I find that I live a much more active life in this game than I ever have in real life. Back when I was making $9/hr, I can't remember a single week where my dog died, I got injured at work, the neighbor kid broke my window, I decided to see a therapist and one of my co-workers came down with a terminal condition.
I only made it to day 13, but already I've spent more in that game than I did in real life over the last month. I realize it's trying to make a point, but all it's really doing is making me suspect that it's fibbing a bit. More realism might turn out to be more convincing.
Right. And here's a different flash site, which shows that literally hundreds of millions of people worldwide increased their real income over the last twenty years:
Somehow hundreds of millions of people in China and elsewhere went from far more deprived conditions to first world status over the span of a few decades. Nothing in that game compares to the horrors of the Cultural Revolution or the mass starvation of the Great Leap Forward. So clearly it is possible for an entire civilization to pull itself up by its bootstraps through capitalism. [0]
Finally, as noted the game stacks the deck against reality. It starts you out as a single parent with no savings and evidently no family members who will help you out...without any acknowledgement of the fact that broken homes, divorce, out-of-wedlock births, a lack of a high school diploma, and a failure to save are the major causes of poverty. [1], [2]
If the game started a few years earlier and asked "do you want to complete high school" and "do you wait till you're financially stable before marrying & having children", the overall message would be very different. Indeed, the authors would likely be accused of having unfashionable political sympathies for simply advising that people mimic the behaviors of middle class Asian immigrant families.
I played for an entire month. Not only did my dog die, but my grandfather did too (the funeral was a $350 airfare away). Then my best friend from school got married a few days later (another $350 airfare). I got sick twice, and my mother got sick once. Oh, and a neighbour's kid broke my window too. And I spilled bleach on my nice new shirt.
If this was billed not as a poverty simulator but as an "Unluckiest person in America" simulator, I might see the point. Perhaps the game should just start off "You go to look for a job, but you get hit by a bus and die".
I made it through the month with $150 to spare without sacrificing my child's education or my health. I just didn't turn down free stuff (hey, there's nothing wrong with being poor) and didn't make stupid decisions, even though the game tried to set me up (forcing me to choose between getting paid per hour or per piece without an estimate on how much per-piece would give me? I'd at least do a back-of-the-envelope calculation in real life).
EDIT: Just tried it again and went with the hourly wage. The game said my supervisor cut it in half. Nice going, game.
Also, who starts smoking when they can't afford it?
I quit when I got a collections call for an overdue car payment. I never had a choice to not miss a payment.
Being poor sucks, but this game is trying way to hard to make that point and actually backfires. The contrived situations make me less likely to emphasize with someone who is in that position.
Went to the therapist? wtf! All the poor people I know (grew up poor) wouldn't go to the doctor if a cancer tumor was growing out of the side of their head. Too expensive. This thing thinks we would be going to a therapist? Maybe if someone else pays for it, but even then: can I just get the cash instead if you're giving it away?
What a joke. In the month, I got sick twice, had two 'best friends' get married, had a grandfather die, needed a root canal, wrecked my car (even though I chose to pay the max rent and live 5 miles from work, it told me I still had to to have a car), had my sink break (and the landlord refuse to fix it), got caught hiding pets in my apartment (why do I have a pet? I can't afford a pet, that is just a bad decision.).
I get it, they are trying to make a point. However, the point they are making is crap. It is very hard to live on $9 an hour. However, making $9 puts you in the top 1% of all humans who have ever lived. There are lots of social programs that will help a little. They don't make you rich, but they help a little.
The first thing I ask anyone who complains about being unemployed or underemployed: "Do you have a TV? Do you have cable or satellite tv?" You wouldn't believe how hostile people are when you suggest that they might benefit from turning off their tv and using that time to study or learn a new skill. As a child my family was on food stamps and welfare. My mother raised 4 boys on her own. As it turns out, I am now in the top 1% of wage earners in the US, but I don't have time to watch TV. I have never taken a real vacation. I suffered through 6 years of Army Reserve so I could pay for college. Every free minute I have is spent working, hustling, studying, experimenting.
I don't believe the hype. If you are willing to work your ass off, if you show up to work on time and aren't high or drunk, and you don't steal, it is very easy to get a job, today. It's easy to get 2 jobs. Working 80 hours per week isn't something that you want to do, but it's a walk in the park compared to the conditions our ancestors lived in.
It's really hard to take care of kids when you are a single parent and you can't get childcare, especially if you don't have family that is willing to help. Maybe we should do more for people in this situation, not to help them, but to at least give the kids the opportunity to do better. For everyone else, I say stop whining, throw away your tv, and stop being so entitled and lazy.
Very good comment Justin, much respect from me. A small point though -
> I have never taken a real vacation.
I used to be like this. I'd work, literally, about 362 days per year and take 3 off.
It didn't max out my productivity, it didn't max out my income, it didn't max out my quality of life, it didn't make me better able to serve customers and clients.
Really, I was just suffering because I had an identity of "being hardcore."
I still do, to some extent. But I'm taking more time off lately and doing better than ever. I work less, but my decisions are sharper.
To wade in, try taking off 2-3 days and go somewhere nice that's only ~100 to ~200 miles from where you live, or less. That's a short pleasant train ride, a 30-60 minute flight, or a few hour drive. Hang out in a cabin by a lake, or the beach, or whatever. Refuse to work unless you get hyper-inspired.
You might, actually - get hyper inspired. Then it's okay. But if you step back and get some perspective instead of constantly grinding it out, you might actually increase your income, productivity, ability to serve and deliver for your staff and customers, and your own quality of life.
