By Asia K. Batchelor
Keeping Up With The Joneses: A Right For The Poor
Keeping up with the Joneses is a widespread phenomenon influencing the financial decisions of many individuals and families in poverty. From adding “Kenzo” after nicknames for Instagram username profiles and renting luxury cars for prom to using tax refund checks for big screen TVs and buying children $300 shoes, keeping up with the Joneses is not a far cry away from the truth for the lower-middle class. It is not peculiar for these individuals, including myself, to spend precarious funds on unnecessary, expensive, materialistic goods. Though resources remain consistently scarce, indulgence in “luxury” and “something nice” remain constant. Items ranging anywhere from jewelry, to clothing, to entertainment, to new hairstyles, etc. become familiar conditions that become a way of life.
As having been a willing partaker and unconscious witness to such a reality, my sustained question has focused on the potential of “wasted” funds. Will swapping some new Rick Owen boots for a struggling to get the cash in the savings pig add to the overall wealth and class value of lower-class and broke individuals? Will doing this eventually give them the buying power to escape lower class and poverty? That is if there is a desire for escape to begin with. Should individuals of the lower financial class forgo designer/name brand/luxury/expensive goods in order to comply with their poverty? Does possession of expensive items add to value of the owner?
Reports suggest that members of the poor and lower class have engaged in this “game,” both consciously and unconsciously, and have even perpetuated it among peers through mockery and judgment. Peer pressure is a not so uncommon occurrence that runs pervasively across many cultures.
Now, many questions arise when this topic is discussed, one of which being the question of saving. Essentially: can you save your way to wealth? Well, experts, the rich, rich experts, and even the brokely-acquired, such as myself, do not believe so. To those who criticize, misunderstand, or take an opposing stance, I pose my own questions.
To my realization through experience and fair knowledge of economics, the money used to acquire such luxuries would not significantly impact the state of their poverty and diminished class. This might be especially true for the poor who are unsure of their ability to provide in the future. I argue that these “nice” and expensive pieces are what give individuals and families of the lower class a sense of satisfaction for their hard work when everything else in their environment does not reflect it.
Who is the blame for the initial desire? I mean, why partake in this upkeep if it does more harm than good? I’d love to place all blame for the Jones Phenomenon on white supremacy, being that it is a large contributor to the emergence and prominence of the phenomenon due to its upholding socially and within positions of power that might not gather this experience holistically. Since the day they first came to America and whipped that Black man, Black people and people of color (of whom make up much of the poor and lower class) have been held to unrealistically high expectations while simultaneously being beaten down physically, emotionally, mentally, and systemically. Although true, this might not convey the full picture. I am ashamed to say that Black and Brown individuals experience the highest rates of poverty and homelessness in the U.S. yet are quick to call someone broke or make fun of well-used clothing and products. Oh, who are we, if not slaves at all, but slaves to capitalism? Then slaves to the lack of understanding.
In a study where participants were asked to share their perspectives of a hypothetical situation where they or others have objects of wealth such as an expensive house or clothing while also being in debt, the perception of wealth established by the expensive items outweighed the reality of the debt accrued in buying such items. And when participants were asked to consider their own financial status from another person's point of view, the illusion of wealth and reality of debt only is made a problem at the tension between their social image and self-image. Sociologists say these “status symbols” function as tools for connection and as a representation of financial stability and maybe even excess, which can mostly be proven otherwise by the number in the bank account.
My point: Aesthetics has triumphed over practicality, consideration, and bleak reality for more time than I can double my age. It is not a crime to want nice things, and I don’t believe those in the lower class and in poverty should avoid seeking these nice things, even if it is at the expense of higher-class onlookers passing judgment of better use; all while using their wealth to do what exactly? Those with little deserve just as much as those with plenty. But those with plenty want plenty more, and those with little need little to survive.