Would you though? Even when I was young and $30,000 was roughly equivalent to my post-tax salary, I wouldn’t have done that, because then I’d have to quit my job and I’d lose a year of work experience. A very similar thing is often disastrous for women who have babies.

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Right - you could imagine a situation where getting a large windfall gets you out of a poverty trap. But we don't see that sort of thing very much in the USA (and it's even debated wrt to developing countries!).

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I am not basing this on my personal experience, but what the large literature on income shocks (mostly using random lottery earnings) says.

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What is your lived experience wrt a $30k windfall?

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Sometimes knowing about stuff makes you have different opinions than the people who don't know about stuff.

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