It does require giving up an identity of "I'm hardcore and suffer because that's what I do" though - and I don't say that in a snarky way. I've got that identity. But again, I suspect it might actually be counterproductive to income, productivity, service, and quality of life.
I just played a round of this game (ended with $322), and I felt like it was a compelling demonstration of why I'm not poor.
I know they wanted to present an argument of "oh, all these bad things happen that keep people poor", but I really saw a bunch of small decisions that, when made poorly, accumulate into having no money.
I grew up in a poor town in Ukraine. Up until the age of 9 or so, I was on a steady diet of potato soup. No videogames meant my only source of entertainment was reading or drawing. New cloth? Forget about it, haha. A candy bar (mmm Bounty) was something to buy on a holiday. Walk to the school and get ostracized/bullied by kids who somehow resemble wild animals.
The entire last 8 years in USA felt like a walk in the park. No food? Pshh, food stamps, food banks, whatever. Food takes about 5-10% of household's income anyway, compared to like 50% of the income in Ukraine. No housing? Millions of relatives with giant houses, homeless shelters, etc.
It's even easier to lose weight just because of the access to millions of gyms, dance clubs, and healthy food.
The game is unrealistic, just like any games, but makes a good statement.
Personally, I would have liked a little for the game is provide room for improvement (over a period of time) but also provide some attachment to ones choices. It should have been made like Oregon Trail.
What the game does not really provide is the emotional baggage that comes with many of these decisions.
For example, when asked what to do with the pet, I took him to the shelter (financially the best choice). In real life, I am not sure I could make that decisions (disclaimer I do not own any pets in RL).
Similarly, with the best friends wedding in another state: In the game, flying to that wedding is a bad choice, but in RL, you would try to borrow money and go anyway.
When you are poor, it is really hard to delay gratification, even though that is the best choice in the long run(and we all know what happens in the long run).
Game should have been over a period of one year or so (roughly the period of the Nickel and Dimed and Scratch Beginnings).
Back in 1986, I had 2 jobs, 1 delivering packages full-time and the other cleaning windows and offices nights and Saturdays.
I did not go to college right out of school and I had no marketable skills. I was able to save $16,000 in 2 years, all of which was counted against me when I applied at the local community college.
And, yes, I had no TV most of that time! No computer either. Never ate out or travelled. Lived in crap town where all it does is snow, rain and cloud over. Drove cars that cost less than I now gross in a week.
There are people all over working just as hard and with kids and maybe not so many educational possibilities. Life can be tough.
But even these folks used to be able to save a little bit of money and earn interest on it. If you only save $200 a month for 30 years at 6%, you end up with $200,000.
Even if they have any money after paying all the taxes, they can't earn any interest on their savings anyway. The same $200 a month leaves you with only $77,000 at .5% after the same 30 years.
What we're doing is punishing the very virtues that made it possible for even the least skilled to move out of poverty back in the day.
I seldom hear poor people whine. Pride is usually one of the few things you have left. And don't equate the poor with lazyness and addiction. If you grew up poor you should know better. I do hear people with money complain about car payments, regulation, taxes etc. all the time.
I guess your comment is well-ment in a can-do attitude kind of way, but lacks pragmatism and basic understanding of psychology. It's easy to take away the things that enable you to do something and then blame the individual. In my experience most of the time things considered better actually are and what doesn't kill you messes with your head.
I like the concept a lot but the game is just too rigid to be realistic. It's essentially a propaganda piece and the choices it gives you are no-win by design (so that the game has opportunity to lecture you on the plight of low-wage workers). Real life is not so restrictive.
It seems a bit involved to get across what could have been an infographic.
I'd really like to see someone take a more serious and/or interesting approach to this concept. This game plays like an old "choose your own adventure"; you have "choices", but everything is pre-determined and there are only a handful of available story routes, which in this case are designed to make it difficult to complete the game while selecting any of the presented moral options and then to show that you'll only have a few dollars left in exchange for abandonment of all principles.
There are three things I find annoying by this game.
I shouldn't be driving a car if I don't have money for it. I should sell the car and always take bus, since later in the game it says I have that option.
I had to choose if I should stay with an hourly paycheck or work by the piece. I choose piece because then I thought I could put in some more work, but then it just said I couldn't work that much. Well if I had known that I would have stuck with an hourly check, that's math you can actually work out in real life before making that decision.
It says I have a college degree but that wont help me, and then it says I'm probably too uneducated to help out my children with math homework.
All in all some interesting facts about the american low-income society, but the choices and different aspects of it are very strange. You could do a lot more to save money as well as make more money than is presented here. Well basically, kind of annoyingly simplified.
I'm currently teaching a college algebra class in which students learn to solve the kind of problem presented. (It would be very interesting to know where "train problems" got their start, though...)
The vast majority of my students cannot solve that sort of problem by themselves after seeing several examples of similar problems worked out. Yes, this is the last math course some of these students will have to take. No, they are not all liberal arts students.
Given how quickly unused knowledge decays, I don't think it's terribly unreasonable to assume that your average student with a bachelor's degree won't remember how to solve a train problem.
My major reactions while playing the game tended to follow a theme:
Game: Mobile phone bill's due.
Me: I have a mobile phone??
Game: Landlord wants pet rent for the dog.
Me: I have a dog??
Game: Car payment's due.
Me: I have a CAR???
Game: How about some $60 internet?
Me: How about the $20 non-broadband type?
Game: You lost your car, so you lost your job.
Me: No, see, that's why I paid extra to live close. We call them bikes.
