The Constants Present in Each Aspect of Poverty: Uncertainty and Hard Choices

Uncertainty

Uncertainty is a daily factor and driving force in the experience of poverty. It has been described as: "not knowing how your day will go when you wake up in the morning, knowing that any hiccup in your day will be bigger for someone in poverty than for someone not in poverty." Uncertainty is a result of the lack of power that comes from subjugation. For people experiencing poverty, uncertainty places them at the mercy of other people and of situations beyond their control — zero-hour work for example, a no-fault eviction, or an unexpected emergency can send people into a tailspin they are unable to recover from. People in poverty develop strategies to overcome uncertainty:

"When you live in poverty everybody is your friend. You need to be friendly to everyone because you need help for everything. If homeless, you need laundry done, a place to stay; you go to a friend's house, you need food; you need money to pay bills when out of work; when you need guidance, you need free help. You need friends for everything."

Hard Choices

Some people believe that poverty is the result of poor choices. The reality is that the only choices available to people living in poverty are ones that will have negative results:

"Our choices are only ever dire; it feels like we have no choices at all."

In poverty there is often no way to recover from a hard choice, and the consequences are always extreme, pushing people further and further down. For example, for parents living in poverty forced to choose between buying food or buying a winter coat for their child, both choices can be seen as neglect, and the result could be removal of the child from the home. Other examples given in peer groups concerned workplace sexual harassment not being reported for fear of losing a job, or help not being sought for fear of bringing shame to an entire family and being shunned by a community.