Who are the Working Poor

Poverty is a multifaceted issue, it is dependent on many factors and the ‘one size fits all’ approach does not work. Out of all the possible explanations as to why people are still living in poverty in the U.S., the structural view of poverty covers the most bases. The structural view of poverty explains that poverty can only ‘be understood and explained only with reference to political and economic characteristics of the society’ (Kerbo, p.266). With this in mind, this theory considers the position of the poor in the occupational structure. Since the poor have jobs that require low skill, which means anyone can learn how to do them, there is much more competition for such jobs. Those with jobs that require greater skills, such as doctors,

This is considered unworthy poor in modern times. The general public is influenced against the poor and says they are poor because they are lazy or helpless (Martin, 2014, p.35). It seems like view on this matter haven’t changed in the last 100 years (Martin, 2014, p. 36). The Christian Right and The Tea Party movement did impact views of the development of the welfare reform because they added punishing measures that are made for guiding the actions of someone receiving benefits. The worthy poor are still considered disabled or older people Martin, 2014 p.

The working poor are people who spend 27 weeks or more in a year in the labor force whose incomes fall below the poverty level. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 9.5 million of people who spent at least 27 weeks in the labor force were poor. That year, the working poor comprised 6.3 percent of all individuals in the labor force (Proctor,2015). If you are in the labor force you should not be poor. Low wage workers are being taken advantage of and not given the simple benefits. Without benefits being provided by employers and with The Obama Care’s Health Care Bill in effect, if someone does not have healthcare they are required to pay a fee that could cost up to $600. So, if they do not qualify for Medicaid, they must factor in an insurance bill into their already low budget. A bill that most people do not have to worry about because their jobs provide them full benefits. The argument against low wage workers is it would only give them more money to spend, which is true, money they need for expenses that most people do not have to consider.

To some, being poor is embarrassing and shameful, but to a select group of people; being poor is something they’re grateful to be. They embrace it and use it to their advantage to achieve better lives

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.

Poverty is not only an individual problem, but a societal problem. Harrell R. Rodgers wrote an article, “Why are People Poor in America?” Rodgers gives two categories of theories that are used when cultural /behavioral or structural/economic. Behavior/culture theorists look at the behavior, culture and values of the poor as the reason for poverty. While structural /ecIn western culture statistics are an excessively used tool in describing social issues. Numbers help explain a situation, but in excesses, can dehumanize a population. A serious social issue that suffers from desensitization is poverty. Poverty, as it is defined by Webster, is the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of supporting; the condition of being poor. The condition of poverty plagues many American families. According to the Census bureau, 15.1 percent of the United States population falls below the poverty threshold. 15.1 percent does not draw the same effect as the actual 46.6 million individuals living in those circumstances. In the United States, poverty has become a growing problem. There are 15 million more people living in poverty today than in the year 2000 (U.S. Bureau of the Census 2013). The poverty threshold, developed by Molly Orshansky, is a tool used to help indicate how many Americans are in poverty. According to the census, 46.6 million of America’s total population makes less than the poverty threshold for a family of four. The condition of being

When wealthy people look at the world around them and where they are at in their financial situations they often feel a sense of power and feel in control of their future and lives. Unlike the wealthy when the poor look their financial situation they are overcome with feelings of defeat and uncertainty about the future. Which is a feeling that many like Madonna Harris, Jenifer Hernandez, and Martha Johnson experienced. These women and their families experienced the bottom of the social class which is the underclass that consists of individuals with next to no chance of ever leaving this class. Those who belong to this class have little or no connection with the job market but those who are lucky enough to get a job are only offered low paying or temporary work. Government funded programs like SNAP, Welfare and WIC are designed to help those in need but people who apply for them are often turned away because of the specific criteria that must be met which. If they are accepted they are or are not supplemented enough to maintain an apartment, afford food, and utilities as well as everyday living

