Americans that are living pay check by pay are struggling to pay their bills every month, of these, most of them earn only minimum wage which is “$ 7 .25” Epstein, R, & Bedford, K. (2014) , p,3. Working full time, 40 hours a week and 52 week a year. The average Americans that are working minimum wage jobs are providing for families on a full time salary which is not enough to pay for the hose hold bills and proved for every day necessities; this forces them to find a second job. In 1996 the number of people holding two or more jobs averaged Barabara Ehrenreich (2011) “7.8 million or 6.2 percent in the workforce” (p.45). According to Michelle Conlin a senior writer and editor of the Working Life Department and Aaron Bemstein a senior writer on Workplace and social issues, 63% of United States families below the federal poverty line have one or more job. More than a “third are 18-25- year old” Conlin, M., & Bemstein, A. (2007), p, 2, who are trying to work their way up the ladder with little to no help. In today’s society more than “28 million people” Conlin, M., & Bemstein, A, (2007), p, 2, which is about a quarter of the workforce between the ages of “18 and 64, earn less than $9.04 an hour” Conlin, M., & Bemstein,A. (2007), p, 2. This is well below what most American’s would consider a decent stander of living. The increase in the cost of living means parents earning the national minimum wage struggle to support families. Raising the rent for apartment and houses are
2016 Presidential Candidate: Bernie Sanders Created by Joshua Oliver About Bernie Sanders Bernie Sanders is a Democratic candidate for President of the United States.In 1981, Bernie was elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont where he served 5 terms.In 1990, he’s elected to the United States’ House of Representatives on his second try he would
American Dream: To Be or Not to Be Take it from Dan Rather’s “They Lived the Dream:” “There is no typical American and no typical American Dream” (41). Every person has an original plan for his or her life, and with each person comes different points of views and aspirations. Think
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 lives of the American society is concentrated on working to live and spend money, under a capitalist system that are
Ever person on earth dreams of getting that one good job that can keep them happy and that pays well so that they can take care of their family and other generations to come. However, not everyone has this type of luxury. A good portion of the population in our society are forced to serve as a pillar for the country and are not being rewarded for all their hard work and effort which leads to Income Inequality. A paycheck is the only difference between being homeless and having a home for most people and its not because they waste money carelessly, but because the time they put in
Rojas 1 Andrew Rojas English 1A Professor Got. Nov. 11, 2016 Why Should Minimum Wage Be Raised We are arguably living in the aftereffects of a country that reached its heights of Capitalism during the Industrialization era. Prior to the introduction of machinery and railroad systems to America, the economical framework relied on a warped version of lasseiz-faire and featured wealthy descendants of British merchants who joined the colonies. Others worked menial jobs and apprenticeships to guarantee their source of income and it is safe to say that many were unhappy with their predicament --- even if they had no platform to voice this opinion. While the Industrialization Era introduced centuries of wealth to America, it also severely tipped the wealth distribution scale which can be seen extremely in events like the multiple depressions of the 19th Century and recessions in the 20th Century. In a 2013 statistic, researchers found that 53.5% of people despise their jobs. If you ask around, you 'll find that many overqualified Americans are still working menial jobs to provide for their families and that even office jobs are not that promising in terms of salary. The wealth cap for most of these citizens is around $60k~ and many, many Americans are living in poverty. There seems to be a socio-economical propaganda that is being spewed around for many years that many workers of minimum wage are lazy, entitled teenagers who have nothing better to do than sit around and collect
In today’s society around 1.7 million Americans are working below or at the current minimum wage level of $7.25. For these millions of Americans, they are forced to work endless hours and in return earn a salary that is not livable. According to Career Trends, a website that calculates cost of living, “For a given week, at the federal
Picture This: coming home to place where there aren’t any lights, water and probably no meal for the day. According to Human Services in Contemporary America poverty is the main reason why many babies don’t make it to see adulthood and why clean water and sanitation are not provided. It
Furthermore, the equality of opportunities as one of the foundations of the American dream turned into evident inequality. “The lion’s share of economic growth in American over the past thirty years has gone to a small, wealthy minority, to such an extent that it’s unclear whether the typical family has benefited at all from technological progress and the rising productivity it brings” (Krugman 586). Income inequality has been steadily growing since 2008 when the global financial crisis erupted. Moreover, the gap in prosperity between the group of Americans with high income and all the others had never been such extreme as it is now. Thus, not everyone has the opportunity to become wealthy through hard work. The increase in socioeconomic inequalities,
A Fragmented Pie Money is what makes the world go around. From day one, people are assimilated with the idea: to consume, one must spend a medium sufficient enough to receive an object that is desired. Every country has that medium. The Europeans have the Euro, the Japanese have the Yen, Chile has the Peso, and the United States has the Dollar. However, this idea of “getting and spending” has done more harm than good in specific countries. Particularly, in the United States there has been a growing issue of income inequality. The textbook definition of income inequality states: the difference between individuals or populations in the distribution of their assets, wealth, or income. The political problem itself, nevertheless, is deeper and
In the U.S., the primary source of income comes from jobs. However, people are unable to find jobs because businesses are outsourcing unskilled labor to developing countries since workers there are willing to be paid less than the average American worker. This creates problems for people who are trying to look for jobs because many lack the skills to function in a job that requires skill and will remain jobless until they find unskilled labor jobs. Since the Recession, working class families who had lost their jobs are struggling to survive due to the little job availability (Heritage Foundation, 2011). Because the majority of working class families are suffering from prolonged
Being a citizen of America has become expensive for a majority of people to survive. In today's society, in order to survive people would have to work for money to purchase items to live; items such as food, water, electricity, and medications. Although people have to work to make the currency to live, the amount individuals get paid are not enough to sustain their life.
Many people still work at low wage jobs plus many households now are headed by single parents, making it difficult for them to earn a living income
Inequality of Wealth and Income Distribution in America Every American dreams of finding a job that pays well enough so that they may comfortably take care of their loved ones and themselves for years to come. Most Americans hope to find some way to make a living that they enjoy, something that they view as productive. Unfortunately, many do not have this luxury. In our society, a good portion of the population is forced to hold the base of our country in place while hardly being redeemed for their time and effort, and thus the problem of income inequality. Numbers of these people live from paycheck to paycheck, barely getting by, not because they manage their money poorly, but because the value of their time at work is negligible.