How we cite our quotes: The main text of the story is cited (Chapter.Paragraph). The date headers are not counted as paragraphs. The verses in the chapters with a single passage from the narrator's religious texts are cited (Chapter.Verse.Line#). In chapters with multiple passages, the verses are cited (Chapter.Verse#.Line#). The four section pages with the years and passages are cited (Year.Verse).
Quote #7
Then the farm was sold to a big agribusiness conglomerate, and the workers fell into new hands. Wages were paid, but in company scrip, not in cash. [...] Wages—surprise!—were never quite enough to pay the bills. According to new laws that might or might not exist, people were not permitted to leave an employer to whom they owed money. They were obligated to work off the debt either as quasi-indentured people or as convicts. That is, if they refused to work, they could be arrested, jailed, and in the end, handed over to their employers. (23.87)
Wait, hold up—what's company scrip? That's payment by a company in currency that is only good at stores owned by that company. It's totally not fair, because then you can't shop around elsewhere for deals or, like, get out of the company town and live elsewhere. To find out more about company towns, check out this article.
Quote #8
Stitched into the tongue of each of the dead woman's boots were five, folded one hundred-dollar bills—a thousand dollars in all. We had to tell [Emery] how little that was. If she were careful, and shopped only at the cheapest stores, and ate no meat, wheat, or dairy products, it might feed her for two weeks. It might feed both her and Tori for a week and a half. Still, it seemed riches to Emery.
[...]
Emery squandered too much money on pears and walnuts for everyone. She delighted in passing these around, in being able to give us something for a change. She's all right. We'll have to teach her about shopping and the value of money, but she's worth something, Emery is. (24.190-191)
After working away as a debt slave for a big agribusiness conglomerate, Emery doesn't have much understanding of the value of money. She isn't good at budgeting it, in other words. That's a skill people have to learn, and one they may not be good at due to their life experiences.
On the other hand, another way to view Emery's spending choices is that she's placing her trust in her new traveling companions and giving them gifts in order to build up "social capital."
Quote #9
Jail for Bankole could have meant being sold into a period of hard, unpaid labor—slavery. Perhaps if he had been younger, the deputies might have taken his money and arrested him anyway on some trumped-up charge. I had begged him not to go, not to trust any police or government official. It seemed to me such people were no better than gangs with their robbing and slaving. (25.5)
This is Lauren, a fictional character, talking in a near-future sci-fi novel, but it's not all that far from the truth today. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution outlaws slavery and involuntary servitude except as punishment for criminals. Today, many prisoners in the United States labor away for less than $0.25 an hour. If Lauren's world is similar, it's no wonder she doesn't want Bankole to unnecessarily risk getting arrested.