Line #14 Main/PovertyTropes


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6	->''Maybe wound tighter than I shoulda been -- probably\
7	A mannerism born of Christmas shopping at the Dollar Tree''
8	-->-- '''Music/AesopRock''', "King Cone" (feat. Rob Sonic)
9
10	An index for tropes dealing with lower-class people living in squalor and/or struggling with hunger, debt, bankruptcy, unemployment, unstable employment and housing, homelessness, and addiction, typically in the lowest income quintile. Almost never portrayed positively in fiction.
11
12	Contrast with RichPeople and LuxuryTropes. See also ClassRelationsIndex for how lower class people interact with other social classes.
13	----
14	!!Tropes:
15	[[index]]
16	* BankruptcyBarrel: When the character is wearing a barrel strapped onto them to show that they are poor.
17	* BarefootPoverty: Some people are so poor that they can't even afford to buy a pair of shoes.
18	* BasementDweller: A grown man still lives with his parents, because he's a chronically unemployed {{NEET}} (or works a crappy low-wage job), and thus can't even afford his own house or apartment.
19	* BathOfPoverty: Bathing isn't a good experience due to being unable to afford proper plumbing and hot water.
20	* BeggarWithASignboard: Hobos on the roadside or on a sidewalk hold up homemade signs requesting money, food, or other things.
21	* BindleStick: A homeless person carries all their belongings tied up in a bundle at the end of a stick carried over their shoulder, especially in historical PeriodPiece settings.
22	* BribingTheHomeless: Homeless people doing (sometimes crazy) things for other people during their desperate pursuit of quick money.
23	* BreadOfSurvival: Bread is a symbol of hope, life, and happiness, especially to a starving person.
24	* BrokeEpisode: One episode has the characters run out of money and have to find a creative way to make ends meet.
25	* CardboardBoxHome: Homeless people live in large cardboard boxes under a highway overpass or in an alley.
26	* ChoosyBeggar: They may be in need of a handout of food or goods, but EveryoneHasStandards, and in this case, the beggar turns down what is offered.
27	* ClosetSublet: When a person is renting a tiny, cramped space as a living area that is smaller than a bedroom and which is not built as a living space, such as an under-stairs storage area.
28	* CrazyHomelessPeople: Homeless people are often depicted as being mentally ill, as mental disorders can be both a cause and effect of homelessness. Bonus points if their mental state is being affected by a drug addiction or alcoholism.
29	* CreditCardDestruction: Someone who maxes out their credit card or who doesn’t pay the bill has it cut up by a shopkeeper.
30	* CuttingCorners: Making do with cheap substitutes and inferior goods to save money.
31	* DevelopingNationsLackCities: Poor countries are stereotyped as being completely rural and lacking any large urbanized cities.
32	* DisposableSexWorker: Prostitutes and strippers tend to be at the very bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, thus making them easy victims of murder by their angry pimps, or preyed upon by {{serial killer}}s or [[SerialRapist rapists]].
33	* DisposableVagrant: Most people don't really notice or care about what happens to homeless people, which makes them very easy targets for kidnappers, rapists and murderers.
34	* DogFoodDiet: Someone eats pet food, because people food is too expensive.
35	* DublinSkanger: A stock character in Irish media who's usually working class, hard-drinking and extremely violent.
36	* DyingTown: Small towns with severe economic hardships, so most of the stores are boarded up and there's few jobs.
37	* EmptyFridgeEmptyLife: Poverty is depicted by showing a fridge with empty or near-empty shelves.
38	* EvenBeggarsWontChooseIt: A handout of food, clothing or goods is of such terrible quality, that even the most hard-up people have no use for it.
39	* FallenOnHardTimesJob: A person desperate for money will take on a job that they, and society, sees as unglamorous and/or undignified.
40	* FinancialTestOfFriendship: A much-poorer person helps their once-wealthy friend in a time of need, proving that their friendship is genuine.
41	* AFoolAndHisNewMoneyAreSoonParted: Having little money means having little experience in wealth management, so poor characters who [[RagsToRiches acquire riches]] often just [[RichesToRags lose it again]].
42	* ForgotToPayTheBill: Electricity or gas can be cut off if someone just doesn't have enough money to pay for their bills.
43	* FriendsRentControl: Realistically, a character does not earn an income to justify such a large, fancy urban apartment.
