How the Poor Get Poorer

Many states issue their own pre-paid cards to dispense welfare payments. As a result, those who do not live near the right bank lose out, either from ATM withdrawal charges or from a long trek to make a withdrawal. Other terms can rankle; in Indiana, welfare cards allow only one free ATM withdrawal a month. If claimants check their balance at a machine it costs 40 cents. (Kansas recently abandoned, at the last minute, a plan to limit cash withdrawals to $25 a day, which would have required many costly trips to the cashpoint.)

To access credit, the poor typically rely on high-cost payday lenders. In 2013 the median such loan was $350, lasted two weeks and carried a charge of $15 per $100 borrowed—an interest rate of 322% (a typical credit card charges 15%). [...] In 2014 nearly half of American households said they could not cover an unexpected $400 expense without borrowing or selling something; 2% said this would cause them to resort to payday lending.

[...]

The prices of items which soak up much of their budgets—such as rent, food and energy—have risen faster than other goods and services. Falling oil and energy prices may be reversing that trend, though typically the poor own fewer cars, so benefit less from cheaper petrol.

[...]

As a result of this inflation premium, prices rose 3.2% more for the poor [from 2000-2013 (latest figures available)]. [...] These figures may understate the disparity, because they do not include employer contributions to health insurance, which [...] make up a bigger proportion of the total pay of the poor.

[...]

[I]nequality is worse than income figures alone suggest. This is true even before non-financial disparities, such as the implications for health of living on a low income, are considered.

  Economist

Of course, it's their own fault. Or maybe God just doesn't love them.