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Nicole Fuls Section 302 3/15/2012 The Recent Recession and U.S. Poverty Through the eyes of Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed: On (not) Getting By in America offers an insight into the plight of the working poor. However, what Ehrenreich describes is deceitful in many aspects, yet at the same time her story holds a drop truth. While I do not doubt her report on the living and working conditions she and her coworkers were put under, I do however question her methods and purpose of doing the study. Ehrenreich, focusing on the current political proposal to reform government welfare that would require four million women to be booted into the labor market making only $6 or $7 an hour already decided that based on other data, there would be no way for these women to make it on their own without government assistance (pg. 3). Her predisposition on the issue makes for a biased account that seemingly supports the notion that her fellow coworkers have fallen into a poverty trap. I believe there are many other underlying factors that ought to be considered and it is impossible to say, based on the novel, whether or not Barbara and her coworkers are stuck in this endless circle of inevitable poverty. Ehrenreich does talk about some difficulties that her and her coworkers have, the main one being rent and housing. She mentions that it is extremely difficult to find affordable housing, especially if she is the sole person renting (pg. 25). Many of her coworkers at The Hearthside live with each other, or live with other friends, partners, and family. As if finding affordable housing isnt tough enough, many of the landlords require that they pay per week instead of each month (pg. 25). Low credit and financial reliability make the landlords worrisome and so to ensure their own financial security, which I suppose, is reasonable. Transportation also limited Ehrenreichs options in jobs since she could not afford to drive from one place to another and sometimes public transportation just

does not work either. Even with this information, there is still a lot more personal information, like home life, that could be useful information in understanding their poverty. With that being said, I still find it extremely difficult to decide whether or not the other people in Ehrenreichs novel are stuck in a poverty trap solely based on her observations and experience, I do think that poverty traps exist. Based on further investigation, I have concluded that poverty traps do occur, and that it is not only because there are no better jobs available, but because of the way the lower income people respond to situations and because of the institutional framework that limits aid to low income families. The recession in the United States has taken a large toll on low-income families, especially since jobs are becoming harder to find. Even when jobs are found, most of them pay minimum or close to minimum wage. The recession and increasing competitiveness in the job market are contributing to the poverty traps that many people find themselves in. For instance, only about 47% of working-age Americans have a full-time job and to make matters worse, in 2009 wages declined so that half of all American workers earned $505 or less each week, making them under the poverty line (The American Dream). Making $505 or less is not even enough to meet the average living costs for Americans. In 2000 the average living cost was about $30,000 for a family of 1 adult and 2 children and that number continues to rise each year (Ehrenreich, pg. 213). In 2000, to meet the living cost of about $30,000 a year, the adult must have had a full-time job that paid at least $14 per hour (Ehrenreich, pg. 213). However, the minimum wage was only about half of that. When there is no other wage earner in the household, how does a family make ends meet? Government assistance helps, but I will address this matter later on. The other factor that I mentioned lower-income people generally have a different psychological make-up that affects decision-making. Asher Schecter, a journalist for the Haaretz Daily Newspaper explains that researchers from Princeton University have been

studying the decision-making process of people of different economic backgrounds. From the study, low-income earners were less able to think rationally, mostly due to stress (Schecter).As professor Eldar Shafir from Princeton University said, The poor are so concerned about the present that they can't begin thinking about the future, and that's the big irony: People with the greatest need to think about the future don't have the leisure or emotional capacity to do so. The very essence of poverty complicates decisions and makes immediate needs so urgent that you start making wrong choices. These mistakes aren't any different from anyone else's, but they occur more frequently due to the element of stress, and their implications are much greater. Since the ability to think about the future is impaired, it is possible that this is a reason why low-income people might not look for better, higher paying jobs. Like Ehrenreich mentioned, changing jobs means a week and possibly more without a paycheck (pg. 116) and that definitely determines how, when and if someone will change jobs. Even though the change in job might be better in the long run, it might be more difficult for these people to see past the immediate issue that would arise. Relating this blocked view of the future to Ehrenreichs novel, it is possible that people working for The Maids were too afraid to try to switch jobs, even though the job caused such physical damage to themselves. The fear of going a week or more without a paycheck was to terribly daunting that perhaps, these people felt that it was unfeasible to even attempt to switch jobs. So if jobs are becoming more competitive and harder to find due to the economic recession, and psychologically low-income people may have difficulty making decisions for the future, what can the government do to help our nations poor? There are many programs in place, whether they are government funded like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or if they are programs like the Working Poor Families Project (WPFP) that are helping out through legislation and other aid. The government has been putting a

