The Kenya Financial Diaries Project

http://www.fsdkenya.org/new/our-work/financial-diaries.html

by wowsig • 12 years ago

84 39 12 years ago

bkmartin6• 12 years ago

This is a really great study. I would be equally thrilled if someone did something similar in the United States to see how our poor and working poor make ends meet so that we can stop making crap up in our own prejudiced and biased minds.

<smallrant> - Equal pay isn't so much about the money as it is about the value and dignity of all people to have their time valued. Time is the most important resource for us all that we can't get more of. If you can't pay someone enough money to do a job for them to live, then maybe that job doesn't need done, or you need to reevaluate how you value people.</smallrant>

bane3• 12 years ago

I would be equally thrilled if someone did something similar in the United States to see how our poor and working poor make ends meet so that we can stop making crap up in our own prejudiced and biased minds.

There's literally thousands of them.

http://www.urban.org/uploadedpdf/411382_surve.pdf

http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/SpendingPatterns...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14690040

http://www.uctc.net/access/23/Access%2023%20-%2007%20-%20THE...

http://www.americaspower.org/sites/default/files/Trisko_2014...

http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/~/media/publications/PDFs/nut...

http://www.npc.umich.edu/publications/u/working_paper06-36.p...

Part of the problem is that you can find a huge corpus of studies that support pretty much whatever position you want to take.

- You think poor people are shiftless layabouts who spend all their money on trivial garbage? There's a whole series of think tanks putting out papers that agree with you.

- You think poor people are noble hard workers who through sheer bad luck or malice by the upper classes have ended up in a place where they can barely get by? I could get you a 1,000 pages of studies by Wednesday on that.

and so on.

Because the studies are so voluminous, you can also find almost impossibly fine-grained studies, like "A study on petroleum energy costs as a percent of net-income for single white mothers in non-coastal states" or whatever.

It takes almost impossibly focused and thorough critical thinking to assemble conclusions from this flood and it turns out taking meaningful action is even harder.

TeMPOraL• 12 years ago

I guess we need a machine to sift through all of that and give us a clearer picture.

bkmartin6• 12 years ago

While I totally agree with your basic sentiment about finding data for a particular confirmation bias, I really just mean an objective study that tracks urban and rural patterns across different areas of the country. It would be even more awesome if each state would have one done since state laws can really effect what supplementary income programs are available and to whom. It would be great to have that comprehensive picture BEFORE trying to take meaningful action or for an opinion. I'm just looking for raw data without a prescribed hypothesis. The simple question, How do they do it?

I'm not looking to give answers as to reasons for their situation... I just want to know how they survive from one area to the next in that situation.

protomyth2• 12 years ago

Don't forget the folks using a study's results to justify a program directed at a totally separate demographic (inner city study tried to applied to rural area or vice versa).

stainednapkin• 12 years ago

W/r/t <smallrant> it seems that the gender pay gap is one problem nestled into the bigger problem of stagnating wages for most Americans over the past half-century or so.

bkmartin6• 12 years ago

I think that the gender pay gap is a social bias whereas the minimum wage is an even deeper devaluing of people and recognizing the value and dignity of someone's time. Even if you eliminated the pay gap today wages would still be stagnated. Once people are paid a respectable wage for a full day's work, we'll truly see what our society values... what are we willing to pay increased prices for? (Not that raising the minimum wage to a respectable number would really have much of an effect on the consumer price index anyway)

Just a little link on the minimum wage. http://www.dol.gov/minwage/mythbuster.htm (this thread is starting to drift a bit, sorry)

sogen3• 12 years ago

What amazes me is that previously women didn't need to work in the 70's, 80's, AFAIR, and the dad earned enough to keep 8 kids!

Now, both have to work just to keep a minimun living standard, and can only keep 1 kid... in daycare.

Also, families having only 1 kid were way too rare in the 80's, today, that's the norm.

frogpelt3• 12 years ago

There is so much wrong with this way of thinking.

First, wages have nothing to do with the value of a person.

Second, getting rid of a job because it doesn't pay enough is the epitome of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

I hope, since this is the way you feel, that you don't patronize establishments that pay less than a livable wage or if you do that you personally make up the difference to those who are serving you.

</smallrantresponse>

task_queue3• 12 years ago

A job exists so that surplus value can be extracted from labor.

If an owner will not pay a worker a fair wage, some might find profiting from their undervalued labor as morally abhorrent.

I hope that people would choose to support businesses that fell in line with their values.

Retric• 12 years ago

Workers create value.

If the value created is not enough to pay a living wage then the job can probably be done without. Though, if the value created is high, but market conations allow for less than a living wage by exploiting workers then raising the minimum wage rises worker pay without costing a job.

In the end this is only a problem is the US because society subsidizes companies employing low pay workers. The might be created plenty of value, but companies get to extract it not just from workers but also from welfare programs.

trabianmatt• 12 years ago

I've enjoyed reading the "U.S. Financial Diaries": http://www.usfinancialdiaries.org/. I build online and mobile banking for credit unions and have been using the stories they've collected as a gut check to make sure we're keeping the low- to moderate-income households in mind.

bkmartin6• 12 years ago

Great link, thank you for sharing. This is pretty much what I was looking for.

The Kenya Financial Diaries Project

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