Pinched minds
For people living paycheck to paycheck, daily life sometimes runs from one worry to the next: Can I afford to put food on the table? Will I make rent this month? What will happen if I lose my job? What if my kids get sick, or my car breaks down? For many, those questions become so persistent it’s hard to concentrate on anything else. And that’s exactly the problem, noted Harvard economist Sendhil Mullainathan. The accumulation of money woes and day-to-day anxiety leaves many low-income individuals not only struggling financially, but cognitively, Mullainathan said. In a study featured Aug. 29 in Science, he reports that the “cognitive deficit” caused by poverty translates into as many as 10 IQ points. “Our results suggest that when you’re poor, money is not the only thing in short supply; cognitive capacity is also stretched thin,” Mullainathan explained. “That’s not to say that poor people are less intelligent...