good amount of money towards programs like SNAP to help alleviate hunger for povertystricken citizens. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, in 2011 the average number of participants in SNAP was slightly less than 45 million and with each participant getting an average of $133 per month, the years expenses for just SNAP totaled to about $78 billion dollars, which includes the additional expenses needed to have the program operate (USDA: Food and Nutrition Service). Not only does SNAP provide food assistance, but there is also an incentive built into the program for getting a job. For every additional dollar a SNAP participant earns through part-time or full-time work, their SNAP benefits decline by only 24 or 36 cents, which in comparison to other programs, is far less (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities). Not only is there a strong incentive to work but some states even support and help participants through the SNAP Employment and Training Program. This program finds training and work activities for unemployed SNAP recipients so that they might have better chances finding a stable job (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities). I think that SNAP is a great program because it is more than simply handing out money for food, there are also incentives and services that help the individuals. Just the fact that having a job will help someone maintain more of their benefits, signifies that the individual is also responsible in getting themselves out of poverty and that they are not to rely on financial assistance from an organization. The Working Poor Families Project does less to directly aid people, but instead focus on infrastructural issues and working with the government as well as communities. WPFP believes that state policies and programs frequently overlook the needs of lowincome families and that greater awareness of how state policies and programs can benefit low-income working families is needed in many states especially in the areas of education and skills development for adults. Between 2003 and 2009, WPFP has partnered with numerous state-based nonprofit organizations and has been improving

postsecondary education and other skills to the adult working poor population. Previously, only a few nonprofit organization offered education assistance, but WPFP sees the value in establishing a program that will have impacts in the long term, rather than focusing on short term relief from poverty. Stemming from WPFP, there have been many initiatives started around the U.S that connects unemployed people with jobs, such as the Seattle Jobs Initiative and JobLINK Racine. It is clear that WPFPs efforts have been expanding and that their missions are going farther beyond policy. This organization is helping educate people on poverty, and the importance of not overlooking unemployment and poverty in the U.S. In the novel by Ehrenreich, there is no mention of such programs that help place people into jobs, nor is there any mention of a positive policy change that has helped people in poverty. Instead, Ehrenreich only mentions that welfare may be taken away from women forcing them into low-wage labor. This is an issue, indeed, but it is equally important to recognize what policy makers are doing to help reduce poverty in the U.S. Given all the information above, I believe that poverty traps do exist. Yes, there are assistance programs like SNAP and WPFP that are helping change but the amount of people in poverty is continuing to increase as well as the rate of unemployment. I would say that at this point in time, with the recession still going on, poverty traps are more likely to occur. Class mobility is nearly impossible and once someone is in poverty, odds are that they will remain in poverty. Keeping this in mind, it is doubtful that even with the government assistance people might be receiving and the low-wage jobs they do have, that the lower socioeconomic class will ever emerge from its deprivation. Certainly, living from paycheck to paycheck will not help someone get out of poverty and their daily decisions can also affect whether or not they will move forward. If psychologically, lower income people cannot think of the future, there is a huge notion that the proper decisions will not be made that in the long run, could help them pull themselves out of poverty. There are many more

underlying factors to poverty, and it is important to acknowledge that wages and jobs are not the only things that define whether one is poor or not.

Works Cited "Center on Budget and Policy Priorities." 2 February 2012. CBPP. 12 March 2012 <http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=2226>. Ehrenreich, Barbara. "Nickle and Dimed" On (not) Getting By in America." New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2001. 213. Schecter, Asher. Haaretz. February 2012. 14 March 2012 <http://www.haaretz.com/business/the-psychological-poverty-trap-1.414260>. The American Dream. n.d. <http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/no-jobs-no-hopeno-future-27-signs-that-americas-poverty-class-is-rapidly-becoming-larger-thanamericas-middle-class>. "USDA: Food and Nutrition Service." 2011. 14 March 2012 <http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/snapmain.htm>. WPFP. "Working Poor Families Project." n.d. 12 March 2012 <http://www.workingpoorfamilies.org/pdfs/WPFP_State_Policy_Acomplishments1 1-02-09.pdf>.