The Poor Pay More For Everyday Purchases By Halah Touryalai

It has been said that poor people do not know how to manage or spend their money. The poor are criticized because they are portrayed as lazy, having lack of intelligence, and making bad decisions. This is a daily stress for those who are having trouble paying for their necessities because people take advantage of them. It’s simply expensive to be poor when places like grocery stores, banks, and even car insurance companies make the poor pay more.

Grocery stores have things we need on a daily basis like food and toilet paper, however, these stores make the poor pay more. For instance, in the article “The Poor Pay More for Everyday Purchases” by Max Ehrenfreund, he states that stores make their prices higher in the poor communities. "The

For example, in the article, “How Banks Are Getting Richer off the Poor” by Halah Touryalai, she states that many poor people can not maintain a minimum balance to avoid fees, "More than half of this group say banking is too expensive for them. Many cannot maintain the minimum balance necessary to avoid monthly fees; for others, the risk of being walloped with unexpected fees looms too large"(Touryalai). Many groups of poor people say that banking is expensive because they can not maintain the minimum balance to avoid shocking unexpected fees. Poor people are taken advantage of because not all poor people have the money to maintain a sufficient amount of money to avoid fees. This isn’t civil to the poor community because the poor should have the same benefits as the wealthy. In the article “Bank Failure: The Financial Marginalization of the Poor” by Louis Jacobson, he states since poor people can’t afford a bank account the percentage for poor people with a card has dropped, "The percentage of households holding a deposit account changed little among the four highest income bands, but in the fifth--the poorest--account ownership dropped more than 11 percentage points"(Jacobson). The article shows how wealthy people are able to maintain a bank account, but those who aren't as fortunate can't sustain a bank account with all the expenses, therefore many drop their ownership. Poor people already can't afford to maintain a membership, and bankers aiming at those less fortunate with corrupt deals that will eventually have those in poverty left in depth isn't helping. "But the truth is banking is a business that aims to make profits for shareholder”(Touryalai). Banking is like any other business that takes the money of people and puts it to another use. Though this may be true, banks should not be doing it only to the poor but also to the rich.