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4 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Poormotherandchildren_DorotheaLange_1146.jpg]] |
5 | |
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]] |
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