Low Wages: Parental Struggles and Inequality Risks - Essay Sample

Introduction

Political science is the study of governments, political processes, and public policies, political systems, and behavior (Connolly, W. (2017). One big issue that has been identified is the low wage jobs. First, Parents working under this condition are exposing their children under risk. Various inequalities have been outlined which emerge from such a condition of low wages. Poor education and low access to education are attributed to parents being paid low wages (Dodson, 2015). Parents with low earnings find it hard to provide for their children. Although the parents are paid, the cash is never enough to support every basic need that may arise. Secondly, parents with low income spend a lot of time in the work are and less at home. There is no ample time with the children, thus affecting the bonding between children and parents. Also, parents relationship is profoundly affected, especially where they need to have shifts in working areas (Presser, 2004). Third, parenting makes any advancement in the job to be more difficult. Low wage jobs have turned out to be a life long job because parents cannot afford to advance and get a better job with higher payments.

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Due to such conditions, children are affected by the state of their parents, who are low wage earners. For example, high drop out rates for children whose parents earn less is highly evident. According to the Alliance for Excellence 2010, 1.3 million students from low-income families and families of color fail to graduate from high school every year. Again,18% of children from low-income families do not access the labor market consistently (Office of Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation ASPE 2009). Spending many hours in the working area to try and have more wages paid has contributed negatively to the education of the targeted youths. These attributes have been attributed primarily to absent mothers. Mothers have intended to retain their low earning jobs and have time with their school-going children, rather than have promotions and land a big job and always be out of the home.

In the health sector, obesity has become a national calamity and especially among adolescents. Secondly, it has been attributed to the socioeconomic status and most coming from the low-income earners (Black & Macinko, 2008). Research shows that maternal employment equips mothers with knowledge on a balanced diet and other nutritional eating benefits, while increased maternal works reduce children's physical exercises (Anderson and Butcher, 2006). Children brought up by mothers' parents earning low income have been found to engage in early sexual activities and early pregnancies. Early sexual behaviors lead to early pregnancies because these children do not access contraceptives.

Due to the fact that there is no money nor time, children raised from low income earning families have to become adults, grow up, and help take care of the rest of the family. Due to such commitments, such children participate less or do not at all participate in extracurricular activities, they do not expand their social networks neither do they engage in individual interests, which help shape their personal development. There are various ways to deal with the above-discussed issue. First, a focus must be made on the policymakers and advocates who are interested in this issue. Youths lives and the parents' work are substantially related, and acknowledging this relationship should help establish many policies dealing in a positive way with this issue. Secondly, more emphasis should be put on improving the current policies which focus on improving the outcomes of children and youths. Third, it is necessary to provide a platform that will help air the demands of the low earning workers.

Another big issue being faced currently is the housing problem. For instance, in Massachusetts, the demand for housing is so high while the availability is so low. Due to this, the cost of housing has been so high since 2013. Almost all people from all income classes are affected by the high housing cost. Very few occupations, such as registered nurses and software engineers, can comfortably acquire a two-bedroom apartment. Due to the high cost of housing, many people tend to rent houses rather than own them. The stability of the low-income earners has significantly decreased as well as their ability to develop assets and have plans. Low-income earners are disadvantaged because the rental houses are dropping as their prices go high.

The production of affordable housing production was delayed, thus not keeping pace with growing housing needs. One significant contributing factor is the fact that the state has minimized its funding on the project. Secondly, the affordable housing programs such as Low-Income Housing Tax Credit cannot subsidize rents up to a special rate. Rental assistance is a tool that can be used to promote affordable housing but has stopped being financed by the government. The other option is incorporating public housing. The state of a recession on the national economy has significantly led to the high instances of homelessness. Again, the varying eligibility from a housing program could be a barrier to the families. Eligibility criteria vary in many applications that aim at helping families with low income. Availability of resources to help families with low income. Various organizations and departments have withdrawn their support in low-income families as they did in the earlier years. Such is the commonwealth.

