The biggest question we face in our economy is who do we
blame for poverty in our country? Personally, it is not the fault of the poor
that they are poor. In RIP, the Middle
Class 1946-2013 Edward McClelland argues that people are poor due to ghee
lack of government interference. He uses an example of a couple from New York
and how they were successful up until economic failure, as the company they worked
for moved over seas. Both individuals spent their lives going to school in
order to obtain a degree to have a secure well-paying job. However, their
secondary education doesn’t amount to what they made back when there was
government influence in the economy. Meanwhile in From Nicked And Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich is an excerpt from a
maid discussing the job of she and her co-workers. Though they do not make
nearly enough money or receive the benefits they deserve, they still earn
enough to maintain their lifestyles. Both of these excerpts give great real
world examples instead of just a perception to look at. Sometimes being poor
isn’t necessarily not having a house or a car but it is making ends meet or
living pay check to paycheck just to maintain their lifestyles. Even those
whole make an ample amount of money can still in a sense be poor. Because of
our government’s lack of influence in our economy prices and living costs
continuing to go up which makes it harder to afford a stable life. As in the
example McClelland gave us it seems as if now a days even if you have a secondary
education with a degree you may not get a job in the field of study, and if you
do it may not even pay enough. Seems that being poor is just something that
happens, it’s not intended or forced to happen but life happens and without
government influence it’s hard for individuals to live with significant “leisure”
money.
In this world being poor is a scary thing. Its's a place that nobody would like to be put in or have to live through at all, but sometimes life just happens. Just like Edward McClelland describes in his article, "RIP, the Middle class:1946-2013". McClellan explains how during the time in the 1970s high school graduates and even dropouts could get a job at an assembly line and still earn more money than a school teacher. But then around the 1980s all of that began to change with Americas first Great Recession and because of that a lot more people became poor. It wasn't because those people wanted to be poor or caused themselves to be poor, instead it was the governments lack of influence on the economy. Also being poor doesn't necessarily mean that you are living in poverty either; you could just be struggling at always being able to keep food, a house, and possibly even clothes with the amount of money you are making from your job. For instance, In "Nickel and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich she talks about a maid working with her coworkers. And how everyday they clean people's houses to perfection and in return don't receive enough pay for the amount of work they put into it. For many people this is the life they are living and its unfortunate, but that just shows us how much inequality is within the economy.
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