2 Dollars a Day: Poverty in America Paper Example

$2 a Day

The twenty-first century is characterized by inequality, social and economic stratifications, poverty, ethnic disparities, and even the climate change while at it, but often, a mention of the over-glorified American dream often soothes the hearts of many and calms the panic. However, whatever lies in the homes of many Americans is no depiction of the goals attached to the American dream, nor is it believable to a few individuals who have their economic lives in the place. The American government stands out with its numerous financial aids to its poor populations, or at least it did during the times when its provisions could get to the intended groups of individuals. The ever-increasing demography, coupled up with the great recession, and high unemployment rates as a result of insufficient job opportunities have seen the poverty rates scale up to heights unanticipated for by the citizens and other concerned authorities. $2 a day might seem a metaphorical exaggeration of the poverty facing a significant number of Americans, but it is in the real sense as precise as it appears. Having brought down the poverty line from about $16.50 a day to half the amount, the $2 figure seems unbelievable at best, and inexistent at the extreme ends. However, this is the scope of the economic status of one in twenty-five Americans barely surviving through the food stamps, alias Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). To undoubtedly bring out the situations surrounding these extreme levels of poverty, Kathryn J. Edin of Johns Hopkins University and H. Luke Shaefer of the University of Michigan took it to the living rooms, dining rooms and lifestyles of these individuals to bring out their agony, desperation, depravity, and hopelessness as they struggle to survive a cashless livelihood. Through an analytic qualitative and quantitative scrutiny of the circumstances, the duo manipulates any form of evidence; first hand, recorded and experienced to paint out a completely different America from the typical successful one as depicted otherwise.

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Research Methodology

The commencement of the book reveals a narratively motivated presentation of a literary source, with vividly described settings, environments, and plots, but deep within the words lies the misery of individuals existing in a world of hopelessness, economic depravity and constant lack of necessary provisions. However, deep within these lightly put situations lies a mass of evidence, written and observable, that shouts out the levels of poverty-unimaginable levels of economic disabilities- that Americans; the blacks, Hispanics and a surprisingly high number of whites, face underneath the financial successes boasted of by the American fraternity. For both the qualitative and quantitative analyses, the authors utilized experimentation, surveys, participant observations and secondary sources to collect, analyze, and interpret their data. To prove that indeed many American citizens survived with less than two dollars a day per person, the author Shaefer conducted experimentation through the calculation on the various financial aids, provision and earnings, and literary any cash that found a way into these homes, and calculated the income per person. Although with "staggering" results, the experimentation revealed a 1.5 million population of Americans with 3 million children living within the margins of two-dollars a day (Edin and Shaefer xii). The research took a variety of forms, from the ethnic analysis of poverty-stricken individuals to the levels of education, the types of neighborhoods and the familial stands, as incomplete families as opposed to single-parented ones. Of these groups, race and family type didn't factor in as a determinant for poor economic status, as the results revealed as much as single-parent families were vulnerable to poverty, more than a third of this population was occupied by families headed by married couples (Edin and Shaefer xi). Most of the blacks and Hispanics fell within the two-dollars per person per day lot, but surprisingly, about half of the affected individuals were whites.

The authors, or rather researches also actively participated in the daily activities of the interest groups, to observe their routine activities, monitor their financial incomes and expenditure and witness their economic activities as well. This included taking meals and, queuing in government assistance programs offices with them among many other instances that could enable the researches to gain a deep insight into what exactly goes on in their lives, economically. Conducting the research in a way that represented the true American landscape could have been time-consuming and may be practically impossible. However, through a critically sampled population, the authors were able to extract a representative population that both reflected on the deprived populations as well as those experience economic rejuvenation. The terms for these stratifications were the "typical" American city and the city of "old poverty." This narrowed down the study to Chicago's Cleveland and Johnson City, Tennessee. The written secondary sources also played a great resource in the study. Literature works like William Wilsons, The Truly Disadvantaged, and Michael Harrington's The Other America: Poverty in the United States newspapers like the New York Times, and other documented statistics from decades ago, aided in drawing a cross-section of the issue.

