The Working Poor Chapter Summaries

The Europeans between the 1450’s and 1700’s held many negative attitudes towards the poor themselves and the idlers who they believed were a menace to society. Also during this time period the Europeans had many responses like in England where they put them in poorhouses or tried to heal them or in others places where they tried to give them alms.

In David K. Shipler’s book, The Working Poor Invisible in America the reader is provided a peek into the personal stories of the inner lives of eight families struggling inside the vicious cycle of poverty. Shipler’s method of interviews, narratives of personal stories and observation represents an innovative study investigating the working poor in an attempt to understand “how people in real communities devise collective responses to their problems (Segal, 2010).”

Regardless if we are aware of it or not, not many Americans live the supposed American Dream of having a nice car, big house, well paying job, and have a secure family. In the renowned novel The Working Poor: Invisible in America by David K. Shipler he captures those Americans who live invisible in America that work so hard to suffer from the psychological effects of poverty. Not only does Shipler do that but he also indirectly talks about the “American Myth” and the “American Anti Myth through the lives on these individuals.”

The Industrial Revolution consisted of scientific innovations, a vast increase in industrial production, and a rapid growth of urban populations which consequently shaped a new social structure in the European continent. Initially in the late eighteenth century, the new industrialization period produced dominant bourgeoisie employers and a united men, women, and children workers. The continued increase of factories coupled with a need for employees made the Proletariats within a short period of time a large, underprivileged, hungry, and desperate for money. Meanwhile, their bourgeoisie employers grew authoritative and wealthy as production and profit soared. Despite the common ties between proletariat workers upon the outbreak of the

Reading the last paragraph of Dreams, a chapter from The Working Poor by David Shipler, I came to the realization that all of the assigned readings were like many of Shakespeare's tragedies. Each one of the handouts and books wrote about a similar subject which is impoverished children in the educational system. For Example, in Ordinary Resurrections by Jonathan Kozol, he writes "Most of the children here, no matter how hard they may work and how well they may do in elementary school, will have no chance, or almost none, to win admission to the city's more selective high schools, which prepare their students for good universities and colleges." It is true that in Carger's book Of Borders and Dreams, Alejandro's struggle to succeed

In the very beginning of the chapter, Shipler mentions a child care worker named Christie and how an Earned Income Credit benefited her. Since Christie did not earn a lot from her job, she “got $1,700 as an Earned Income Credit one year, which enabled her to avoid the Salvation Army’s used-furniture store” (Shipler 13-14). The credit helped the poor citizens pay for items that they normally could not afford, but a bad side of being poor is presented in this chapter as well. People were subject to the cruelness of the private or public workplace. Korean restaurants were criticized because of the way they came up with to fool the waiters and cooks.

In the novel The Working Poor by David K. Shipler, he wrote about the struggles that people have faced because of their specific position. He interviewed people that were in different situations and with different jobs. There were several women he wrote about that had children and struggled with abusive relationships. There were immigrants that he interviewed that worked in the garment industry. Shipler wrote about people that worked in farms as well. He also wrote about people with criminal records that lacked confidence in themselves to get a job. In the novel The Working Poor written by David K. Shipler, one of the major themes was the death of the American Dream which was represented by characters such as Caroline, Christie, and Candalaria.

The Working Poor: Invisible in America gives an accurate depiction of the social problems and social policies that are designed to keep the poor, poorer. Shipler uses a variety of stories to depict social welfare programs like the minimum wage act, immigration, Social Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability (SSD), healthcare act, Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), drug addiction, sexual abuse, Individual Education Plans (IEP), and the gender pay gap along with many others. The overarching theme throughout the book was that the working poor never make enough money to cover their expenses and the wage never goes up enough over the span of their lifetime.

This essay will consider whether the welfare state has eliminated poverty. It will examine what poverty is and how the definition varies from societies. The essay will look at the aims of the welfare state from conception and how it has changed to present times. The welfare state being analysed is the welfare state in the United Kingdom. It will discuss the nature of the social democratic welfare state and liberal criticisms of the problems this type of state brings. The recent changes to the welfare state will be reviewed and what the consequences of the changes may be. It will then look at recent statistics to determine whether the welfare state has eradicated poverty.

The definition of “being poor” is to be lacking something – more specifically, money. Many people lack sufficient funds to pay for a decent education. Others go without basic comforts to keep their bank account above water. And sadly, some people don’t even have sufficient money to consistently put three full meals on their

American factories can comprise of about up to 1000 workers. If American factories are shut down and moved to other countries, this takes many American people out of work. Companies are now also importing jobs. This is where employers hire people such as immigrants to work less than minimum wage. For that reason, many Americans are stuck with the other minimum wage, and low-paying jobs that barely get them through life. Because of this, many Americans are working full time jobs that are below the Federal poverty line. These types of people are often called the “working poor”. Due to this the working poor have to run to welfare. This affects all Americans because taxpayers are the ones paying for welfare. The more jobs that are taken

Discussing the Obligation to Help the Absolutely Poor The question of who deserves what and who owes what to who is a philosophical question that people unendingly attempt to answer, never coming to a universal and workable conclusion. No matter what outcome is decided upon, someone is destined to be unhappy about it, as unhappiness almost seems to be the defining human condition, with someone always being unhappy about something. However, there are a few who have attempted to answer this question in a reasonable and moral manner, such as Nozick, Singer, and Rachels. Each of these people takes a somewhat different approach to answering this difficult question.

Poverty is linked from generation to generation. Parents pass it down to their children and then those children continue to pass it along, creating a never-ending cycle. Desiree Metcalf is the perfect example of an American trapped in the cycle of poverty. Metcalf is 24 years old and a single mother of three young girls. Unemployed, she wakes up each morning wondering whether or not she will be able to provide dinner for her family that day. Metcalf seems to be following in her mother’s footsteps, as she was also poor and single with difficulties finding employment. An unexpected turning point in Metcalf’s life occurred when she was

History has been traditionally told from the point of view of those with wealth and education. But to truly understand history one must understand the history of the people who were not writing the history which includes the nation’s minorities, working class and those without a high level of education. Society is made up of a variety of people and history is not complete without telling all of their stories. History was traditionally written by a select number of people. This leads to a biased view of history because the educated could not experience every part of society. One example is American slavery where many of the black slaves were not formally educated so they were not able to tell their stories. At first the educated white

History has brought upon wonders on how economists view the conditions of different nations whether it is about aggregate output or policies implemented by the government and central bank. Now, it is quite interesting to note how unemployment, as I have studied in the last few weeks, indicates a far different realization when applied to the Philippine setting. It is as if unemployment in our country wears a mask that hides how the government, even with its good intentions, fails to address the more pressing problem we have, which is poverty.