Tim Drake's Relationship To Wealth In New Earth
I’ve talked about the Drake’s wealth before, based on this slightly out of place scene in A Lonely Place of Dying where Tim zeros in on an Erte statue of Bruce’s, mentioning his father purchased a litho the year before.
To summarize, this scene is establishing the wealth gap between the rich Drake family and the rich Wayne family. Tim is impressed with Bruce’s Erte statue, which suggests the Drakes can’t really reasonably afford one. While there are Erte lithographs more expensive than some Erte statues, I’ve only seen statues price down to about $1800, while I’ve seen lithos price in the hundreds.
Basically, this implies the Drakes don’t have enough money to spend willynilly while also maintaining their prefered lifestyle. Based on other comic panels scattered around, I’d say the Drakes’ money primarily goes to real estate, travel, boarding schools, and staff. (We only see Mrs. Mac as far as I’m aware, unless you count their work assistant, but the Drakes will sometimes reference former staff, like an old driver mentioned in Robin #116.)
Strictly speaking, Tim is only refered to as “new money” once, which interestingly occurs after the Drakes drop an economic bracket. [Robin #100]
However, Jack specifically gives off the impression he’s probably new money. He prides himself on being a red blooded american man (read: “normal,” down to earth) and he’s blatantly incapable of playing politics. He’s not good at maintaining an image for reputation and status, and he doesn’t respect people that do.
He’s also shows little interest in networking, allowing his insecurities to get in the way of what would appear to be a rather beneficial opportunity for his son and his business - developing and maintaining friendships with people like Bruce Wayne opens doors.
Jack seems to view himself as seperate from what he sees as the uppity elite, but also sees himself as deserving of respect and status stemming from his wealth without the desire to actively cultivate it, all the while harboring some deep insecurities around the topic. This doesn’t garantee he was new money, but it does imply he doesn’t really fit in with the ins and outs of wealthy society the way someone like Bruce does.
To be old money, Jack would have to have come from wealth, and we’re just not given that impression. We know very little about Tim’s ancestry, except that Jack’s father, Charles, was a teenaged soldier in World War II, but in general, other characters don’t react to the Drake name the way they react to the Wayne or Luthor or Queen names. Hell, Dinah Lance’s mother’s maiden name was Drake.
We don’t really have anything to go off of if Janet was or wasn’t wealthy prior to her marriage to Jack, and if so, how much.
When Jack’s bad investments cause the Drakes to “go broke” - as Jack refers to it - Tim describes their situation as going from “upper-upper-class” to “upper-middle” class, living off of the proceeds of the sales of their assets and Dana’s middle class job. Tim isn’t too bothered by this, having worked in war zones and areas of abject poverty, and doesn’t think very charitably about his dad acting like they’re starving. Neither does Dana for that matter, who understands they still have a very good life and is bearing the brunt of the work supporting their family and liquidating Jack’s assets.
This is where Tim’s relationship to money gets interesting to me. Tim’s very comfortable with his living situation, but he becomes very AWARE of how expensive crime fighting is. He has an itemized list of how much EVERYTHING batman related costs.
With Bruce out of the picture for an unknown length of time, Tim has a lot of financial anxiety. Steph, who grew up middle class (at least she is now, her mom being a nurse, living in a two story house - unclear on their financial situation when she was a small child), has much more of a “it’ll work itself out” attitude, while Tim can’t stop thinking about the logistics.
This is honestly a very stark contrast to the fandom idea that Tim is of the “how much can a banana cost? $10?” persuation.
Once Bruce is back and the monatary situation with Robin is solved, Tim is content to live an upper middle class life style.
After Jack dies, however, Tim’s money situation becomes… fuzzy.
Tim ends up reliant on Bruce’s money. They don’t really get into it, but as a child with no living relatives and Dana in a clinic, Tim SHOULD be in the foster system right now, without access to his inheritance. He’s comfortable making promises in Bruce’s name, but Tim’s reasons for not wanting Bruce to adopt him in the upcoming arc are… quesionable. They don’t really say WHY Tim doesn’t want Bruce to adopt him, nor do they explain HOW Tim pays for his hired fake uncle. Did he actively steal Bruce’s money, or was the deal access to Tim’s inheritance? Was this whole thing a ploy for Tim to gain access to his own inheritance and not rely on Bruce for everything?
They don’t… talk about it.
They especially don’t talk about it AFTER Bruce adopts Tim. He seems to foster him for a bit after “Uncle Eddie” bites it, Tim is living on the manor grounds, but his legal and financial status isn’t really brought up. Then Bruce adopts him, but money just kind of becomes a nonissue, we all just kinda assume Tim has access to Bruce’s money and call it a day.
But I do think, when talking about Tim’s relationship to money, skipping over Tim’s temporary downward financial mobility over simplifies him. Tim is aware of the cost of things and the transience of wealth and status. There’s additional things we can speculate on, like if a young Tim had access to his parents’ money while they’re abroad, and what it would mean if he didn’t - my brain goes back to that anxiety about “re-supplying.” I can picture an 11-year-old Tim in worn out shoes counting down the days his parents pick him up from boarding school so he can ask to buy new ones - you know, things you need to shop for in person, rather than have something shipped to the school - but feeling like he can’t really complain because, well, his parents CAN afford to buy him nice things, he just has to wait.
I think that’s just overall more interesting and unique to Tim, rather than the default Rich Kids Don’t Understand Money trope.
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