I grew up dirt poor. I don't even want to talk about it.
Ost of my childhood was lower middle class,but there were 3-4 years where we were really poor.
There are many racial sensitivities. I was writing something about the poor and lower middle class, and a black acquaintance said I should say “low wealth” not poor.
I grew up relatively poor in an upper middle class neighborhood. I can remember my mother in tears at the front door because they were going to turn off our phone or gas, or electricity. At age 10 I would go into my piggy bank and give her the money to pay the bill. At that age I would earn money with snow shoveling (1948). One day I earned $9. My father made me work in the Victory Garden we kept until 1954. I hated not being able to play with my friends on weekends. However, when we had a surplus he would let me sell it to the neighbors and keep the money. We also grew and canned about 1/4th of all our food. My mother had a 45 year old friend who was my size. I got her used clothes. Great fashion for a high school student!! My father turned off the oil and installed pots stoves burning anthracite coal. Much carrying too and fro of coal and ashes. Mom used to buy these cheap dry soup packs and cook it with neck bones. Sometimes there were little black wheat weavels. I would complain but Pop would joke and say “more protein” as I picked them out and put on the side of the dish. So that is what poverty looked like in a white suburb 2 miles from NYC.