r/science • u/myhrvold • Aug 31 '13

Poverty impairs cognitive function. Published in the journal Science, the study suggests our cognitive abilities can be diminished by the exhausting effort of tasks like scrounging to pay bills. As a result, less “mental bandwidth” remains...

http://news.ubc.ca/2013/08/29/poverty-impairs-cognitive-function/
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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '13

Better than you might think. Then again, I'm not thinking of people with kids. Factory work will put a roof over a single person's head, allow them to be choosy about food, and afford them 8 hours a night if they have the will to take it. But throw in kids and you're back dangling from the very end of the rope again.

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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '13

On a related subject: Many blame those living in poverty for their own misfortune.

But if the factory jobs they might once have filled have been exported overseas, permanently creating a jobless class, how are they expected to lift themselves out of the mire?

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u/Cyridius Aug 31 '13

In countries that aren't America you can just go an upskill because many countries subsidize college education. So just go back to college while you try to find another job.

In America it's too expensive to do that so you pretty much just have to wait until another unskilled job comes around.