44	* GangBangers: These street-level gang members and drug dealers are often seen in low-income urban areas.
45	* HalfWittedHillbilly: Characters from the countryside are depicted as stupid hicks.
46	* HillbillyIncest: Incest that is associated with poor, rural people.
47	* {{Hobos}}: Stereotypical homeless people who are always on the move from town to town, often in a PeriodPiece set in the 1920s-1940s, and often by riding the rails.
48	* HoboGloves: Dirty, tattered, often fingerless gloves associated with severe poverty and living on the street in inclement weather.
49	* HomelessHero: The protagonist lives a nomadic lifestyle for some reason.
50	* HomelessPigeonPerson: Hobos with pet pigeons or who allow pigeons to roost on them.
51	* HorribleHousing: A character lives in a crappy, ramshackle house to emphasize their impoverished, precarious living situation.
52	* ImpoverishedPatrician: A noble or aristocrat who has lost their wealth, but still retains their posh education and manners.
53	* InformedPoverty: A character is allegedly poor, but are apparently richer than they've claimed to be.
54	* InnerCitySchool: Educational facilities tend to be abysmal in poor, inner-city urban neighborhoods.
55	* JoblessParentDrama: A family faces financial difficulties because one or both parents are now unemployed.
56	* JustLikeRobinHood: A thief who steals from the rich and gives to the poor, like the medieval folk hero.
57	* KiddyCoveralls: Poor kids or lower class kids wear overalls to indicate their poor status.
58	* KillThePoor: The poor are killed off in an attempt to eliminate the impacts of poverty from a community, such as begging and sleeping on the street.
59	* KingOfTheHomeless: The self-appointed or informally elected leader of a homeless community or hobo encampment.
60	* KitchenSinkDrama: Stories about poor working-class people living in grimy, inexpensive apartments, eating cheap food and struggling with alcoholism; typically set OopNorth in Britain.
61	* LandPoor: A person owns a large house or vast estate, but much of their money is invested in the upkeep of said property, so they have little cash to live on.
62	* LintValue: Offering far too little money to buy something, often because it's all they have.
63	* LivesInAVan: They live in a vehicle because they can't afford a house or apartment.
64	* LowerClassLout: A hard-drinking, loud-mouthed, belligerent {{jerkass}} who is poor. May be a villain in the story.
65	* MagicalHomelessPerson: an impoverished person with magical abilities who sleeps on the street in an alley.
66	* MistakenForDestitute: Someone is mistaken for being homeless and/or impoverished.
67	* MockMillionaire: A lower-class or middle-class person who pretends to be upper-class by imitating a rich person's appearance, clothing and mannerisms.
68	* MsRedInk: A character (almost always female) puts the family in debt with extravagant, wasteful purchases, often on credit.
69	* MundaneLuxury: A common, widely available item, like soap or apples will be considered an extravagant treat by anyone who can't afford to buy it on a regular basis.
70	* {{NEET}}: Someone who is '''N'''ot in '''E'''mployment, '''E'''ducation, or '''T'''raining. In other words, an adult who is not currently a college student and is also unemployed.
71	* NeglectedRez: Indian reservations in North America depicted as poor and suffering from a whole host of social issues.
72	* NoBudget: A creative project obviously didn't get much funding or resources, as can be seen from it's poor production values and errors.
73	* NoPoverty: A society where poverty and squalor are nonexistent, either because the society is a wonderful utopia, or because it's a totalitarian dystopia where your physical needs are met but you are a prisoner in a surveillance state.
74	* PauperPatches: A character's tattered, grimy and hand patched-up and repaired clothes indicates poverty.
75	* PennyAmongDiamonds: A less-well-off character finds themselves in an environment full of wealthy people.
76	* PerpetualPoverty: Despite having little money, these people always have just enough supplies and resources to survive.
77	* PotteryBarnPoor: Despite barely scraping by, a character's home is unrealistically furnished with items that they could not afford without sacrificing food purchases or skipping out on paying rent.
78	* PovertyFood: Because food that's both healthy and tasty is out of their budget, these characters eat inexpensive, low-quality food.
79	* PovertyForComedy: Being poor is PlayedForLaughs.
80	* PovertyPorn: Close-up depictions of people living in extreme poverty done for gratuitous reasons.
