Summary Of The Stuff That Cost More When You Are Poor By Kristin Wong

In the article, “The Stuff That Costs More When You’re Poor” by, Kristin Wong, it mainly talks about how some common items in a poor person’s life can be expensive and posh. Because of a person’s low standing in terms of a economic perspective, establishments in fields such as basic house needs, car insurance, education, and banking have restrictions that may discourage the person from trying to purchase or invest in any of the businesses. Some of the argumentative tools that Wong successfully distributes are the usage of logos and pathos. For instance, when Wong is talking about the how the financially disadvantaged has to pay more for auto insurance, she attaches a PDF from the CFA that backs up and supports her claim. Thus, it makes her
convention of logos to be evident and credible from a reputable source. When Wong incorporates pathos in her article, she does a good job of wanting to encourage the readers to have a censure tone when examining the segment in her article about the income gap in college education. Wong makes the income gap clear when she affirms, “Meanwhile, wealthier students get more aid than they actually need. Of course, poorer students then take out even bigger loans to make up for the difference and then graduate with larger debt loads” (1). This quote also stands out to me because it reiterates that if poor people want to have a college education, then they would have to pay off a lot of debt for possibly the rest of their life. Also, it may encourage low-income people to stay out of college and try to make ends meet with a profession that more than likely does not pay well without a college education. To conclude, Wong does a good job of persuading the reader of supporting the correlation between being poor and the increased prices on everyday things using logos and pathos constructively.