Poor People Spend Money as Soon as They Receive It (05/14/2013)

In this workshop for police officers in Youngstown, Ohio, issues faced by people in poverty are discussed in depth in order to give the officers a broader perspective and a deeper understanding of the people they serve. Guy Burney, the city’s Community Initiative to Reduce Violence coordinator, wants to sensitize police officers to the problems that the community’s poor face. People from the middle class and from multi-generational poverty have fundamentally different modes of viewing and spending money: “Some 59 percent of poor renters spend 50 percent of their income on shelter, whereas 25 percent to 33 percent for shelter is typical in the middle class.” Burney shares these and other facts for a reason: ““I’m just hoping officers get a broader perspective, a little bit more cultural diversity [training], and that the officers have empathy towards other individuals of maybe a different background or social-economic status.” Read more…

View as PDF: Poor people spend money as soon as they receive it