2.00 A Day Essay

People generally enjoy working and being productive members of society. The positive effects of the Welfare Reform Act is moving to eventually end poverty in America and promote economic growth. According to the 2005 report measuring welfare dependents “Poverty in 2003 remains much lower than in 1996, the year of passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. The official poverty rate for 2003 was 12.5 percent, compared to 13.7 percent in 1996.” ( Gil Crouse, Susan Hauan, Julia Isaacs, Kendall Swenson and Lisa Trivits, 2005 ) States that design welfare-to-work policies that emphasized getting recipients into jobs by shifting to “work-first” welfare systems can modify program rules to allow more earned income,

First, if the government were to make welfare eligibility stricter it would impede on the attempts of those below the poverty line trying to find a job. TANF ?can free up additional dollars for work related expenses and other basic needs and thus aid families? efforts to move from welfare to work? (Sard and Daskal). It is needed to help pay for those ?necessities that often accompany employment, such as additional clothing and food costs, child care, and transportation to and from work? (Sard and Daskal). The program does not just hand out money, but provides the aid needed to ?achieve self-sufficiency? through employment (Cohn). Without the additional money for clothing, food costs, child care, and transportation, an individual would not be able to maintain employment and abide by the TANF requirements. It is evident that TANF is necessary for those individuals that live in poverty and are seeking employment. If the requirements were to become stricter, the number of the employed and those living below the poverty line would increase simultaneously.

People are still living on $2 a day here in the United States. As one of the wealthiest countries in the world, how is it possible for people to live with this little amount of money? I know that I cannot. In $2.00 a Day, Jennifer Hernandez, a single mother with two kids, is a person who lives on $2 a day as she tries to survive and support herself and her kids in the collapsing economy. The minimum wage job for cleaning houses reinforces the cycle of poverty that Jennifer and her kids live in. This cycle of poverty reveals that there needs to be major changes to the economical infrastructure of the United States since the poor cannot get themselves out of poverty even though they actively look for work or have a job.

“The Economic Policy Institute recently reviwed dozens of studies of what constitutes a “living wage” and came up with an average figure of $30,000 a year for a family of one adult and two children, which amounts to a wage of $14 an hour.” (213). According to Ehrenreich, about 60 percent of American workers earn less than $14 per hour. In all of places where Ehrenreich worked paid seven dollars or less per hour, which means those of people who work in those place cannot even afford to have some essentials services such as health insurance and telephone. Since they cannot even struggle to get out, politicians could takee an action; however, they didn't do any works. “The Democrats are not eager to find flaws in the period of “unprecedented prosperity” they take credit for; the Republicans have lost interest in the poor now that “welfare-as-we-know-it” has ended.” (217). And, they also had a catastrophic error. “In fact, very little is known about the fate of former welfare recipients because the 1996 welfare reform legislation bithely failed to incude any provision for monitoring their postwelfare economic condition.” (217). Congressmen need to read this book to realize the problem, and not satisfy themselves by ignoring failures because they have

A great number of those who reside in New York find the current U.S welfare reform to be very exhausting, humiliating as well as fraught. According to New Yorkers, this welfare will fail them. These simply because they are not poor enough, most of the citizens are already working (De Mause & Lewis Pp 1). The centerpiece of this welfare reform demanded that every citizen to work. There is a need that the state should ensure that almost half of the citizens get public assistance from the government. The beneficiaries should be working for at least thirty hours a week since working for more hours is one of the necessary in welfare reform (Eaton 7)

Nationwide government officials often wonder how this country is going to overcome unemployment, and the common misconception is through the provision of low wage jobs. By providing people with some source of income, congress believes millions will no longer depend on government aid. In actuality, however, providing minimum wage work is not going to solve such a drastic problem now, in the future, or at all for that matter. Minimum wage ($5.15), while serving at the socially acceptable pay standard, does not even compare with the nationwide ?living wage? of $10.18 (Ramisch). It is becoming increasingly more difficult to survive on such tragic wages, yet there is often little debate because it is money, and every little bit matters when it comes to paying bills.

