The Poverty Tax.

I woke up this morning and tried to call my husband and the call didn't go through. My phone service's automated voice was on the other end in his stead, politely telling me that my bill was past due and that was why my service was disconnected. I had meant to set up the payment, but there is too much happening in our lives right now that my memory couldn't hold the thread and it slipped.

I opened the app to fix it but the amount on the screen, $260, did not match the amount I pay every month, $192. I looked at the breakdown and saw they had charged me a $20 reconnection fee for every line on my plan, which came to $60. $192 plus $60 is $252. That left me with an unexplainable eight dollars.

I called the company hoping someone would be kind. I thought naively, that if I explained I had just forgotten and there was a lot going on, someone would hear that as a human reason and waive the sixty dollars and let me pay the $192 I actually owed.

The first representative I got on the line said the system doesn't allow waivers. I thanked him and hung up and called again. I got a second representative and explained the problem and as he was checking the account he asked how I was doing. I laughed, because I had literally just explained a problem to him, but for the sake of conversation I answered that I wasn't okay because the extra $60 was stressing me out. I explained that I understood the mechanism, that if I missed a payment, I would get suspended, and then charged to be reconnected, but I couldn't understand the logic running beneath that logic. He explained it again, and I kept repeating that I understood, after each sentence of his explanation. I guess he was confused as to why I kept saying I understood if I didn't. When he was done, I asked what the additional $8 was. He explained that it was a tax on the $60 reconnection fee. I giggled. A tax on the fee itself. I asked him, "Are you telling me that's a poverty tax on top of a poverty tax?" He paused as if recalibrating whether I was upset or unwell and started over walking me through the math gently. His explanation felt very precise, and I suspect he was doing it because he thought I wasn't tracking. I was, but the absurdity of it wouldn't let me stop giggling, or asking.

At that point I realized I couldn't actually finish the call because I was too far inside the absurdity to be useful to myself. I texted my husband and explained what I was trying to do and before I could even tell him what was going on, he said he would do it himself, because he knows that I can't negotiate from inside a frame I don't believe in. I agreed, so I told the representative I couldn't make this decision alone and that my husband would call back. He didn't understand why, and said he would waive $30 and I would still owe the tax. I said that was okay, my husband would deal with it, and we concluded the call.

A few months ago I was opening a checking account and had made a deposit. While I waited, I saw a brochure on the table, so I picked it up to pass the time while the banker worked behind the computer. In bold, the brochure announced the perks of keeping a high amount in the account at all times. Apparently, they didn't charge the $5 monthly fee for people who kept their account at $5000 or more. I found that very strange, so I asked the banker, "Are you telling me that people with less money pay you to hold their money and people with more money don't?" He looked at me, shrugged and said yes. I asked him why, and he said he didn't know, but that's just how it works. I kept quiet, because I couldn't believe that was true. There is no way a man whose entire job was the bank had never once asked why they did that. Also, why were they charging me a fee for my money that they were going to lend out, multiply it somewhere I will never see, and profit from it whether I personally had $5000 or $500? I don't think the fee was about the cost of holding my money but a toll on not yet being the kind of person money already trusts. But then again why did they need to trust me if the money in there was mine and not borrowed from them?

The absurdity went on, once I started looking. My credit cards carry an interest rate of around 36%. Hypothetically speaking, if I only ever manage to pay the minimum payment, interest would keep compounding on top of itself until the amount owed is bigger than what I actually borrowed. If at this point I defaulted because it's too much, my credit score would drop, and a low score doesn't just cost money, it costs housing, because landlords pull credit reports too, which I understand because they want to know you will pay rent. Except housing is not a discount at a store but a basic need. Imagine using a credit score to decide whether someone deserves somewhere to live.

We saw the same thing buying a car. This was in 2024. We sat next to a woman with an 800 credit score who was offered $400 a month and a very low interest rate. When it was our turn, we were offered $700 a month at 25% for 4 years. This was because my credit history was only a year old. I found it incredible that I would have to pay 25% interest on the thing I needed to get to the job that would eventually have fixed the credit, if the car payment didn't eat the income first.

A credit score is supposed to predict who pays back what they owe. I am not disputing that but the system is quietly built so that the people most likely to miss a payment are the people who already had the least room not to, and are being charged more for being poor. Bad credit pushes them toward worse housing, which pushes them toward buy here pay here lots instead of dealerships, financing a car at 17 to 25% interest, and the loop closes on itself very neatly, like someone designed it to. Maybe it wasn't designed on purpose, but that doesn't reduce how incredible it all is. All I can do is laugh, understand the logic, not understand it, and still have a bill to pay.