A "let's gain empathy by playing being poor" game seems like a horrible idea overall.
If it was a decent game and let you learn and succeed by smart choices, it would only give you a feeling of superiority to poor folks.
If (as it does) it inflicts you with pre-existing poor decisions and random "the gods are angry" punishments, it seems to impart a feeling that poor folks are somehow hopeless and cursed, which isn't really helpful either.
Wouldn't it be a lot more helpful to teach teenagers and pre-teens real-life strategies for independent living? Things like showing you how much money you end up paying to rent furniture or lease a car?
For many people, mobile phones have replaced land lines, and are often cheaper with pay-as-you-go plans. This isn't 1998 anymore, mobile phones are not a luxury. Also, if you can't get a call form work that your shift has been changed, and you miss a shift, you lose your job. And with most people having mobile phones, having a land line and not getting a chance to check your answering machine is not likely much of an excuse.
Game: Landlord wants pet rent for the dog.
Dogs have been a part of humanity for much of our modern evolution. If someone gets laid off, or hits hard times, asking them to give up their dog to save some money is like asking them to hand over a family member. So yes, while dogs are an expense, they have a lot of psychological and emotional benefits for evolutionary reasons.
Me: I have a CAR???
Yes, because you couldn't find work nearby, and the only place that was hiring wasn't bike-able. So you bought a beater that's barely street legal, but you had to finance it through some shady car dealership. Unemployment had run out, and you had a job offer, and you knew it was risky, but what other option did you have?
Back when my earnings were in a similar ballpark to this game I lived in a very inexpensive apartment, I had no pets, I had a pre-paid mobile phone that cost maybe $8 a month on average, I had dialup internet, I did not have cable or a TV set, I did not own a car, and I owned very little furniture (bordering on none). That's how you keep costs down, you live within your means until your means improve.
The moment I saw the rent was $850 per month I laughed out loud, because my brother makes minimum and lives in a $400 per month setup with apartment mates (who he found on Craigslist). And this is in Massachusetts in a city. I had to stop playing the game shortly after that since it too strongly ruined the suspension of disbelief.
This would be a lot better if it were more realistic, it banks on you not being able to make smart decisions to ram the various factoids down your throat. It would be a much better experience if the basics were spread out over multiple months with the occasional clustering of events.
This 'perfect storm' of trouble is just setting you up for failure, the deck is stacked against you much further than it is in real life. You are also not given the full picture up front, nor are you given the option on which services you subscribe to.
Also, if you can't afford a mobile phone you probably shouldn't have one, and if your landlord does something illegal an alternative option is to tell him to go f*ck off rather than to pay or move out. Good luck evicting me if I'm up to date on payments and the contract stipulates terms that I've lived up to.
That said, it's probably a useful tool to get people to put themselves in the shoes of someone that has it worse than they themselves do.
Games are always rigged. Usually in favor of the player, this one is against. I think it supposed to illustrate this one month when problems cluster.
I know a poor person who has 3 kids and car that falls apart. Some of the decisions she makes are strange.
This game allowed me to take a peek at crazy world she's living.
If you had the education and forthought to read and comprehend a legal contract, you probably wouldn't be a low income worker. Don't look down on those who have difficulty in life, it's a roll of the dice with a little skill sprinkled on. I'd argue success is more due to your upbringing and factors outside your control than we give credit for.
if your landlord does something illegal an alternative option is to tell him to go fck off rather than to pay or move out. Good luck evicting me if I'm up to date on payments and the contract stipulates terms that I've lived up to.*
I have never ever experienced a landlord trying to raise my rent mere days after I moved in, like they seem to do in this game.
I played the game, and came out $199 ahead...and that when faced with absurdly limited options (say, the rowdy roommate would see a Mosin/Nagant ($29!) instead of the landlord when told to leave, so no extra $100 cost there). No risky sacrifices (medical bills paid, job attended to), no luxuries until affordable (and sentimentality is a luxury).
I should have taken copious notes (maybe I will on another pass) and comment how, instead of viewing it all as crushing poverty, it is indicative of living in a luxurious society. Opt for the $1 hamburger, and be told "that's why so many poor are overweight"? WTH? If it's got that many calories then cut it in half and eat it across two meals! If you're obese, you're not poor; talk to the half of the world's population which lives on less than $2/day.
So, coming out a couple hundred dollars ahead, I could run this "poverty" scenario for 4 months and have enough to buy a refurbished MacBook Air and join the Apple Developer's Program, with which I could bootstrap an iOS App-writing business. Seems some others played, came out over $1000 ahead, and could jump in to app-writing in one month flat.
Read between the lines in the game, and see the opportunities that abound. Sell the car and take the bus. Focus the kids on learning entrepreneuring instead of sports. Take in a decent paying roommate (and throw out the rowdy one bodily if need be). Use the library for education and internet businesses. Eat the $1 hamburgers featuring caloric abundance. Heck, save the $1 and make two 1.5lb loaves of great bread (coming to my blog soon!). Organize with other "poor" to leverage opportunities (carpooling, babysitting, etc.).
First-world problems indeed.
ETA: Downvoters, take a stand and tell me why this post is wrong.
Well, there's already a lot of comments here pointing out that he game is unrealistic and rigged. But I'd like to add to this a bit, and to say that the memes which the game is rigged to spread are not only wrong but pernicious.
There are two views of poverty in rich countries. One view holds that poverty is caused by poor people who make bad decisions, and that it's possible to lift yourself out of poverty by making good decisions instead. The second view holds that poverty is caused by external factors, that it's a trap that poor people can't escape, and that the way to solve poverty is by giving ever-increasing amounts of taxpayer-funded free stuff to the poor until they stop being poor. The cartoon versions of each of these extremes are silly, and there's a bit of truth in both of them.
