Working Poor : The Work Poor

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 stereotypes that surround the poor and the homeless construct a false sense of self- deprivation onto the individuals who struggle financially within the United States of America. While constructing a budget that was within the financial limitation of the exercise, I grasped a better understanding of the true cost of financial liberties that most people who do not fall into the poverty category take for granted. The most difficult area was finding a living space that could house the theoretical family. Ultimately, I selected a rental property with two bedrooms because it was simply not a financial possibility to find a three-bedroom property within the budget. Even with the cheapest apartment I could possibly find, the cost of the rent was over half of the monthly income, and

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).”

The society is in such a way that it falls into categories of people who belong to different social classes and this creates a difference in the way individuals lead their lifestyle, and in the way individuals interact with each other. The working poor refer to a social group which develops as a result of the social inequalities which exist in the society. The population comprises of individuals who put a lot of effort in their activities but still fail to witness growth and development in their socio-economic being. It is normally wrong to categorize such persons as being lazy, and instead, one may argue that nature dictates the fate of these beings.

The objective of this essay is to illuminate my overall reaction to the reading of “The Working Poor” conveying what I do not like while highlighting a sociological perspective, in addition to explaining if the reading is applicable to my own life experience. Taking notice, the subject at hand was very sobering alluding even if we ourselves have not been partakers of living in the obscurity of prosperity between poverty and wellbeing, certainly we have encountered someone that has become a victim to it. With this in mind, my reaction is there are countless victims of poverty; surely one does not have to go very far to find them as we understand them to be the working class. There are those that may express the thought of

Author Harrell R. Rodgers, Jr. uses his article, “Why Are People Poor in America?,” to discuss the cultural/behavioral and structural/economic theories of why poverty exists as a social problem. First, Rodgers reviews the conservative theories, also known as the cultural/behavioral theories, of poverty. These views mostly consist of blaming the existence of poverty on the culture of laziness that has been growing in the poor population due to the availability of welfare. Many of the conservative authors that are mentioned in this article agree that welfare automatically makes the poor think that they are not personally capable of getting back on their feet by themselves; therefore, the poor

What do you think of when you hear “working-class?” One perhaps might think of a

So many people in the American society live paycheck to paycheck and are one financial catastrophe away from financial ruin. In my own experience, after my husband’s employer continually embezzled from employees and clients, we found ourselves in a terrifying position. Jobless, penniless, and entrenched in mountains of subsequent debt, we were acquainted with the terror many American’s face while struggling to keep food on the table and a roof over our family. Just as the chapter 9 in our textbook describes, Aaron and his wife quickly realized that their income was “no longer sufficient to meet their needs,” (Openstax Intro to Sociology, 2015), we found ourselves in the same position. During my husband’s search for a new job, he began doing all he could to keep food on the table. He participated in tree removal, a laughable wage for hard physical labor. In desperation, I took a full time babysitting job looking after two very difficult little girls for a measly $250 a week. Looking back, although the situation was terrible and trying, we cannot wish it away. The situation taught us what mattered. There were so many things my family took for granted. The situation opened our eyes to the trials and suffering of many people in our society and allowed us to develop compassion, love, and understanding. Now, as we think back to our own struggles, it is much easier to reach out

This study examines the "Debt Poor" defined by Pressman and Scott (2009) as individuals and families who have more consumer debts than those categorized as poor, but also do not qualify for government subsidies, such as Medicaid. The scholars argued that interest payments on consumer debt should be subtracted from household income to measure poverty, yet an estimated additional 4 million Americans from 2007, likely middle class once having access to considerable consumer credit following a loss of income put their living standard below the poverty threshold. In contrast, extensive evidence determines that the debt poor are slightly similar to the poor (they are unlikely to own a home or hold private health insurance), somewhat like middle-class

Many people have the mentality that the impoverished need to "pull themselves up by the bootstraps" and rise out of poverty, but in reality, that is near impossible for the poverty-stricken. "Those born into poverty are less likely to accumulate the necessary wealth to rise out of poverty; they have no inheritance to pass on to their descendants, who have thus been born into poverty, completing the vicious cycle." (Payne, 2011). This causes a fervor

In class, we’ve talked a great deal about all of the aspects that underline the concept of poverty. From reading about it in our book, researching online, and grabbing a personal text, I was highly intrigued with the components that make up “the working poor,” it’s actual definition, and so much more.

The logic of poor peoples purchases as they attempt to meet a wealth image they cannot obtain is obscene. It is impossible to provide for their families and live a rich lifestyle under little earnings. Stated by Isabel Sawhill, “None of this means that providing lower-income families with more money is necessarily a bad thing” (Sawhill). The political system works in a matter to benefit poor families with money they do not earn. Poor individuals complain about being poor while it is quite simple to overcome poverty and rely on a career. Pursuing a career and presenting a humble attitude can help with overcoming poverty and presenting a better reputation. Poor individuals need to visualize more than spending money on unnecessary items, work to flip their money without relying on the government, and be themselves not a false image.

Edin and Shaefer are professors of human science and open approach, separately, at Johns Hopkins and the University of Michigan. Together they have many years of experience contemplating the reasons for extraordinary destitution in America and the viability of different proposed and executed arrangements. Their paper named “$2.00 a Day” started with perceptions of, Kathryn Edin, who by 2010 had put in over twenty years peddling poor groups everywhere throughout the nation. Back in the field to think about the profoundly poor, she started to experience something notably unique in relation to anything she had seen some time recently: families with no unmistakable methods for money wage from any source. Some had SNAP (sustenance stamps), a little gathering had a lodging sponsorship, and most had a family unit part on government-subsidized medical coverage. In any case, as they state: "[W]hat was so strikingly not the same as 10 years and a half prior was that there was essentially no money coming into these homes. These families didn't simply have too

The notion that anyone can get out of poverty if they work “hard enough” has always been alien to me. This is not simply a result of me thinking of it as an impossibility. Rather, it is a result of contextualizing every situation I have encountered-- the stories I was told, the people that I observed-- where someone had brought themselves out of poverty. My father’s story comes to mind because without context, his story affirms the notion that I find so flawed. Shortly after his discharge from the military, he was unemployed, and on government assistance. He worked hard, and practiced fiscal responsibility. He didn’t drink. He lived as leanly as he could, and when the opportunity arose, he found a good-paying job and moved back to New York City. His situation strikes me as the exemplar of what an individual in poverty should do to get out of poverty. Still, I can’t help but think that him being an able-bodied, single, male made his move out of poverty exceptionally easy. I often think that if one “variable” was changed in his situation (number of dependents, ability, gender, citizen status), his movement out of poverty would have been drastically more difficult.

The struggles of the poor, working classes have been well documented in history. From the Jacob Riis’s photographs of impoverished New Yorkers to the writers of McClure’s Magazine who exposed the need for reform in the modern, industrial work environment, people have been exposing the struggles of the lowest classes for more than a century. The poor and their environment have been used together to bring attention such issues. Friedrich Engels’ Condition of the Working in England exposes not only the struggles faced by poor Londoners living in the slums but the juxtaposition of wealth and poverty across the city of London. Engels attempts to horrify and shame the audience into improving the conditions of the poor.