Working Poor Thesis

Working Poor

“When the poor or newly poor are asked to define poverty, however, they talk not only about what’s in the wallet but what’s in the mind or the heart” (Shipler 10). The United States of America is a place which has an enormous population filled with foreigners and immigrants. Many enter America to get a better job, a fresh start, and to live the American Dream. In the 21st century, the gap between the rich and the poor has greatly widened even though America’s economy is skyrocketing as the years go by. Poverty has been a major issue due to various occasions but people who are in the middle and high classes do not know the hardships these poor workers go through just so that they could have a chance to own valuables. Although America

“But their version of the American Dream is a nightmare: low-paying, dead-end jobs; the profound failure of government to improve upon decaying housing, health care, and education; the failure of families to break the patterns of child abuse and substance abuse” (The Working Poor). Suffering to live the American Dream, low-income workers face major complications in the society such as unemployment, low wages, healthcare, and lack of education. Unemployment is a major problem for the working poor in the sense that they only work two thirds of a year rather than the entire year. “The working poor are less likely to work full-time and year-round compared to other workers. Of those who do not work full-time, about half state that they are working part time because they cannot find full-time work. Thus the working poor face the problem of involuntarily working part time to a greater extent than other workers. Approximately 20% of the working poor are employed involuntarily part-time” (Kim). The partial reason why they do not work full-time is due to the occupations they hold. Even if the working poor were granted full-time employment, their position in society would still be in poverty because their wages are too low to fit themselves up in the society chain. As a result, the working poor also face an issue due to the jobs

I have a Ph.D. in biology, and I didn't get it by sitting at a desk and fiddling with numbers. In that line of business, you can think all you want, but sooner or later you have to get to the bench and plunge into the everyday chaos of nature, where surprises lurk in the most mundane measurements.

Maybe when I got into the project, I would discover some hidden economies in the world of the low-wage worker” (Ehrenreich 9).

This quote is a clear example of how a high wage worker, Barbara Ehrenreich, experienced the life of a low wage worker. In this novel, Nicked and Dimed, Ehrenreich moves to Key West and disguises herself as a low wage worker. As an undercover journalist, Ehrenreich writes from her perspective of a low- wage worker working many low paying jobs such as a waitress at a restaurant, as a maid, and a cashier at Walmart. From her experience, she faced many difficulties such as a social issues,

From her day of being a low wage worker, she describes that they are the major philanthropists in the society due to the amount of work they do for the society. As a result, the rich in fact can help resolve the solutionof poverty by highering