The term “working poor” should be an oxymoron. If you work full time, you should not be poor, right? Unfortunately, more than 30 million Americans — one in four workers — are stuck in jobs that do not pay the basics for a decent life. Read that again. One in four – g-d damn! Then again, when the minimum wage hasn’t moved above $5.15 an hour since 1997, what do you expect..
A new POV special on PBS titled “Waging a Living” chronicles the day-to-day battles of four low-wage earners fighting to lift their families out of poverty. Its on PBS tonight at 10 PM. If you missed it, or can’t TiFaux it in time, I’m sure like other great PBS programming you’ll be able to watch it online. When I hear a hard working mother say, “I was brought up to believe in the “American Dream” that if you work hard you’ll be successful. I’ve worked hard my whole life and I’m still stuck. There’s no “American Dream” anymore.” I just want to cry.
2 thoughts on “30 Millions Americans Can Be Considered "Working Poor"”
My big take away from the episode is that for the most part, those that are poor do not want to be poor. They are working hard but are undereducated and stuck in a rut that they cannot escape from – not enough time/money to get the education they need to climb out of their current situation. Making $12 an hour for the rest of your life is not an enviable position to be in but for many with a low level of education, that is the reality. As a parent, I am going to stress the income level disparities between educational levels and that it doesn’t even matter what the degree is, just go to and graduate from college.
Read Barbara Ehrenreich. “Nickel and Dimed” deals with this topic directly, while her latest “Bait and Switch” is kind of the white collar version. I have read the former; Gary just read the latter and said it’s quite good as well.
-phyl