The real trick, though, is that the first belief, the belief that poor people can pull themselves out of poverty, is true only to the extent that they actually believe it. A poor person who believes he can get out of poverty by making sensible decisions will make those decisions. A poor person who believes his poverty is the fault of, and can only be solved by, other people will not. Convincing a poor person that someone else is responsible for their situation is just about the worst thing you can possibly do for them.
Those who want to support increased welfare are openly hostile to the idea that poor people can take responsibility for their own decisions and start making better ones to solve their problems. And this, I think, is a huge factor in perpetuating poverty.
I want to help the poor, really I do, but I'm certain that teaching them the correct values is far more important than handing them cash.
Great. Playful (asking you to solve a "train a travels at 70mph..." question when you say you can help your kids with their homework) and creatively designed (cute distance-from-work slider for picking where to live). Of course it's propaganda, but regardless of the realism it does do a good job of simulating the low-income mindset, where every decision ("The ice-cream truck rolls round. Can your kid have an ice-cream?") ends up about money.
"Nickel and Dimed" was mentioned in one of the fact-bubbles. I highly recommend the book for anyone who wants to learn more about the decisions people face when in situations like this. I was spent for a time (about 10 months) being unemployed and lived on about $40 per week, skirting my rent, not having phone/internet, and getting my power cut (twice). Even though I ended up taking a job I didn't like, it payed well and I pulled myself out of that situation. Never Again.
I had the same problem with "Nickel and Dimed" that I had with this game. She made a series of completely irrational decisions which resulted in expenses larger than they needed to be.
Adam Shepard graduated from college feeling disillusioned by the apathy around him and was then incensed after reading Barbara Ehrenreich's famous work Nickel and Dimed—a book that gave him a feeling of hopelessness about the working class in America. He set out to disprove Ehrenreich's theory—the notion that those who start at the bottom stay at the bottom—by making something out of nothing to achieve the American Dream.
Shepard's plan was simple. With a sleeping bag, the clothes on his back, and $25 in cash, and restricted from using his contacts or college education, he headed out for Charleston, South Carolina, a randomly selected city with one objective: to work his way out of homelessness and into a life that would give him the opportunity for success. His goal was to have, after one year, $2,500, a working automobile, and a furnished apartment.
I saw this on fark.com about a week ago, and decided not to cross post it here because it's far too biased. I understand what it's trying to do, but I don't think it's successful in doing so. My biggest complaint is that it attempts to show that it's not only about making poor choices - but the choices that the character has obviously taken prior to getting to the point where I control it were poor choices, and now I am trying to deal with it. My second complaint is that the simulation should have been one day longer - so you would have to pay rent again - that's when the real issues start happening.
Even with the odds against me, I was able to finish the simulation a few times with over $1200 available (thus being able to pay the rent on the following day).
Meh. I got to day 25, but there were so many dumb economic choices it forced me to make that it was essentially impossible to win the game scenario. There were a great number of future benefit choices to make, but the game forces you to think only for the moment, which is the prime reason why poor people remain poor.
Like, whoa! Suddenly $225 in utilities bills ($225? Seriously??? It doesn't even cost that much in Tokyo!) that I somehow didn't know about to be able to plan for.
And whoa! my car starts acting up, and I can't even think to park it and take the bus for awhile until I can afford to fix it (you know, rather than running it into the ground and wasting even MORE money).
And whoa! that leak in my sink has become a huge nightmare because I didn't handle it when it was a small issue and it was obvious the landlord wouldn't do anything about it.
And why the hell do I remain unemployed for so long instead of taking some part time work to keep my savings up while I look for a real job?
Seriously, a little planning ahead goes a LONG way.
Time for an anti-American rant.
You buy premium healthcare but still need to pay the doctor ?
You don't have unemployment aids ?
You can get fired for talking to a union guy ? (if that happens to you in France, that is your way to wealth through court action)
You should probably do some research before ranting.
You buy premium healthcare but still need to pay the doctor?
That obviously depends on the provisions of the healthcare contract. It's common to pay a deductible and/or token co-pay. But these plans can always be tailored to address the needs of the buyer, and of the provider. (I might rant about the problems with enforcing a one-size-fits-all plan.)
You don't have unemployment aids?
Yes, we do. There is unemployment insurance, welfare, food stamps, disability insurance, and so on, to provide a safety net.
You can get fired for talking to a union guy?
No, you cannot (labor regulation in America is absurdly skewed in favor of the workers). The employer is forbidden from interfering with any labor attempt to organize. However, our Democrats have been attempting to pass a regulations called "card check" [1] which would take away the workers' right to secret ballots when voting for unionization. (And the Democrats are supposed to be the ones standing up for the little guy?!?)
C'est la vie ... curiously, I have no desire to move from the U.S. to France but I'm glad you're happy where you're living. We all should be or we should move!
This describes the life of around 50% (may be more) of Tunisians. The probability of bad things occurring to you is increased by the bad infrastructure, evil government, the general hardness of life and the chaos the country is living on.
So for me, this is completely realistic. Just drop the costs (and also the earnings) around 10 times (for poor people) to adjust for the living expenses.
This was a very interesting exercise, but some of the numbers don't seem very realistic. For example, is $600 really the cheapest rent a poor person has to pay? Even in a city like London, I've lived on $300 per month, including food, when times were tough for me.
