A second common mistake that people who are lower income or working poor make is quitting one job in order to work at a job which pays more. To most of them, it seems logical: by making more money, it will allow them to get ahead. The problem with this logic is that for most people who fall under the working poor or low income category, getting a job that pays more really means “getting a job that pays a few dollars more.” Lets face it, going from a job that pays $9 per hour to one that pays $12 per hour is not that big of a difference, yet every day, millions of people around the country are switching to jobs that pay just a bit more than the ones they were at previously.
Taking this a step further, many friends eagerly look forward to a potential raise from a $60,000 per year job to a $75,000 per year job. Though it may seem fairly significant, in the end they are simply trading one dead end job for another dead end job that pays a little more. When you consider the fact that they will also be taxed at a higher rate due to their increased income, it becomes easy to see why trading one dead end job for another that pays a bit more will not allow you to become rich. In the next section, I will talk about the most controversial belief of them all: the belief that you can actually become rich by getting a higher education.