It's a common misconception that the inability of poor people to learn/grow is related to motivation or "laziness", you should read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Scarcity-having-little-means-much-eboo...

> Being poor does not make it very difficult to think long term

Citation needed. There's a fair bit of evidence otherwise. E.g.: http://www.amazon.com/Scarcity-having-little-means-much-eboo...

I've been reading this: http://www.amazon.com/Scarcity-Having-Little-Means-Much/dp/0...

Which has some excellent insights into this sort of behavior. Basically if you don't have enough money you are willing to borrow against a future payout for an extortionate rate (say 5% if you pay it back in a month which is an annualized rate of 60% interest). But what it really means it that the 5% you paid to get early access to money is a huge chunk of your future income. Lets say you make $1000/month and you're always behind so you're always getting a payday loan with a 5% rate which you pay back when you get paid. Over 12 months you've paid 12 * $50 or $600 for that privileged which is nearly an entire month's pay. Great for the lender, sucks for you.

Not surprisingly the principle is pretty general. I found when reading it that I could exchange "time" for "money" (which is to say making poor time choices when I felt time was scarce which would only cause me to have even less time in the future)