Like many others, I also ended the game ahead at the end of the month with a fair amount to spare. It was't necessarily easy, I had to critically think about each decision. I also consider myself fairly 'financially fit' in making decisions. Many of us are problem solvers and entrepreneurs so the fact that we can 'beat' the game says nothing about the difficulty less educated have in real life.
$1500 to recover your vehicle after getting pulled over for expired registration?
I've gotten a half dozen tickets for expired registration in Texas and the result is you pay an extra 30 bucks when you register and a 10 dollar fee to waive the ticket if you register within 10 days of the citation. What state impounds your car?
The same state where internet is $60, the power bill for your tiny apartment is $100 a month, where landlords increase your rent the day after you move in, and where you can't get an apartment for less than $800 a month.
If you want to see another take on the whole problem, go to Netflix and watch the 30 Days episode called Minimum Wage. It's the same guy who did Supersize Me. He and his girlfriend try to work and live on minimum wage for a month. Doesn't go much better for them than it does for players of this game.
This is depressing. But I'm not sure how donating $5 to some mission is going to solve these problems; the game itself says poor people are wary of accepting handouts, and that's all this will be, right?
I'm also not sure I'm comfortable subsidizing people's bad choices. If I have to support someone, it's my nature to micromanage their lives to make sure they are using the money efficiently. No cell phones. No Internet. No music downloads. No nights out drinking.
In the end, I try to imagine how I would act if I were poor, had a child, and had no marketable skills. The first thing would be to find the smallest living space available, to save on rent, heating/cooling costs, and electricity. That means sleeping on mats that come out of the closet at bedtime, washing dishes by hand, cooking everything on the stove, and taking a bath with my kid every night to save hot water. If rich people in Japan can live this way, poor people in America can live this way. I would try to live close enough to work to not need a car (cars are nice, until they break), but if that's not possible, I'd use a car for commuting and a bike for errands. I wouldn't have a cell phone or Internet access; I'd queue up my Internet needs (buying household essentials in bulk online, resyncing my CPAN mirror, whatever) and go to the library. This would also be a good time to get some public-domain music and some books to read for the week.
It sounds primitive but I know I could make it work. If you're dumb, lazy, and have kids, guess what, life is not going to be the same as those Hollywood stars on TV. You don't get to buy everything you want. You don't get to have fun with your friends. You get to work, cook, read, help your kids with school, and keep your bicycle in good working condition. And honestly, I don't think that's a life that's missing anything at all. You get human relationships (family), a chance to contribute to society (work), education (reading), a hobby (cooking), and exercise (cycling).
So I guess the problem is: how do we convince people to want what they can have, rather than to want what they can't have? It's a cultural thing, and it's going to be a very hard problem to solve. We may be able to give people free healthcare, but where will they live, what will they eat, and how will they get to work?
(And I know what you're all thinking: the reason I'm not poor is because I can think things through and be analytical enough to make smart choices. Yes. That's why "solving poverty" is a very, very, very difficult problem. Feeling bad and giving someone money is not the solution. Deep changes to our educational system and our cultural values are probably the only way to make things work.)
[+] [-] jasonkester|14 years ago|reply
I only made it to day 13, but already I've spent more in that game than I did in real life over the last month. I realize it's trying to make a point, but all it's really doing is making me suspect that it's fibbing a bit. More realism might turn out to be more convincing.
[+] [-] ramanujan|14 years ago|reply
http://www.gapminder.org/labs/gapminder-china/#$majorMode=ch...
Somehow hundreds of millions of people in China and elsewhere went from far more deprived conditions to first world status over the span of a few decades. Nothing in that game compares to the horrors of the Cultural Revolution or the mass starvation of the Great Leap Forward. So clearly it is possible for an entire civilization to pull itself up by its bootstraps through capitalism. [0]
Finally, as noted the game stacks the deck against reality. It starts you out as a single parent with no savings and evidently no family members who will help you out...without any acknowledgement of the fact that broken homes, divorce, out-of-wedlock births, a lack of a high school diploma, and a failure to save are the major causes of poverty. [1], [2]
If the game started a few years earlier and asked "do you want to complete high school" and "do you wait till you're financially stable before marrying & having children", the overall message would be very different. Indeed, the authors would likely be accused of having unfashionable political sympathies for simply advising that people mimic the behaviors of middle class Asian immigrant families.
[0] http://www.amazon.com/Third-World-First-Singapore-1965-2000/...
[1] http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba428
[2] http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2010/pdf/bg2465.pdf
[+] [-] hugh3|14 years ago|reply
If this was billed not as a poverty simulator but as an "Unluckiest person in America" simulator, I might see the point. Perhaps the game should just start off "You go to look for a job, but you get hit by a bus and die".
[+] [-] StavrosK|14 years ago|reply
EDIT: Just tried it again and went with the hourly wage. The game said my supervisor cut it in half. Nice going, game.
Also, who starts smoking when they can't afford it?
[+] [-] davedx|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quantumhobbit|14 years ago|reply
Being poor sucks, but this game is trying way to hard to make that point and actually backfires. The contrived situations make me less likely to emphasize with someone who is in that position.
[+] [-] ghurlman|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danssig|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] firefoxman1|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justin_vanw|14 years ago|reply
I get it, they are trying to make a point. However, the point they are making is crap. It is very hard to live on $9 an hour. However, making $9 puts you in the top 1% of all humans who have ever lived. There are lots of social programs that will help a little. They don't make you rich, but they help a little.
