{"id":33623,"date":"2011-02-26T10:20:20","date_gmt":"2011-02-26T15:20:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=33623"},"modified":"2013-11-14T04:45:35","modified_gmt":"2013-11-14T09:45:35","slug":"playspent-helps-us-understand-the-economics-of-poverty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/02\/26\/playspent-helps-us-understand-the-economics-of-poverty\/","title":{"rendered":"PlaySpent Helps Us Understand the Economics of Poverty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dolores R., Kelly, and Elyse all sent links to a new website, PlaySpent<\/a>, designed to help people understand the challenges and trade-offs faced by low-income people with insecure employment. \u00a0The “game” begins when you’ve been unemployed, have only $1,000 left in your bank account, and need to get a low wage job.<\/p>\n

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I failed the typing test (seriously), so I got a job as a warehouse worker:<\/p>\n

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The site asked me if I wanted to pay for health insurance:<\/p>\n

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The site then asks me to find a place to live, balancing gas costs:<\/p>\n

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And it asks the player to choose between things your children need\/want and your budget:<\/p>\n

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And then, of course, there’s groceries:<\/p>\n

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And the game goes on…<\/p>\n

The site would be an excellent internet field trip for students in sociology classes or anyone who wants to better understand the many trade-offs that poor people are forced to make and the difficulty in making ends meet when you’re part of the working poor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Says Kelly:<\/p>\n

I thought this was an interesting tool to highlight the difficult choices that low-income families have to make.\u00a0 It also points out how our society often disadvantages the lower class, such as how I was charged a fee for going below the minimum balance in my account, or by telling me how long it would take to pay off credit card debt only paying the minimum balance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dolores R., Kelly, and Elyse all sent links to a new website, PlaySpent, designed to help people understand the challenges and trade-offs faced by low-income people with insecure employment. \u00a0The “game” begins when you’ve been unemployed, have only $1,000 left in your bank account, and need to get a low wage job. I failed the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,76],"class_list":["post-33623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-class","tag-work"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33623"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59062,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33623\/revisions\/59062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}