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Low-Wage Workers Are Finding Poverty Harder To Escape Summary

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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. …show more content…

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

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In the article, “On Turning Poverty into on American Crime” by Barbara Ehrenreich, Barbara explains many issues of the struggle of low-wage issue including poverty. She had many problems with the disagreement that was wrong. Barbara explains that she wanted four years ago to reduce poverty making sure people won’t become poor/or homeless as well for employment that minimum wage will surely increase and for criminals to be treated as equally as other citizens should, she also mentioned police will arrested or assume that their violent just by their appearance. She wanted many citizens to have better wage and working condition (para ). Poverty was a huge common outcome through her entire blog, everything added up to poverty, with a few other citizens’ stories.

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As an investigative approach to write an article on the lives of minimum wage workers for Harper’s magazine, journalist Barbara Ehrenreich conducted her research by assuming multiple low paid positions herself. Her essential goal for this study was to determine how low paid workers survive on their income. She began her adjustment to the working class lifestyle by establishing regulations for herself to eliminate any advantages she could have from her real life. In doing so, she abandoned all of the luxuries that her middle-class career afforded her, such as a comfortable living environment, fresh quality meals, and working independently. Immersing herself into this lifestyle allowed her to witness the arduous circumstances of low wage living

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As a reader reads Barbara Ehrenreich’s book Nickel and Dimed on (Not) Getting by in America, they get an insight on what it is like to live a low income life. Ehrenreich proposes the argument in the introduction that poverty is a serious matter and just because one has a job does not mean they are not considered poor. She wants to persuade us to realize that American is not the land of opportunity as promised and portrayed and there are regular people who are struggling to live a comfortable life. Throughout her book she mentions her experiences with living on minimum wage, the hiring process, and how she felt being put in that position. After reading Ehrenreich’s book I am thoroughly persuaded.

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Such protests that are started by many persevering individuals that are living off their week by week check and with no additional income left finished. The United States is encountering an exceedingly disputable subject that is, how does raising the minimum wage for low-salary laborers influence the economy's work, development and whereabouts?

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