The Aggravators that Make the Experience of Poverty Worse:

Time, Racism, the Accumulation of Aspects, and Social Identity

In determining the aspects of poverty, we detected elements that aggravate the experience of poverty — by reinforcing the power of subjugation and intensifying the weight of all the aspects — and elements that are beyond people’s control but have a constant effect on their experience of poverty. Aggravators and constants reinforce the power of subjugation and increase the impact of the other aspects. These factors are not related to people’s capacities, but result from the way subjugation operates at the cultural and institutional levels that shape policies.

Time

When discussing the effect of time on the dimensions of poverty, we realized that long and short term could mean very different time frames depending on people's daily lives. Whereas people not experiencing poverty may define short term as a couple of months and long term as five to ten years, some people in poverty have stated they couldn’t plan long term because they were constantly dealing with the immediacy of surviving the now. Short term for them might be a day and long term would be making it to the end of the month.

"You think, if I can just make it to the end of the week everything will be okay."

Another aspect of this discussion was our realization that the time of people living in poverty is not considered to be as valuable as that of people not living in poverty; it is considered expendable. "What you choose to do with your day shows the options you have; and if you have (or not) the power to make decisions about these choices." Many people assume that people living in poverty have an abundance of time: you’re poor so you must not be working, therefore you have more time to wait for services or to return repeatedly with documents when applying for subsidies. In contrast, when people in poverty are in dire need of a resource, time is limited: for example, too little time is given to become self-sustainable when receiving help, time limits are imposed in shelters, and there is rarely enough time to find other housing if being evicted.

When considering generational poverty, we determined that brief periods of security do not outweigh the deep impacts of a lifetime of barely subsisting:

"There have been times when I’ve had a little more and felt like I could finally breathe, but that doesn’t stop the clock and mean that poverty ended for me and I’m out of it; and the poverty clock started again when those times ended. Since my great grandfather came here as an immigrant, to my grandfather, to my mother, to me and my family, poverty has been consistent across generations. No one, no matter how hard they worked or tried, was able to make it into the middle class and stay there. They all struggled just to keep their head above water and survive."

The impact of poverty differs depending on the amount of time spent in poverty: the more time spent in poverty, the more the accumulation of aspects is likely to happen. A lifetime spent in poverty can cause physical and mental health trauma leading to toxic stress.

"I raised three sons and when I sent them to school, sometimes I didn’t know if they’d come home later. It’s very stressful. We need to be at peace, our homes and schools. You put on the television and everything is violence. How do you go to sleep at night? How do you feel peace at all? It’s prevalent to me personally, in my community, and globally."

The physical and mental health issues caused by poverty can continue throughout a lifetime — even if a person is able to leave poverty — and have the greatest effect of all on time: a shorter lifespan.

"When you are in poverty, you die sooner."

Racism

Racism is embedded in the fabric of our society. Some Americans believe that all people of color are poor, and all poor people are people of color. That belief stems from the fact that racism influences policies, practices, and programs, privileging some groups over others.

"The same GI bill that allowed a lot of the suburbs to be built along with federal subsidies was not given to black people. We can’t talk about generational poverty without talking about the people who created the policies that created generational poverty. Discriminatory policies; it wasn’t just bad policies, it was discriminatory policies. It’s been discriminatory policies that literally keep people in poverty."

Racism is also evident in the form of daily microaggressions that can be internalized by some people and force them to exhibit controlled personal behavior.

"When I go into a store with my wife I stay at the front, lean against the wall, and make sure I keep my hands visible. If I don’t, I know I’ll be followed around the store because it’s happened before."

Accumulation of Aspects

The accumulation of the aspects of poverty can result in a lifetime of poverty. The stress and trauma from consistently dealing with the hardship of multiple aspects of poverty often lead to physical and mental health problems.

"I have a lot of problems. Right now the gas and electric are cut off."

"Some of the problems that people may have may be solvable, but when there are so many issues, it is hard to use your problem-solving skills."

Social Identity

Social identity engages our beliefs, values, and norms in a complex, dynamic relationship that creates socially imposed labels based on social and cultural constructs. In the United States, who you are is based on social regard and status.

"Identity is a fundamentally social thing… I’m only white because someone else isn’t, only a woman because someone else isn’t. It’s almost like identity is assigned by someone else, not self-assigned."

People in poverty face a dual experience with identity: how society identifies them (static), and how they identify themselves (dynamic; evolving with life experiences) — the how I see me vs. how you see me.

"Being white and female from a rural area, we’re viewed as uneducated; our accent is an embarrassment for many, but I’m very proud of it."

Like racism, social identity affects policies, practices, and programs that privilege some groups over others because it has the ability to deprive people in poverty of any power and therefore of control over their own lives. The more marginalized social identities that can be placed on a person in poverty, the less power they have, resulting in a deeper experience of poverty. For example, an African American LGBT woman will have a much different experience of poverty than a white heterosexual man. But people resist being labeled:

"In this country I am seen as a multi-racial gay man and an immigrant, so when people see me, they see those things. Those are not my issues; those are other people’s issues."

Some people in poverty are able to hold on to their personal identity in spite of the multiple identities society places on them:

"I’m really clear of what I’m seen as through other people’s eyes. I grew up in poverty, but it doesn’t define me."

"I do not personally identify with poverty. I do identify with the fact that it exists, and it has influenced the person that I have become. But thank God it did not, and does not, define who I am. I do, and I have had less. I have done without, but I’ve had so much more — not monetary — throughout my life span. But I don’t own poverty."