81	* PrinceAndPauper: Two {{identical stranger}}s, one [[SecretlyWealthy upper]]-[[SlummingIt class]] and the other one [[MockMillionaire lower-class]], decide to switch lives and disguise themselves as each other.
82	* PrincessInRags: Her Highness is now living in less than lowered circumstances and has to learn how commoners live.
83	* RagsToRiches: A poor person becomes wealthy.
84	* RagsToRoyalty: A poor commoner becomes a member of the nobility.
85	* RichLanguagePoorLanguage: Rich and poor characters are distinguished by their accents and/or dialects.
86	* RichSiblingPoorSibling: One sibling is poor, the other is rich.
87	* RichSuitorPoorSuitor: Someone has two {{love interest}}s of vastly different economic backgrounds.
88	* RichesToRags: A wealthy person becomes poor.
89	* RoadkillForDinner: Typically practiced by poor rural folk.
90	* RoughOveralls: The poor or rural folk might be wearing denim overalls, regardless of employment.
91	* SecretlyWealthy: A rich person pretends to be poorer than they actually are.
92	* ShoppingCartOfHomelessness: Like BindleStick, but with a shopping cart to hold their clothes and possessions.
93	* SingleMomStripper: A woman with no one to help turns to stripping or prostitution to put bread on the table for her kids.
94	* SlobsVersusSnobs: The eternal struggle between the rich and the poor.
95	* SlummingIt: A wealthy person pretends to be poor because they're curious about what life is like for the less fortunate.
96	* SoupOfPoverty: Cheap, low-quality soup as a PovertyFood, served at homeless shelters, sold in cans or homemade.
97	* StarvingArtist: An artist who doesn't make any money off their works, but who continues to paint or sculpt due to their love of the arts.
98	* StarvingStudent: A university student who's poor and struggling to finance their education.
99	* StreetMusician: A destitute person tries to get money from people by playing a musical instrument on the streets.
100	* StreetUrchin: Homeless orphans and street children are dressed in rags.
101	* {{Streetwalker}}: Prostitutes who pick up men on the roadside, which is the most dangerous form of sex work. They probably wouldn't be selling sex for money if they had a better source of income.
102	* StrugglingSingleMother: She's having a hard time raising her kid(s) with no father to help or pitch in cash and little money to spare.
103	* StudentDebtPlot: People put into poverty, or kept in poverty, by student debt.
104	* SuckySchool: Poorly-funded schools are staffed by teachers who are [[ApatheticTeacher jaded]] or [[SadistTeacher mean-spirited]], run by [[DeanBitterman an indifferent or sadistic principal]], lack up-to-date technology, and use outdated textbooks.
105	* TooDesperateToBePicky: As the saying goes, beggars can't be choosers.
106	* TheTramp: A romanticized vagrant who is usually homeless and lives hand-to-mouth, but is generally honorable and is often charismatic and has a way with words.
107	* TrashyTrailerHome: Trailers and mobile home parks are portrayed as the most horrible, dirty places to live, seething with poverty, addiction and violence.
108	* UnconfessedUnemployment: Someone won't admit to their own friends and family that they've lost their job.
109	* UrbanHellscape: The underbelly of any large city is crawling with vice.
110	* WalletMoths: Moths fly out of wallets or pockets to indicate the character has no money.
111	* WarRefugees: Civilians who have been rendered homeless by the chaos and destruction of war, fleeing for their lives by staying in refugee camps or migrating to safer countries.
112	* WisdomFromTheGutter: A homeless person has nothing left but their wisdom, which they'll gladly share with you.
113	* WorkOffTheDebt: If you can't pay, you'll have to work for the business until you've earned the money required to pay.
114	* WorkingClassHero: The protagonist is a member of the lower classes of society.
115	* WorkingClassPeopleAreMorons: Poor people are depicted as being dumb and ignorant because of their lack of education.
116	* WorkingClassWerewolves: {{Werewol\|fTropes}}ves are often depicted as being poor, at least compared to {{vampires\|AreRich}}.
117	* WretchedHive: Urban ghettos, slums, shantytowns and the like are not pleasant places to live in, because of the rampant poverty and crime.
118	* WrongSideOfTheTracks: A part of the city is known to be home to lots of poor people and criminals.
119	[[/index]]

Context Main / PovertyTropes