Wealth
stripping – making poverty pay, quite handsomely for the rich
“The comfort of the rich
depends upon an abundant supply of the poor.”
- Voltaire
Whether they’re predatory loans, payday lending, check
cashing storefronts, or court and prison fines and fees, the poor pay to be
poor and the wealth extracted from them enhances the bottom lines of large
banks, big business, and government.
Years ago sociologist Herbert Gans (1972) suggested
that there were functions to poverty – the poor contributed in particular ways
to the maintenance of the social order.
The poor do society’s ‘dirty work’ – dangerous, filthy, undignified jobs
no one else wants to do. Because the poor are required to work for low wages,
they subsidize activities that benefit the affluent. Poverty creates jobs for
those who tend to the poor or protect everyone else from the poor. The poor buy
goods that no one else wants – day-old bread, fruit and vegetables spoiling,
second-hand clothing, substandard housing.
This sample of research, news, and analysis indicates that it
pays – handsomely – to be poor. Of course, not the those
who are poor.
·
Wealth
stripping: What it means
Wealth Stripping: Why It Costs
So Much to Be Poor (2012)
Wealth Building Won’t Work
While Wealth Extraction Continues (2022)
Wealth Stripping by Design:
The Impact of Predatory Lenders in Memphis (2022)
·
Wealth
stripping: What it does
How Predatory Debt Traps
Threaten Vulnerable Families
·
Recent
stats on wealth stripping
A Short History of Payday Lending Law (Pew 2012)
Payday Loan Debt Statistics in
the US (updated 2021)
Payday loans can have interest
rates over 600%—here’s the typical rate in every U.S. state (2021)
·
And
Connecticut?
Curiously, the state of
Connecticut does not have a law prohibiting payday lenders
·
About the
unbanked
·
Making
imprisonment pay
New Report Exposes Dangers of
Costly Criminal Justice Fees (2019)
States Need to Reform Criminal
Justice Fines and Fees (2021)
"Court debt" a steep barrier to a clean slate for those with criminal records (2022)