The first thing I ask anyone who complains about being unemployed or underemployed: "Do you have a TV? Do you have cable or satellite tv?" You wouldn't believe how hostile people are when you suggest that they might benefit from turning off their tv and using that time to study or learn a new skill. As a child my family was on food stamps and welfare. My mother raised 4 boys on her own. As it turns out, I am now in the top 1% of wage earners in the US, but I don't have time to watch TV. I have never taken a real vacation. I suffered through 6 years of Army Reserve so I could pay for college. Every free minute I have is spent working, hustling, studying, experimenting.
I don't believe the hype. If you are willing to work your ass off, if you show up to work on time and aren't high or drunk, and you don't steal, it is very easy to get a job, today. It's easy to get 2 jobs. Working 80 hours per week isn't something that you want to do, but it's a walk in the park compared to the conditions our ancestors lived in.
It's really hard to take care of kids when you are a single parent and you can't get childcare, especially if you don't have family that is willing to help. Maybe we should do more for people in this situation, not to help them, but to at least give the kids the opportunity to do better. For everyone else, I say stop whining, throw away your tv, and stop being so entitled and lazy.
[+] [-] lionhearted|14 years ago|reply
> I have never taken a real vacation.
I used to be like this. I'd work, literally, about 362 days per year and take 3 off.
It didn't max out my productivity, it didn't max out my income, it didn't max out my quality of life, it didn't make me better able to serve customers and clients.
Really, I was just suffering because I had an identity of "being hardcore."
I still do, to some extent. But I'm taking more time off lately and doing better than ever. I work less, but my decisions are sharper.
To wade in, try taking off 2-3 days and go somewhere nice that's only ~100 to ~200 miles from where you live, or less. That's a short pleasant train ride, a 30-60 minute flight, or a few hour drive. Hang out in a cabin by a lake, or the beach, or whatever. Refuse to work unless you get hyper-inspired.
You might, actually - get hyper inspired. Then it's okay. But if you step back and get some perspective instead of constantly grinding it out, you might actually increase your income, productivity, ability to serve and deliver for your staff and customers, and your own quality of life.
It does require giving up an identity of "I'm hardcore and suffer because that's what I do" though - and I don't say that in a snarky way. I've got that identity. But again, I suspect it might actually be counterproductive to income, productivity, service, and quality of life.
[+] [-] blake8086|14 years ago|reply
I know they wanted to present an argument of "oh, all these bad things happen that keep people poor", but I really saw a bunch of small decisions that, when made poorly, accumulate into having no money.
[+] [-] mannicken|14 years ago|reply
I grew up in a poor town in Ukraine. Up until the age of 9 or so, I was on a steady diet of potato soup. No videogames meant my only source of entertainment was reading or drawing. New cloth? Forget about it, haha. A candy bar (mmm Bounty) was something to buy on a holiday. Walk to the school and get ostracized/bullied by kids who somehow resemble wild animals.
The entire last 8 years in USA felt like a walk in the park. No food? Pshh, food stamps, food banks, whatever. Food takes about 5-10% of household's income anyway, compared to like 50% of the income in Ukraine. No housing? Millions of relatives with giant houses, homeless shelters, etc.
It's even easier to lose weight just because of the access to millions of gyms, dance clubs, and healthy food.
What's my point? I don't know :)
[+] [-] sireat|14 years ago|reply
Personally, I would have liked a little for the game is provide room for improvement (over a period of time) but also provide some attachment to ones choices. It should have been made like Oregon Trail.
What the game does not really provide is the emotional baggage that comes with many of these decisions.
For example, when asked what to do with the pet, I took him to the shelter (financially the best choice). In real life, I am not sure I could make that decisions (disclaimer I do not own any pets in RL).
Similarly, with the best friends wedding in another state: In the game, flying to that wedding is a bad choice, but in RL, you would try to borrow money and go anyway.
When you are poor, it is really hard to delay gratification, even though that is the best choice in the long run(and we all know what happens in the long run).
Game should have been over a period of one year or so (roughly the period of the Nickel and Dimed and Scratch Beginnings).
[+] [-] stretchwithme|14 years ago|reply
I did not go to college right out of school and I had no marketable skills. I was able to save $16,000 in 2 years, all of which was counted against me when I applied at the local community college.
And, yes, I had no TV most of that time! No computer either. Never ate out or travelled. Lived in crap town where all it does is snow, rain and cloud over. Drove cars that cost less than I now gross in a week.
There are people all over working just as hard and with kids and maybe not so many educational possibilities. Life can be tough.
But even these folks used to be able to save a little bit of money and earn interest on it. If you only save $200 a month for 30 years at 6%, you end up with $200,000.
Even if they have any money after paying all the taxes, they can't earn any interest on their savings anyway. The same $200 a month leaves you with only $77,000 at .5% after the same 30 years.
What we're doing is punishing the very virtues that made it possible for even the least skilled to move out of poverty back in the day.
[+] [-] forza|14 years ago|reply
I guess your comment is well-ment in a can-do attitude kind of way, but lacks pragmatism and basic understanding of psychology. It's easy to take away the things that enable you to do something and then blame the individual. In my experience most of the time things considered better actually are and what doesn't kill you messes with your head.
[+] [-] deerparkwater|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] cookiecaper|14 years ago|reply
It seems a bit involved to get across what could have been an infographic.
I'd really like to see someone take a more serious and/or interesting approach to this concept. This game plays like an old "choose your own adventure"; you have "choices", but everything is pre-determined and there are only a handful of available story routes, which in this case are designed to make it difficult to complete the game while selecting any of the presented moral options and then to show that you'll only have a few dollars left in exchange for abandonment of all principles.
