Of course, you're operating under the assumption that the poor are the mass consumers you decry. For example, My son doesn't have new clothes – he has clothes from the local thrift stores. And, that means he has three pairs of pants and six shirts. He does have a cellphone, but he needs that for school these days. His school issued a Google laptop to students. His desktop he built himself from mostly used parts found on eBay. He does have two pairs of shoes which were bought new. Fortunately, we bought his last coat three sizes too large because hasn't had a new coat in three years. He's graduating in the Spring, but he's not getting a yearbook or grad ring or any grad momentos for that.
My husband hasn't been to a barber in 20 years – I cut his hair. He goes to work in thrift store pants and hasn't had new clothes (except his uniform work shirts) in more than a decade. His car's engine runs fine, but the car was totaled in 2008; it cost less to have the rear end from a junked car welded on than to buy a new car because we only carried liability, so we got nothing from the accident decided as mutual liability. That car, BTW, for the last year has been backflowing exhaust into the cabin – in the middle of rainy or cold weather, he still has to drive with the windows down because of it. He cashes out his vacation time for pay to keep us going. He hasn't had a vacation in over a decade. He works and works and works some more. Then, my nearly 60 year old husband comes home and works to maintain our modest home because, heaven knows, we cannot hire someone even just to mow the grass once in awhile. Retirement any time while he's still breathing looks less and less possible.
I'm sick and disabled and my medical expenses are not minimal. I don't even have a cellphone. The only new dress I've had is the cheapest black dress I could find to wear to my father's impending funeral. Our 25th anniversary passed with no observance because we simply couldn't afford it. Our 30th is in days and it too will pass without observance. I'm an artist. I used to paint. I can't paint anymore. I don't have the supplies and cannot afford them. I have a dwindling supply of colored pencils and cannot afford to replinish that supply. And no, I do NOT receive disability income because my husband makes around $600 a year too much for me to qualify.
We haven't been in a restaurant since 2018 when we went to the local Appleby's for Mother's Day – where my husband and I shared off our entrées to feed our then 14 year old son. We didn't get appetizers or drinks. But man… yeah… what treat to be able to go to a restaurant for the first time in a couple of years. Woo. And. Hoo.
Fifteen dollars an hour is only $600 gross a week – after taxes and deductions, you're lucking to bring home $450 a week. We just calculated and discovered that if we were old enough to draw Social Security retirement benefits, our combined payments would be about two thirds MORE than he makes working all the time at a crap job to keep food on YOUR table.
Don't think that poor people are undeserving because they spend on mass consumerism. That's simply not true. It's a cruel lie perpetuated by people giving tax breaks and subsidies to the already obscenely wealthy who want you to blame the nameless poor person whose experience you obviously cannot even imagine.
