Debunking the Myths: How to Be Poor and Still a Baddie (part 2)

This series, How to Be Poor (and Still a Baddie), is a survival guide for when you fall through the cracks—written by someone who’s been there, still lingers on the edge, and refuses to be ashamed.

Before you learn how to survive poverty, you need to unlearn everything you were taught about it.

Let’s start with a few Greatest Hits:

• "People are poor because they’re lazy."

• "If they really wanted to work, they would."

• "They’re gaming the system."

• "If you budget well, you won’t end up broke."

  
  

These are stinky lies.

Lies that help keep a rigged system afloat. Lies that make the middle class feel safe, superior, and separate—until the safety net snaps under them too. Which it's about to do for many.

The truth is: most people want to do well. Most people try to do the right things. But this country is built to protect wealth, not people. The ladder was propped up decades ago. And when you fall, you find out real quick that it’s not a soft landing.

Hard work doesn't always feed the hard worker.

These myths didn’t just randomly appear on Fox News at the turn of the century—they’ve got old bones. The idea that wealth is virtue and suffering is noble traces back to Puritan ideals and the Protestant ethos: work hard, stay humble, and God will bless you. If you’re struggling? Must be a moral flaw. It’s theology disguised as economics and vice versa. And it benefits the same people who profit from your exhaustion.

The middle class in particular has been flattered into becoming the enforcement arm of these myths—taught to see themselves as moral success stories instead of lucky survivors.

To be fair, most in the middle class have worked hard. They’ve done what they were told: stayed in school, held a job, paid their bills on time. The middle class is not the enemy of the rabbit class. But the path they were promised was never open to everyone. The system has always sorted who gets to succeed, and it does not reward effort - or even skill - equally.

Unfortunately, cultural flattery keeps the middle class judging and fearing instead of questioning, guarding the gates instead of blowing the whistle. They whisper to you that if you’re struggling, it’s because you messed up. Or maybe because your morals aren't strong enough.

That's a baloney sandwich.

Your morals are fine, babe. Ask yourself: who benefits from the myth of the radical union worker? The criminal immigrant? The welfare queen? These caricatures are distractions. They're straw men to keep us clawing at each other instead of noticing the hand in the cookie jar. Only it’s not a cookie jar—it’s our shared well-being, our wages, our housing, our healthcare. We have enough to go around.

And someone’s taking more than their share. They're taking my share. And they're moving to take your share. If you’ve never needed help, you may not realize how thin the line is, but more and more people are finding out first hand. I hope you don't have that experience.

If you're here because you need help now, take a breath. You're doing your best; it's mad stressful here in the rabbit hole. We’re sorry you had to learn the hard way—but we’re here, too. You’re not alone.