The Poor Pay More: Consumer Practices Of Low-Income Families

David Caplovitz

• Publisher: Bonhopai Books
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781779793638
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Trading
• Index: Economics

In The Poor Pay More: Consumer Practices of Low-Income Families, sociologist David Caplovitz exposes a striking and unsettling paradox of modern capitalism — that those with the least resources often pay the highest prices. Based on groundbreaking field research conducted in urban America during the 1950s and early 1960s, Caplovitz's study remains one of the most influential works in consumer economics and social justice. With clarity and empathy, he reveals how systemic inequality, predatory credit practices, and limited access to mainstream markets force low-income families to shoulder disproportionate financial burdens.

Through detailed interviews and economic analysis, Caplovitz demonstrates how the poor are routinely trapped in cycles of overpayment — for appliances, furniture, housing, and even food — due to exploitative installment plans, discriminatory lending, and lack of consumer protection. Yet his work is never merely statistical: it humanizes poverty by giving voice to those navigating an economy designed to exploit their necessity.

 The Poor Pay More   is both a pioneering sociological document and a moral indictment. It helped inspire consumer protection reforms and laid the groundwork for later research into economic marginalization and social justice. Decades after its publication, its insights into structural inequality, financial vulnerability, and market ethics remain urgently relevant in a world still defined by unequal access and invisible costs. 

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• DEDICATION
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• CHAPTER 1 — Introduction
• CHAPTER 2 — The Merchant and the Low-income Consumer
• CHAPTER 3 — Buying Patterns: Purchases of Major Durables
• CHAPTER 4 — Shopping Patterns I: Scope of Shopping
• CHAPTER 5
• CHAPTER 6 — Price Patterns: Costs of Major Durables
• CHAPTER 7 — Credit Patterns: Sources and Users of Credit
• CHAPTER 8 — Family Finances: Debts And Assets
• CHAPTER 9 — The Marginal Families: Consumption and Insolvency
• CHAPTER 10 — Consumer Problems I: Shady Sales Practices
• CHAPTER 11 — Consumer Problems II: Consequences of Missed Payments
• CHAPTER 12 — Coping Patterns: Apathy, Ignorance, and Ineffectiveness
• CHAPTER 13
• APPENDIX A — Table of Indices
• APPENDIX B — The Interview Schedule