[+] [-] ique|14 years ago|reply
I shouldn't be driving a car if I don't have money for it. I should sell the car and always take bus, since later in the game it says I have that option.
I had to choose if I should stay with an hourly paycheck or work by the piece. I choose piece because then I thought I could put in some more work, but then it just said I couldn't work that much. Well if I had known that I would have stuck with an hourly check, that's math you can actually work out in real life before making that decision.
It says I have a college degree but that wont help me, and then it says I'm probably too uneducated to help out my children with math homework.
All in all some interesting facts about the american low-income society, but the choices and different aspects of it are very strange. You could do a lot more to save money as well as make more money than is presented here. Well basically, kind of annoyingly simplified.
[+] [-] thebooktocome|14 years ago|reply
The vast majority of my students cannot solve that sort of problem by themselves after seeing several examples of similar problems worked out. Yes, this is the last math course some of these students will have to take. No, they are not all liberal arts students.
Given how quickly unused knowledge decays, I don't think it's terribly unreasonable to assume that your average student with a bachelor's degree won't remember how to solve a train problem.
[+] [-] Dove|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zach|14 years ago|reply
If it was a decent game and let you learn and succeed by smart choices, it would only give you a feeling of superiority to poor folks.
If (as it does) it inflicts you with pre-existing poor decisions and random "the gods are angry" punishments, it seems to impart a feeling that poor folks are somehow hopeless and cursed, which isn't really helpful either.
Wouldn't it be a lot more helpful to teach teenagers and pre-teens real-life strategies for independent living? Things like showing you how much money you end up paying to rent furniture or lease a car?
Maybe something like the old board game Pay Day?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_Day_(board_game)
[+] [-] michaelchisari|14 years ago|reply
For many people, mobile phones have replaced land lines, and are often cheaper with pay-as-you-go plans. This isn't 1998 anymore, mobile phones are not a luxury. Also, if you can't get a call form work that your shift has been changed, and you miss a shift, you lose your job. And with most people having mobile phones, having a land line and not getting a chance to check your answering machine is not likely much of an excuse.
Game: Landlord wants pet rent for the dog.
Dogs have been a part of humanity for much of our modern evolution. If someone gets laid off, or hits hard times, asking them to give up their dog to save some money is like asking them to hand over a family member. So yes, while dogs are an expense, they have a lot of psychological and emotional benefits for evolutionary reasons.
Me: I have a CAR???
Yes, because you couldn't find work nearby, and the only place that was hiring wasn't bike-able. So you bought a beater that's barely street legal, but you had to finance it through some shady car dealership. Unemployment had run out, and you had a job offer, and you knew it was risky, but what other option did you have?
[+] [-] InclinedPlane|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] misterbwong|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] suivix|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0x12|14 years ago|reply
This 'perfect storm' of trouble is just setting you up for failure, the deck is stacked against you much further than it is in real life. You are also not given the full picture up front, nor are you given the option on which services you subscribe to.
Also, if you can't afford a mobile phone you probably shouldn't have one, and if your landlord does something illegal an alternative option is to tell him to go f*ck off rather than to pay or move out. Good luck evicting me if I'm up to date on payments and the contract stipulates terms that I've lived up to.
That said, it's probably a useful tool to get people to put themselves in the shoes of someone that has it worse than they themselves do.
[+] [-] scotty79|14 years ago|reply
I know a poor person who has 3 kids and car that falls apart. Some of the decisions she makes are strange. This game allowed me to take a peek at crazy world she's living.
[+] [-] brador|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dkersten|14 years ago|reply
I have never ever experienced a landlord trying to raise my rent mere days after I moved in, like they seem to do in this game.
[+] [-] ljf|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ctdonath|14 years ago|reply
I should have taken copious notes (maybe I will on another pass) and comment how, instead of viewing it all as crushing poverty, it is indicative of living in a luxurious society. Opt for the $1 hamburger, and be told "that's why so many poor are overweight"? WTH? If it's got that many calories then cut it in half and eat it across two meals! If you're obese, you're not poor; talk to the half of the world's population which lives on less than $2/day.
So, coming out a couple hundred dollars ahead, I could run this "poverty" scenario for 4 months and have enough to buy a refurbished MacBook Air and join the Apple Developer's Program, with which I could bootstrap an iOS App-writing business. Seems some others played, came out over $1000 ahead, and could jump in to app-writing in one month flat.
Read between the lines in the game, and see the opportunities that abound. Sell the car and take the bus. Focus the kids on learning entrepreneuring instead of sports. Take in a decent paying roommate (and throw out the rowdy one bodily if need be). Use the library for education and internet businesses. Eat the $1 hamburgers featuring caloric abundance. Heck, save the $1 and make two 1.5lb loaves of great bread (coming to my blog soon!). Organize with other "poor" to leverage opportunities (carpooling, babysitting, etc.).
First-world problems indeed.
ETA: Downvoters, take a stand and tell me why this post is wrong.
[+] [-] hugh3|14 years ago|reply
There are two views of poverty in rich countries. One view holds that poverty is caused by poor people who make bad decisions, and that it's possible to lift yourself out of poverty by making good decisions instead. The second view holds that poverty is caused by external factors, that it's a trap that poor people can't escape, and that the way to solve poverty is by giving ever-increasing amounts of taxpayer-funded free stuff to the poor until they stop being poor. The cartoon versions of each of these extremes are silly, and there's a bit of truth in both of them.
The real trick, though, is that the first belief, the belief that poor people can pull themselves out of poverty, is true only to the extent that they actually believe it. A poor person who believes he can get out of poverty by making sensible decisions will make those decisions. A poor person who believes his poverty is the fault of, and can only be solved by, other people will not. Convincing a poor person that someone else is responsible for their situation is just about the worst thing you can possibly do for them.
