In a New York Times article, “Too Poor to Make the News,” author Barbara Ehrenreich focuses on the impact the recession has caused to the lives of the working poor. She begins her article by describing how the newly group, known as Nouveau poor, have to give up valuables where as the working poor have to give up housing, food, and prescription medicines. Ehrenreich’s purpose is to inform her readers who are blessed enough not to suffer like the working poor. Barbara Ehrenreich’s article examines the impacts the recession has on the lives of the working poor, by demonstrating pathos, and makes readers aware of the sufferings the poor have to face. Barbara Ehrenreich examines the aspects that are impacting the working poor from the recession.
In Allen’s chart, he illustrates how only 2% of the American population makes over $10,000 a year. With the poverty level at $2000 a year, most of the American population fell close to or under this annual income (Doc 8). These low wages of annual income made people's’ lives a true struggle. Citizens would work for nearly 24 hours, all week long, just to get by with basic living standards. An example of living at or below the poverty level, is documented in Paul Blanshard’s “How to live on Forty-six Cents a Day” interview with a woman living in South Carolina with her family of 6.
“We haven’t had anything to eat, but popcorn for three days”, “Mom that ham’s full of maggots. Don’t be so picky, just slice off the maggoty parts”. This can be likened to poverty in
In both large cities and small towns working class people were destitute without funds to support their families. New York City reported an “estimated half million workers were left without means” (Sellers 137). In Virginia, farms and slaves were auctioned off to pay debts leaving a “sad spectacle of wasted and deserted field” (Feller 56). Feller’s noted the economic downturn took its toll on Americans as it “belied glib confidence in a better tomorrow” (56). There was an “outpouring of anger from the depression’s innocent victims” (Sellers 162).
The poverty line in 1929 was considered to be an annual income of at least $2000. Most people,at the beginning of 1929, were making that and living happily. But, according to Frederick Lewis Allen’s, The Big Change, the US distribution of income was so uneven that 60% of the population was living in poverty. (Doc. 9). With over half of the country living in poverty, businesses had to lower prices and that caused the businesses to lose money and lay off workers, leading to even more impoverished families.
Poor population is still in existence today, and we still retain some public assistance programs for the poor. While no strongly structured programs used back then still exist today, we have created newer and even better ones. (I.E. Food
The United States is the wealthiest nation in the World, but in the film Born with a Wooden Spoon it is illustrated that over 37 million people in the US live below the poverty line. Some of the contributing factors for those whom suffer from poverty are low education, lack of job skills, and one parent households. These factors can lead to a state of generational poverty or poverty lasting two generations or more. The conditions an individual is born into can transcend throughout their lives and being born into poverty can create an isolated mind set of poverty. What surprised me most about the film was the lack of the ability to break the cycle of multigenerational poverty.
This quote expresses how poverty leads to many side effects and due to the minor money, these people don’t have the privilege to get help from hospitals and mental health workers. To summarize, poverty leads to negative consequences and problems in the
Poverty damages how a person defines themselves and the lack of hope the person has left. “The impact of poverty can drive you to demoralize yourself.” This theme wants the reader to realize that
It was the 1970s in Jeannette’s childhood. President Lyndon B. Johnson had declared a “war on poverty” in the previous decade, and it seemed to be effective. The University of California, Davis reported that poverty is down to 11.1% in 1973; just 14 years earlier, the poverty rate was 22.4% (“Current Poverty Rate in the United States”). However, despite these advances in reducing poverty, part of the US population still lives in poverty. A case in point: the Walls.
“A quarter of American employees make about $10 per hour, which creates an income below the Federal poverty level. These are the people who provide basic services for us on a daily basis: cashiers, fast food workers, and nurse's aides.” In the 1920’s and today, there are many cases in which families don't have sufficient income to obtain a substantial lifestyle. Now taking this into perspective, during the 1920’s this led to the Great Depression, and this event foreshadowed what has occurred today? Those who are affected by the income inequality have taken a different path from American Dream.
Also, in the article it says, “People had less money to buy things, and companies stopped producing things. The stock market also took another plunge, and unemployment shot back up to 19 percent. ”(Newsela) This illustrate that people were poor because they have to go to work looking for money or working really hard, so they can get money which aren’t worth that was a dime and a nickel. Factories and companies began to stop making things too.
People in poverty are generally portrayed as worthless and this is because culture today illustrates a man’s worth from how materially successful they are. Hooks explains how this kind of representation of the poor can mentally and emotionally handicap and entire society of people in poverty. She goes into an example of how a
The cycle of poverty continues and it doesn’t seem that the problem is getting better. Perhaps, it’s just hard for us to understand what it’s like to be in poverty. We are surrounded by money. Instead of using money to accumulate more money, it should go to brining people out of poverty. There should be a distribution of wealth.
The author wants the reader to continously think about what poverty means to her, such as “Poverty is being tired” in paragraph 3, “Poverty is dirt” in paragraph 4, and “Poverty is looking into a black future.” in paragraph 10. This reminds the audience that not everyone suffers from poverty in the same way. For the author, poverty is having to take care of family when all the odds are against you, and this is what gives the reader a perfect understanding of it. As stated in the passage, “Listen to me.