The American Reality

From the various interviews, observation, and surveys, the research brought to surface a fact that is deeply hidden within minority isolated groups of the American country. The study revealed a one in twenty-five rate of Americans leaving with $2- a day per person, extrapolating to 1.5 million individuals with 3 million children surviving these circumstances. The poverty is no longer an issue when looking at this numbers of individuals living through the little government aids amidst joblessness. To these individuals, working their way out of poverty is not an option due to the limited employment opportunities, leaving them at the mercies of the equally limited governmental interventions. The temporary assistance for needy families (TANF) in 1994 could support 14.2 million people, but a decade or so later, it was down to 4.4 million people in 2012, and even lower to 3.8 million by 2014 (Edin and Shaefer 6). This is a scope of how much hopeless the situation is to these individuals. From the long queues to the department of human service to get access to these interventions, to the waiting periods, and finally rejection of the aid, resorting to the TANF is not only a hopeless venture but also a waste of time.

Many of these individuals start as well-grounded citizens from steady families, with stable jobs, and relationships. Then something happens along the way, and they become single parents, jobless, and even homeless. The SNAP interventions no doubt prove helpful to the needy individuals, but it cannot be utilized for other economics needs like the rent, making it a fixer upper but not a solution as such. Welfare had for long been set aside as an intervention for the widows raising children on their own, the workers who had lost their jobs without being at fault and to the poor, but sooner than not, many Americans were against this strategy since too much was spent on the poor yet it was not helping them out of their states (Edin and Shaefer 19). So dead was this initiative that to the seriously needy and deserving individuals, the likes of Modonna Harris and Susan Brown, it so no longer in existence.

Unemployment is pointed out as one factor that forces individuals into the two=-dollars a day economy. However, 70% of children in this category are from families or adults who held employment opportunities at one point in time (Edin and Shaefer 42). These are individuals who in one way or another, could not be able to keep their jobs, and therefore had to quit or were kicked off. Some, surviving through the homeless housing subsidies, can get themselves out of this situations gradually, but others are often on and off jobs, and can barely support their families financially. Jennifer, an asthmatic single mother of two, falls within this category, with her health condition coupled up with her overweight denies her a chance to work her way out of poverty. Others have faced too much rejection when it comes to looking for jobs, making them shy away from any more searching. The desperation they face within their states often intimidates them to take whatever comes their way, making them land on tough jobs with minimum pay.

The Way Out

To get out of the misery that life has imposed on them, many of the needy individuals opt to crime, drugs, scrap metals, among other means of making their situations a bit better. However, some ways are more effective and gradually elevates them from their impoverished states. Living in such pessimistic conditions, optimism remains the only way to go about the frustrations and demoralization (Edin and Shaefer 115). When finding more proves a tricky business, the individuals opt to learn how to make do with less. Falling into the poorest of the poor category is signal enough that life is no longer what it seems. Adjustments must be made, from the lifestyle, utilization of resources and allocation of funds. It calls for the affected individuals to get creative and maximize on the little they can gather for a day's work.

Missing out on an employment opportunity does not cut off the productive side of an individual. Therefore, living a two-dollar-a-day life as a result of unemployment does not necessarily mean that the working days of the individual are over. Working around the neighborhood for a few dimes, and around the home helps one transition through the frustration and find yet another way of getting the most out of themselves (Edin and Shaefer 124). Paul Heckerwelder, after losing on his pizza business, and experiencing a tremendous fall in economic well-being, kept on working and improvising on his family's needs. Apart from the victim's point of view, the government's strategies must be made more effective when it comes to interventions towards poverty. The welfare clause has proved a waste of resources with no significant transformation on the economic status of the poor. This, therefore, calls for a replacement, and not merely a reformation of the welfare (Edin and Shaefer 157). Within this replacement will be the prioritization of employment opportunities for the poor through the government-subsidized program towards the private sectors, funding them to create employment for the unemployed. This strategy came under the umbrella of TANF emergency funds; a program that saw 260,000 unemployed individuals in work through a $1.3 billion investment (Edin and Shaefer 159). Creating new jobs would significantly cut down on the poorest of the poor populations, but this should not make the already existing employments unattended to. The quality of employment must be elevated, to enable people like Modonna, Jennifer among others get the value of their hard work reflecting in their lives.

Conclusion

For quite a long time, the government and other concerned groups have over-emphasized on the need to eradicate the populations living below the poverty mark yet beneath this population is a stratification of individuals who can barely survive a day. These are the people earning two dollars or less a day, with no employment opportunities, no housing or medical accesses, and can hardly maintain a job due to various reasons. Although disguised within the 'below the poverty line' lot, these group of people requires much more interventions and assistance to elevate their standards, find a way to be independent and economically stable. The government plays a more significant role when...