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The Working Poor And The Underclass Analysis

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One topic that stuck out to me the most during this semester was chapter seven, which is The Working Poor and the Underclass. I feel as if this chapter is and will always be a big topic in society today. Being in nursing school and working at the local hospital in our community, I feel as if this is an issue I encounter a lot. Many people I care for on a daily basis are in poverty and cannot pay for their hospital bills. I see homeless people and other individuals barely surviving and just want a warm place and a meal to enjoy. From reading this chapter, I learned that there were different types of poverty, the amount that poverty exists, as well as new information about the homeless population. All throughout high school and even in my first …show more content…

Until reading this chapter, I was unaware of just how many people were actually in poverty. Our textbook states that poverty rose from 2007 to 2008 being that 39.1 million were living in poverty of the year 2008. It is unbelievable to think so many people are living in poverty and struggling to live day to day. It really makes me stop to think about every person that I walk by daily could be living in these conditions. Whenever I look at charts and view socioeconomic history at work or during clinical hours, over half of patients are unemployed due to being laid off or being unable to work due to a medical condition. Working in the emergency room will really open an individual’s eyes to see how many people come in because they cannot afford care or are found on the streets. Working in the medical field you always strive give the patient the best care possible no matter what. However, when you see someone who has it worse than you, there is nothing I want more than to help that patient in every way possible whether it is to give them a bath or provide them with a warm meal. Our books also mentions that race can affect poverty, stating that Caucasians have a lower poverty rate compared to African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians. From a personal experience, I have not had an Asian patient dealing with poverty and the rate of Caucasians I have dealt with …show more content…

On a typical trip to Greensboro you see many homeless individuals on the corner of streets and at stop signs. It also is becoming more common in Asheboro near Walmart and other community stores. When we think of homeless individuals, many people think of people without shelter or characters who wasted their money on drugs and have no money. Now that I am in nursing school, when I see an individual on the streets begging for money or having nowhere to live, all I can think of is that they could be sick or have diabetes with no way to control their blood sugar levels. It is sad seeing homeless people on the streets and most people just turning their heads as they drive by. The homeless population are at an increased risk for developing diseases and illnesses and not being able to get the proper treatment. I felt that I have learned quite a bit of knowledge from my nursing textbooks about the homeless but our textbook for sociology has provided me with factual numbers and statistics about each ethnicity group and age groups. Race also impacts homelessness just as it does with poverty. Our textbook says that about fifty percent of homeless individuals are African American with Caucasian being the second highest. As mentioned earlier in the paragraph about the different types of poverty, I feel that this information about statistics is viable to my current and future career to help aid for better treatment and care after

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