In the documentary “Poverty in America: Born with a Wooden Spoon” we get an in depth look about what it is like to live in poverty in America. In the early moments of the documentary we are informed that the poor people of America are a diverse group of people. These people can be put into sub group and each of them has certain different characteristics. The first and most obvious group is the homeless or otherwise known as the urban poverty. These people are scattered around inner cities and it is very easy to see how hard their life is and what kind of struggle they are going through. The next group is the group of situational poverty. Situational poverty comes about when something abrupt occurs in someone’s life that causes him or her to be forced into poverty. Examples of this can be divorce, losing ones jobs, or sudden illness. Another different kind of poverty is the working class poverty. These are the people that have jobs but make so little that they cannot get themselves above the poverty line. Next are immigrants they provide cheap necessary labor for the country to flourish but yet they are still consider to be apart of poverty. They often do not even work for themselves, they leave their homelands and live on their own just so they can get jobs to send back money home to their families. The middle class can also have people in poverty. They try to cover it up by getting themselves into loads of credit card debt and eventually fall below the poverty line to the

The concept of the "working poor" has gained prominence in the post-welfare reform era. As welfare rolls shrunk, the focus shifted from the dependent poor to the working poor. It was obvious that without substantial outside support, even families with full-time low-wage workers were still earning less than the official poverty line. And while American society purports that anyone can prosper if they work hard enough, it became apparent that with inadequate opportunity or bad luck, a growing number of families could not attain the American dream, or even break the cycle of poverty. The new challenge for American social policy is to help the working poor lift themselves out of poverty. That's why progressives

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, at least according to the proverb. If no one wants to work and work without reward, then why do so many people? Simply because they do not have a choice. Those people are called the working poor. Although the term "working poor" is not consistently defined, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the working poor are people who spend 27 weeks or more a year “in the labor force” either working or looking for work, but whose incomes fall below the poverty line. The working poor consists of 22.5% of America's 46.2 million poor people. Although it may seem like a small percentile, it still equates to a staggering 10.4 million people ("A Profile of the Working Poor, 2011"). 10,400,000 is an obscene number of working people coping with the tremendous pressures of income instability. Yet, when the national discussion of a “jobs crisis” arises, the focus is predominantly on unemployment, marginalizing this large group of Americans. Further examination of America's current socioeconomic state also reveals the financial, political, and social marginalization of the working poor.

America was built on lies and lost lives, the backs of the downtrodden covered in the footprints of the fortunate. While the wealthy 1% lived in luxury, the impoverished 15% lived in waste and ruin; rundown houses, sewers, abandoned cellars, the underneaths of bridges and overpasses-- the poorest of the poor had to be happy with even the most awful of accommodations, taking what they could get and struggling to hold on to it.

For instance, by 2012 the median salary had only increased by a mere 7 percent sinc3 1973. Decent paying jobs are continually being moved overseas and due to an increasing need for automation, available jobs have declined at a rapid speed since lesser manpower is required in most fields. Those who have lost their jobs as a result of these changes, are often unsuccessful in finding suitable work, much less one that compares to their previous salary. Americans who have managed to remain employed, are not necessarily out of the water either. Company owners and leaders are becoming richer while the poor gets poorer; frequently underpaying their employees and keeping a larger amount of profit for themselves. With such a competitive market for much needed work, employees are often faced with the decision to accept their meager salaries or try to find better work elsewhere. Because other well-paying jobs are harder to find, American’s are becoming increasingly willing to accept the mediocre pay offered to them, even if they know that they are being underpaid

Around 15% of American citizens live below the poverty line today, and many believe that raising the minimum wage will lower this number. On May 21, 2015, The Wall Street Journal published an article by Warren Buffett, “Better Than Raising the Minimum Wage.” Buffett writes about a cost effective way for Americans to receive a steadier income other than raising the minimum wage. He highlights that the everyday worker with no special skills often finds it hard to be successful. The way Buffett proposes to fix this issue is to develop the Earned Income Tax Credit or Tax returns. Buffett used a lot of fact based arguments and appealed to ethos, but it could not make up for the lack of pathos and a strong argument in this article.

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 review is formulated with scholarly sources and references based off of poverty in America. This disclosure is approached with a value free sociological approach, and it will give insight on the social causes of poverty and the effects it has on America. Poverty is a very controversial topic. Many will assume that people living in poverty are lazy, made bad life decisions, or that they are solely the reason for their predicament however, people living in poverty would argue that their are deeper issues for it. Poverty will be deeply explained and researched from both perspectives