The book $2.00 a day was written to acknowledge the struggle of those who live deep under the poverty line, if you can even consider that to be a living. It's two authors, Kathryn J. Edin & H. Luke Shaefer, show current (2015) real world examples from struggling single parents, homeless families, and those who have fell into a series of unfortunate events demonstrating how those who live in the $2.00 a day poor are not lazy, but instead the opposite. Throughout the trials of trying to find a job, keeping food on the table, and raising children, these people have been working much harder to stay alive in poverty than those who are fortunate enough to be living in the middle or upper class. As the book progresses through the different stories

David K. Shipler’s The Working Poor: Invisible in America presents a focus on the struggles taking place in society among people, particularly the poor. The author uses perspectives from the citizens’ lives to support the main idea. The beginning of the book focuses on how the poor are often treated by their more powerful employers. The treatment of the poor includes being mistreated, abused, and taken advantage of. The first chapter of the book talks about an Earned Income Tax Credit and how much the poor are helped from this.

“If you work, you should not be poor” (Duncan 1). This quote is essentially the theme of the book, Higher Ground: New Hope for the Working Poor and Their Children, as well as the motivation of the founders of the New Hope Antipoverty Program. This experimental program was implemented in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1994. The goal of the program was to help low skilled and low-wage working individuals whom did not receive all the benefits they deserved because of their low incomes. One thousand three hundred and fifty-seven low-income adults, living in the two poorest neighborhoods of that city, volunteered to take part in the study to see how effective this experimental program would be. The participants were all randomly assigned, and half of them would receive the New Hope benefits while the other half served as a control group that would not receive the benefits. These benefits included earning supplements, subsidized childcare, and subsidized health care to anyone who would work weekly, full time (thirty hours per week). If you could not find a job, the program offered community service jobs for up to six months, paying minimum wage (Duncan 3-4, 12). The study lasted for three years and the results were tremendously encouraging. The MDRC concluded in their evaluation that, “Overall, New Hope increased employment and earnings, leading in turn to increased income...and enabling more low-income workers to earn their way out of poverty…New Hope

So if the poor of today earn roughly the same in current dollars as those many years ago, how do they afford their “elevated” lifestyle? The answer lies in over 200 Federal and State programs designed to support them until they are able to thrive independently. The most popular include the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Food Stamps,

The United States of America is considered the land of the free; however, I view it as the land of working people. Work ethic is one of the most important characteristics of our great country. Studies have shown that our people are overworked and overstressed. People are working longer hours and more years than ever before. I believe the best way to encourage the world of work is to open the window of opportunity and reward. This was the mindset of the government when they establish Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). This program was established to reward low and moderate income workers through the tax system to continue to encourage work. The central idea of Earned Income Tax Credit is a work-oriented program that provides a

The underlying belief that those who participate in the labor market are most deserving of aid is an idea that has permeated American attitudes toward poverty and social welfare policy since the colonial era (Patterson, 2000). Structuring a policy around the EITC could reinforce this belief, further marginalizing those who cannot participate in the workforce. Although I believe that an EITC expansion would offer the greatest benefit for the largest number of low-income individuals and families, an obvious criticism is that it would only benefit those who were able to participate in the work force. Undocumented workers who do not file taxes and individuals who are unemployed would not see any returns from the recommended policy changes. Also along these lines, the previously mentioned benefit for individuals with criminal records is non-existent if they are not able to find employment. I think that these concerns could be addressed by including additional employment assistance programs in the new policy for the unemployed, including ex-convicts.

The Working Poor: Invisible in America is a story that takes personal stories and accounts of people lives to describe the injustices that people face every day. Poverty is damaging to both the economy and the people who face it. Many times social policies are created to assist the people who are working but still struggle to get basic needs like food, utilities, gas, and medical. Poverty is a perpetuating cycle that is intended to keep the poor oppressed and discriminated against. Respectfully, this critique will address the social problems that are identified in the book, the major social welfare policy issues, the social values and beliefs that are critical and the implications for future social welfare policy and social work practice.

Wilson gives an example of a mother in a “new poverty neighborhood” that was on welfare even though she wanted to be employed, and she says that, while she was working, she was making only $7 an hour. Since she couldn’t pay the babysitter or get medical insurance for her children, she applied for public aid, and she could not even find a job that her benefits.

“The reasons poverty rates remain high despite the [economic] recovery has to do with wage decline and failure of the “safety net” i.e, the government systems of taxes and transfers designed