Low-Wage Workers Are Finding Poverty Harder To Escape Summary

Analytical Summary

In the article “Low-Wage Workers Are Finding Poverty Harder to Escape,” Greenhouse (2014) states that a huge number of families in the United States are low-wage workers. As a result of this low salary, they continue to live under poverty even though if they work for more hours. Some of them resort to charities to get financial help. Also, he mentions that nowadays low-wage workers are more educated and almost older than those in the past but they have less pay than before because of inflation and many factors. In addition, he says that increasing of low-wage jobs put a huge number of women in the U.S to head their poor families. So, the percentage of poor children in these families increased. Furthermore, Greenhouse (2014) illustrates an example of American cities which replaced their factories and companies by service places which led to losing many jobs especially for those low-wage workers. This happened in the last twenty five years. He explained some reasons why some of those educated people decided to work in such low-wage jobs and some of these reasons are humanistic. He adds even they work in these jobs, they are struggling to find better jobs with high salaries. The author concludes that those people hope to have better education and jobs to improve their difficult lives.

Erika McCurdy from Chattanooga, Tennessee. She is an example of a worker who has a job but still needs financial assistance. One winter she asked for help to pay her bills because she is not making enough money to meet the needs of her son and daughter. Her bad situation can last for weeks. She says that making low wages, such as 9 $ per hour, does not help her family to live. This is the reason why she asks for financial assistance (Greenhouse, 2014). The author states Ms. McCurdy as an example of low-wage parents who struggle to provide for their families by resorting to