Poor? Pay up.

People who have never lived below the poverty line don’t understand that the poorer you are, the more things cost in money, time, hassle, exhaustion and danger. The poor pay more for a gallon of milk or loaf of bread, for example, because they don’t have a car to get to the supermarket or Costco. They must buy their milk from the corner store, where everything costs more. They don’t have home washers and dryers either, so they must spend hours at the local laundromat. In many cases, they don’t have bank accounts, so they must use check-cashing and payday loan services, which cost time and money. The list goes on and on in this eye-opening  “primer on the economics of poverty” from The Washington Post.