how expensive it is to be poor
For anyone that needs the read, Terry Pratchett said it so well it is an economic theory now, the Boots theory.
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. … A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. … But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socio-economic unfairness.[4]
From Men at Arms by Sir Terry Pratchett
Also, a history of “people don’t want to work” bullshit going back to 1894: https://thunderdungeon.com/2024/07/14/nobody-wants-to-work-anymore/
And that’s how we got Prosperity Gospel: rich folk trying to justify their lazy asses hoarding wealth and complaining about the people who actually do the work wanting fair compensation for their time and effort.