<p>In the work of Cynthia Cruz and Fran Lock, two poets and political commentators from working class backgrounds, trauma is conceived as an inevitability for the always poor, but also a constant psychic threat for the socially mobile. Both also make links between poverty and being working class. Although poverty is rarely conceptualised in class terms, poverty has always been a class issue. Working class histories have inevitably been overshadowed by the spectre of poverty and destitution. The paper considers the role of neoliberalism in both the pathologizing of the poor, and the increasing immiseration of the working classes. Drawing on the work of Cruz and Lock, who make powerful links in both their poetry and prose between poverty, the flight from poverty, and trauma, and also Arline Geronimus’ book on weathering, it seeks to develop a counter-narrative of poverty as traumatic that works with both personal tales and structural explanations.</p>