Being Broke Costs Your Brain 13 IQ Points Harvard Proved It

Added: 2026-05-21

[00:00:00]Being broke costs your brain 13 IQ points, same as a sleepless night.

[00:00:06]Harvard's Mullainathan tested sugarcane farmers twice, broke >> [music] >> then flush, same person.

[00:00:14]13 points apart. Financial stress consumed their working memory.

[00:00:19]They named it a cognitive bandwidth tax, but poverty keeps this tax permanently running.

[00:00:25]Less money, less brain.

[00:00:27]Psychologist call it the scarcity mindset. Shortage hijacks your thinking.

[00:00:33]Poverty isn't a willpower problem. You aren't bad with money.

[00:00:37]Poverty made you worse at it.

[00:00:40]That's the bandwidth tax. Follow before your brain talks you out of it.