Comment by rexpop

Imagine two kids get the weekend off from school. One kid gets money to order pizza, ride a fast taxi to the movies, and pay someone else to clean their room. They get to spend the whole weekend just playing and having fun. The other kid has no extra money. They have to spend their weekend cleaning the house, cooking meals from scratch, walking a long way just to get anywhere, and babysitting their little sibling.

On a piece of paper, both kids had the exact same amount of "free time" away from school. But in real life, the second kid was actually working the whole time.

Wealthy people can buy back their time by paying for things like daycare, grocery delivery, takeout, and house cleaning. People with less money can't afford to buy these shortcuts, so they have to do all this unpaid work themselves. This eats up their free hours.

Jobs that pay less often change workers' schedules at the last minute, so they can never plan their days or get enough sleep. They also might have to ride slow public buses for a long time to get to work. This means their free time is broken into stressful little pieces, like waiting at a bus stop or waiting for an unexpected shift to start.

Even when they do get an hour to sit down, they are usually very stressed about paying bills. When your brain is constantly worrying about survival, taking a break doesn't feel relaxing, and can even make you feel more anxious.

So, while wealthy people might officially work more hours at their jobs, the money they make lets them buy real, relaxing rest. People with less money might have fewer official job hours, but their "free time" is entirely stolen by unpaid chores, unpredictable schedules, and the stressful work of just trying to survive.

The long and short of it is that poor people work longer hours; they simply receive less formal recognition for it.

Your attempts to hide these facts and paint poverty as enviable in this dimension are disgustingly inhumane.