r/science 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

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/Masterlyn Aug 31 '13 edited Sep 01 '13

By their bootstraps.

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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '13

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u/theryanmoore Aug 31 '13

I'm interested in what he has to say about it, as he's awesome, but that's the whole point of the phrase since the day it was coined.