While the effects of financial crises on the economy as a whole, particularly on the poor, have been well-studied, this is not the case for the poorest members of society. This paper looks at the effect of three distinct financial crises on low-income people's ability to get by. Currency crises appear to be the most damaging to the poor, followed by banking crises, when using a variety of estimation techniques and accounting for a lagged dependent variable. Although urban corporations felt the brunt of the crisis at first, rural households were also impacted and in some cases experienced greater losses. Overall, fewer children are enrolled in school and fewer people are using health care services, but the effect on children's diets seems to be mixed.