A woman was plunged into poverty because of a broken tooth. : Planet Money : NPR

Peter McDiarmid/Getty Images

Peter McDiarmid/Getty Images

When Ryan Jones was a child, her friend accidentally hit her in the mouth with a hammer, knocking out her two front teeth. Her parents didn’t have enough money to fix the teeth, so Ryan lived most of her adult life with a chipped and crooked smile.

Ryan was a single mother working a low-paying job but she had higher aspirations: She interviewed dozens of times a year for high-paying positions for which she was fully qualified. But she never got any. To her, the only thing standing in the way of a better job seemed to be her rotting brown front teeth.

How we look can say a lot about our financial situation. Some things, like clothes, we have more control over. But some things we can’t control — and they can have serious long-term financial consequences.

This episode originally aired as part of Marketplace This is uncomfortable podcast.

Reported by: Reema Khrais

Editor: Micaela Blei.

Producers: Zoë Saunders, Peter Balonon-Rosen, Megan Detrie, Hayley Hershman and Daniel Martinez. The Planet Money version was produced by Alyssa Jeong Perry.

Producer: Charlton Thorp

Music: Wondery

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