Those who want to support increased welfare are openly hostile to the idea that poor people can take responsibility for their own decisions and start making better ones to solve their problems. And this, I think, is a huge factor in perpetuating poverty.
I want to help the poor, really I do, but I'm certain that teaching them the correct values is far more important than handing them cash.
[+] [-] cantlin|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] binarymax|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] allwein|14 years ago|reply
As a counter to this, I highly recommend Scratch Beginnings by Adam Shepard. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061714275/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...
The summary, from Amazon:
Adam Shepard graduated from college feeling disillusioned by the apathy around him and was then incensed after reading Barbara Ehrenreich's famous work Nickel and Dimed—a book that gave him a feeling of hopelessness about the working class in America. He set out to disprove Ehrenreich's theory—the notion that those who start at the bottom stay at the bottom—by making something out of nothing to achieve the American Dream.
Shepard's plan was simple. With a sleeping bag, the clothes on his back, and $25 in cash, and restricted from using his contacts or college education, he headed out for Charleston, South Carolina, a randomly selected city with one objective: to work his way out of homelessness and into a life that would give him the opportunity for success. His goal was to have, after one year, $2,500, a working automobile, and a furnished apartment.
[+] [-] elliottcarlson|14 years ago|reply
Even with the odds against me, I was able to finish the simulation a few times with over $1200 available (thus being able to pay the rent on the following day).
[+] [-] ctdonath|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kstenerud|14 years ago|reply
Like, whoa! Suddenly $225 in utilities bills ($225? Seriously??? It doesn't even cost that much in Tokyo!) that I somehow didn't know about to be able to plan for.
And whoa! my car starts acting up, and I can't even think to park it and take the bus for awhile until I can afford to fix it (you know, rather than running it into the ground and wasting even MORE money).
And whoa! that leak in my sink has become a huge nightmare because I didn't handle it when it was a small issue and it was obvious the landlord wouldn't do anything about it.
And why the hell do I remain unemployed for so long instead of taking some part time work to keep my savings up while I look for a real job?
Seriously, a little planning ahead goes a LONG way.
[+] [-] Iv|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CWuestefeld|14 years ago|reply
You buy premium healthcare but still need to pay the doctor?
That obviously depends on the provisions of the healthcare contract. It's common to pay a deductible and/or token co-pay. But these plans can always be tailored to address the needs of the buyer, and of the provider. (I might rant about the problems with enforcing a one-size-fits-all plan.)
You don't have unemployment aids?
Yes, we do. There is unemployment insurance, welfare, food stamps, disability insurance, and so on, to provide a safety net.
You can get fired for talking to a union guy?
No, you cannot (labor regulation in America is absurdly skewed in favor of the workers). The employer is forbidden from interfering with any labor attempt to organize. However, our Democrats have been attempting to pass a regulations called "card check" [1] which would take away the workers' right to secret ballots when voting for unionization. (And the Democrats are supposed to be the ones standing up for the little guy?!?)
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_check
[+] [-] smoyer|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] csomar|14 years ago|reply
So for me, this is completely realistic. Just drop the costs (and also the earnings) around 10 times (for poor people) to adjust for the living expenses.
[+] [-] revorad|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joebo|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] singlow|14 years ago|reply
I've gotten a half dozen tickets for expired registration in Texas and the result is you pay an extra 30 bucks when you register and a 10 dollar fee to waive the ticket if you register within 10 days of the citation. What state impounds your car?
[+] [-] hugh3|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dbingham|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrockway|14 years ago|reply
I'm also not sure I'm comfortable subsidizing people's bad choices. If I have to support someone, it's my nature to micromanage their lives to make sure they are using the money efficiently. No cell phones. No Internet. No music downloads. No nights out drinking.
In the end, I try to imagine how I would act if I were poor, had a child, and had no marketable skills. The first thing would be to find the smallest living space available, to save on rent, heating/cooling costs, and electricity. That means sleeping on mats that come out of the closet at bedtime, washing dishes by hand, cooking everything on the stove, and taking a bath with my kid every night to save hot water. If rich people in Japan can live this way, poor people in America can live this way. I would try to live close enough to work to not need a car (cars are nice, until they break), but if that's not possible, I'd use a car for commuting and a bike for errands. I wouldn't have a cell phone or Internet access; I'd queue up my Internet needs (buying household essentials in bulk online, resyncing my CPAN mirror, whatever) and go to the library. This would also be a good time to get some public-domain music and some books to read for the week.
It sounds primitive but I know I could make it work. If you're dumb, lazy, and have kids, guess what, life is not going to be the same as those Hollywood stars on TV. You don't get to buy everything you want. You don't get to have fun with your friends. You get to work, cook, read, help your kids with school, and keep your bicycle in good working condition. And honestly, I don't think that's a life that's missing anything at all. You get human relationships (family), a chance to contribute to society (work), education (reading), a hobby (cooking), and exercise (cycling).
So I guess the problem is: how do we convince people to want what they can have, rather than to want what they can't have? It's a cultural thing, and it's going to be a very hard problem to solve. We may be able to give people free healthcare, but where will they live, what will they eat, and how will they get to work?
(And I know what you're all thinking: the reason I'm not poor is because I can think things through and be analytical enough to make smart choices. Yes. That's why "solving poverty" is a very, very, very difficult problem. Feeling bad and giving someone money is not the solution. Deep changes to our educational system and our cultural values are probably the only way to make things work.)