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The article offers various explanations as to why poor in the U.S. pay more. One aspect of the literature on the plight of the low-income consumer has to do with the market for consumer durables and credit. Several authors have performed empirical analyses of the consumer durable market. Previous studies have formulated the hypothesis that if the merchant charges a higher total price to a nonwhite shopper than that charged a white shopper for an identical item, the authors of those studies assert that racial preferences account for the merchant's behavior. To test this hypothesis, the authors carefully selected four couples, two black and two white. The experiment design consisted of shopping trips by couples for a specified television set. The article authors conclude that the first thing that researchers and policymakers must insure, when dealing with the problems of poverty, is that they do no harm. To insure against doing harm requires dispassionate analysis that avoids the mere characterization of behavior.

This article focuses on the need of tribal leadership in the programs for eradication of poverty in the U.S. The article also argues that such behavior was not at all inconsistent with the conditions of "pre-program" reservation leadership or the formal requirements of the leaders' participation in the programs, and that therefore such behavior could have been predicted. Specifically, the leadership behavior is placed within a context of three interrelated causal factors. The first is the persistence of a heritage of authority struggles at two levels: between the council as a unit and the non-tribal administration; and among individual council members themselves. The second is the persistence of a tendency for several formal leadership statuses simultaneously to be vested in a single individual. The third factor is `the dual nature of the leaders' involvement in the development effort. They were at once program administrators, ideally impartial, and recipients of lucrative program benefits. Given `the presence of these factors, it is argued, the leaders' behavior can be viewed as a rational effort to maximize the political and material potential of the programs for their personal satisfaction.

The article presents the comment of the author on one of his papers related to poverty, minorities, and consumer exploitation. In the summer of 1965, the Watts riot happened. Along with many other residents of Los Angeles, California, the author was unable to get to his place of employment because of roadblocks established by the police and National Guard to contain the destruction. This "vacation" period provided a time for reflection about the nature and problems of the society. One of the easiest observations to be made was that business, ranging from the burned-out mom-and-pop store in Watts to the giant corporation, could not remain aloof from the growing urban crisis. It seemed likely, however, that the commentators and analysts would focus largely on the educational and social roots of the problem and ignore the role of the business community. This oversight would only perpetuate a situation that caused Charles Lazarus, a vice-president of Federated Department Stores, later to ask how it was possible that a whole generation of corporate executives could drive their Cadillacs through the slums of America and not know that someday these ghetto-poor would rise to threaten both the corporate balance sheet and the whole fabric of American life.

The article presents a discussion related to poverty, minorities and consumer exploitation. A number of reports, ranging from informal studies by journalists carefully researched investigations, have provided evidence that residents of ghettos pay more for their consumer goods than do other Americans. For example, social scientist David Caplovitz' study of 464 families living in three New York settlement houses revealed a consistent pattern of high prices, poor quality, high interest charges, and unethical merchandising techniques being inflicted on them. He concluded that the problems of low- income consumers stem from the same set of forces that have created that special system of sales-and-credit-the quasi-traditional economy catering to their wants. In California, the Governor's Commission on the Los Angeles Riots tended to reinforce this view. Following three months of investigation into the causes of the Watts riots, the Commission reported that consumer problems in the curfew area are not due to systematic racial discrimination but rather result from the traditional interplay of economic forces in the market place, aggravated by poverty conditions. These studies suggest, therefore, that the market system works to the disadvantage of the poor simply because they are poor, not because of their race or ethnicity.