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Stimulus Checks and the Rise of the New Poor

On March 12, 2021, Congress administered the second round of stimulus checks. With many Americans currently jobless and financially insecure, these checks were much needed. Congress decided on the amount $1400. All around, citizens are bowing on their knees at the country’s brave and generous leaders. 

“With fourteen hundred dollars, I can finally buy myself some fiji water. I just had my first kid and am out of a job, and this one bottle of fiji water is going to save my life! #blessup #figiwater #STIMMY,” Poe Boy tweeted. 

Fiji Water washing all of this man’s problems away|Photo courtesy of businesswire.com

People like Mr. Boy are able to enjoy luxuries they were once denied, all thanks to the $1400 increase in their bank accounts. 

Many have even moved to or upgraded their houses in  notoriously expensive places like Southern California and Manhattan, New York. 

“I used my check to upgrade my 4-ton boulder in the Lower East Side to granite! Welcome to the life of luxury,” Manhattan socialite Eyema Broke said in an interview with Good Housekeeping magazine. 

Boulder houses|Photo courtesy of wnyc.org

With minimum wage staying stagnant, skyrocketing housing prices, and lack of free health care, Americans have been struggling for a long time now. Many are seizing the opportunity granted to them by their stimulus checks to climb their way into a higher standard of poverty.

 Some, however, are complaining about the rise of a new social class caused by the riches of the stimulus check called “new poor,” also known as poverty lite. 

“Listen, I have been poor all my life. The poverty has been passed onto my family for generations. My family has lived in America since the 1800’s. Their hard work under monopolies from railroad corporations to Amazon earned us enough money to afford a trailer in Upstate New York 200 years later. Now these kids are marching on over into my trailer park with their 1400 dollar checks thinking they own the place. Get their “luxury tents” and “boulder houses” out of my town! Gosh Darn new poor drive me sick!,” Ben Notvanderbildt said to The Trailer Park Times.

Such class tension was anticipated, but Congress was of the opinion that potential consequences were well worth the risk and proceeded to administer the checks. 

From Fiji water to rock houses, Americans are proving the U.S’s status as a first-world country. This is the American dream.  

Written by Roaa Alkhawaja

Co-Editor in Chief and Senior, Ro'aa Alkhawaja, loves herself a good week of reading, baking, tea-drinking, and eating more Nutella sandwiches than should be humanly possible.

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  1. These stimulus checks are truly a blessing. Last week I was able to afford a kind bar for lunch #livingthebestlife am I right?! So many of my friends are upgrading to nicer boulders as well and my mom even splurged a little and bought herself some old navy flip flops.

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