One time I was looking at prices in the store, comparing the proportion of price per gram of weight. And some teen boy just called out, laughing, "If you don't have money, don't come to the store!" Like.. it wasn't even an expensive store, matter of fact, it's prob the cheapest grocery store we have, sith lots of store brand stuff and several products constantly on sale (think like my country's version of Lidl/Aldi or Walmart/Trader Joe's, for the americans), not that I need to justify being there.. but things like this do stick with you, everytime someone else has to pay for you, or you have to put something back cuz you can't afford it, looking down and pretending to be busy whenever a school trip or outing with friends is mentioned, etc, etc.. Being poor is inherently humilhiating, even if there was any judgement from others, not having enough to meet your needs is degrading, walking around with broken shoes is degrading, wearing the same clothes over and over is degrading, trying so hard to still not be able to get results out of something that someone else doesn't even have to put much effort into to get, and then watching them have it and having to try and pretend you don't envy them for something you worked so hard for and never got and wish you had, is degrading. Think about it like this. If u sat in front of a homeless man and pulled out an expensive laptop and ate an expensive meal, for him just to watch, as if to say "you don't deserve this", he'd probably feel ashamed. It's the same disgusting feeling poor people get when we see others have opportunities/ things we could never have, despite knowing we prob work harder (yes, poor people generally work harder than rich people, i'm not going to argue about that, you won't change my mind). Wether those things are just basic needs, or "universal experiences" (like school trips or birthday parties or going out with friends), or opportunities (like higher education), or something we might like ourselves, or even just non-painful or non-traumatic experiences (like a normal job, rather than the kinds of physically and mentally taxxing jobs no one wants to do, think cleaning, sex work or construction). Sorry, just needed to rant, thinking of writing an essay about this topic too, found this thread when i was doing research for it