Live Poverty for a Day
From the relative comfort of middle-class life, it's hard to imagine how each day for poor people can become a struggle to survive. Try this simple exercise.

It's 8 a.m. and you, a single parent of a toddler, have many things to accomplish today. Your annual salary is $12,000 -- right at the government's poverty threshold for a two-person household. At that salary level, you have about $33 a day for food, transportation, child care and other bills. Let's see how you do making ends meet.

• You need a new pair of shoes for the job you're going to start tomorrow. You find a great sale at a discount store, $10. Don't forget the bus fare, $1 -- luckily children ride free. You're hungry, and so is your daughter. Where can you eat something that won't wipe you out? A fast food breakfast for two costs $3 (you drink water so your daughter can have juice). Time to take care of that terrible ear infection that kept your daughter up all night. The clinic charges a $5 co-pay for the visit, plus $5 for the prescription. Who will watch your daughter while you work? You called several day care providers along the route to your new job and found one with an opening. You hop back on the bus to check it out, $1. The woman says you have to pay her for at least the first three days of care, but thankfully that can wait until tomorrow (then you'll need $35). It's two in the afternoon by the time you finish and neither of you has eaten since breakfast. For your last meal of the day, you splurge at the grocery store to buy milk (you can only afford a half-gallon), bread, eggs and some cereal (a less-expensive store brand than the one your daughter picked), $5.90. (Never mind the woman ahead of you in line who has a cart filled with food.) The bus fare home is another $1.
• With only $1.10 left, you go to bed early; and pray that no costly illnessess or expensive accidents occur tomorrow - so you can afford to live another day.

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