[heedra]

i think that unless you have experienced life while being actually dead broke or near it at least once, its hard to really grasp at how, in many places but in america in particular, ‘having money’ is the access card that allows you to participate, materially, in being fully human. even in non-crisis situations, situations where a paycheck is on the way, you have enough of some kind of food to make it, and you aren’t in any danger of losing shelter, even if you hardly spend any money when you do have it, the state of being completely without money is a state of  being hyperaware, constantly, of how much smaller your world is all of a sudden and how many basic aspects of mobility and enrichment are off limits to you. its profoundly psychologically agitating to self worth and well-being even sans the trauma of worse states of deprivation, and i don’t think a lot of people who have lived comfortably without this experience understand that there’s a critical difference between ‘having less money’ and ‘having no money’ when talking about related issues.