now burgeoning the ranks, the issue may once again come into vogue. There may finally be enough screams of anguish that the poor tax may be reduced.
And that would be a major step in the right direction!
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