The downside is that not having the right friends can cement hardship. The more concentrated the poverty, the less helpful social networks tend to be. In Atlanta, living in a poor neighbourhood decreases the chance of having a friend with a job by almost 60%, and of having a friend who had been to university by over a third. A global survey conducted in 2014 by Gallup, a polling firm, found that 30% of people in the poorest fifth of their country’s population had nobody to rely on in times of need, compared to 16% of the richest fifth. It is doubly unfortunate, then, that poor people are often socially excluded precisely because they are poor. Chileans and Venezuelans see poverty as a bigger cause of discrimination than gender or ethnicity, according to researchers from Oxford University.