…is the title of this NPR piece, which examines both how easy it is to lose one's license because of poverty (in Wisconsin, for instance, failure to pay a ticket can result in a two-year suspension, which is harsher than the penalty for either drunk driving or a hit-and-run), and how losing a driver's license contributes to a downward spiral by limiting a person's economic opportunities.
As one 29-year-old father of four in Milwaukee put it (as quoted in the print text of the story):
"It hinders you because most jobs are not in the inner city nowadays. And they get pushed far back, and the buses don't go out there. So the inner-city jobs that we have are not able to provide for our families that we have and to provide for ourselves," [McArthur Edwards] says.
In 2013, Edwards was stopped by police and ticketed for driving with a broken light over his back license plate. State department of transportation records show that when he didn't pay the $64 fine, his driver's license was suspended for two years.