Dealing with the housing challenges can be dealt with by incorporating long term housing subsidies and increasing incomes to the low earning workers. Family homelessness is brought about by reduced wages, stagnating wages, lack of affordable housing and equipment, and tools to acquire and maintain housing stability and economic stability. Various bodies, such as low-income families, service providers, federal governments, state governments, and property owners, need to cooperate and work together to solve the issues of housing. For example, systems change should be enacted, supporting homelessness prevention and economic stability. The stock in affordable houses should be increased to maintain the already existing homes providing subsidizes, whether publically or privately. Income for low-income workers should be increased to help them cope with the growing economic changes. Any housing stability and financial stability program should have a progress tracker, which will help in its monitoring.

Mass incarceration has been defined as the special way in which the U.S government has locked up many people both in state and federal prisons and jails. In America, mass incarceration is at its pick with statistics showing that 2.3 million people have been held in various prisons. Mass incarceration has significantly increased due to multiple factors such as immigration detentions, youth confinement, and civil commitment. Many people have been arrested and not convicted. For example, 462,000 people have been jailed in local jails with no convictions or sentences because they cannot afford to pay bail considering their low-income wages (Wagner & Sakala, 2014). Various claims on treasons why mass incarceration has grown in America have been associated with drug offenses and public safety needs that keeping dangerous out of town or the desire to make a profit by the private companies, thus increased mass incarceration.

There are various myths associated with mass incarceration. First, claims that private prisons have many people; thus, they are the most corrupt. The picture of corruption has been thrown to the private sector, which is wrong. Many people have been locked in public prisons. Both the private and public prisons are making profits out of the mass incarceration. Prisons have conceived the idea that prisoners are there to provide labor in various companies. Prisoners will work in multiple departments in there, thus doing away with them means acquiring services from outside paying more. Due to this, American prisons tend to have smoothing running, whereas the actual cost of running them is not exposed to the public. People who have been locked for violet and sexually related crimes are regarded as outcasts and thus not fit to go back to society. However, this group of people is less likely to participate in any wrongdoing after being released. To understand why many people are in prisons, and very few have been convicted, then the influence of somethings like drugs need to be checked.

Many people have been imprisoned for not having immigration documents. Such people are accused of getting into the state illegally or entering the state. This is not a serious case that should have an individual convicted for many years. For instance, local prisons and juveniles have children whose parents have been sentenced and retained in jail for immigration-related offenses. Especially in America, immigrants are perceived in a negative way. Gee, L. C., Gardener & Wiehe, 2016). Mostly, the undocumented immigrants have been seen to contribute negatively to the economy, and therefore all the state is trying all ways possible to do away with them. Some of the ways thought to solve the issue of undocumented immigrants is incorporating the immigration reform.

The politics of the state should focus on finding a solution to ease the mass incarceration. Getting in such an alternative needs focusing on the people impacted by criminal justice and who is getting no impact from it. For instance, poverty, race, and gender parity contribute highly to mass incarceration. Many people in the U.S jails are poor compared to the U.S residents, and racial disparities are highly experienced in those prisons. High bail is imposed on non-Americans meaning the U.S justice systems are punishing poverty and color. Bringing up reforms, the reforms should focus on reducing the mass incarceration without creating disparities.

According to Bentele and O'Brien, state governments in America have adopted various ways of restricting the minority from voting. States have multiple reasons why they want to limit the voting right, some of them being the support they feel they will receive from the many states that have experienced increased minority turnout. Such restrictions are the requirement of the voters to show required documents such as ID before they are allowed to vote. The new limits aim at changing the election outcomes because most minorities vote for Democrats. Various parties have used multiple strategies to respond to these restrictions. First, the parties have gone to court to object to the idea of restricting minorities from voting. This has been termed as discrimination for the minorities. The parties want the judges in the Justice Department to retain the pre-clearance rules to any state that has been found discriminating against minorities in this way. Secondly, parties have been at the forefront of fighting for equal opportunities for minorities in voting (Bentele, & O'Brien, 2013). They should be treated as ordinary Americans.

The relationship between the state and the local government has been wanting raising concerns and debates. The state government has raised concerns indicating that the national governments have taken responsibilities meant for the state government, as mentioned in the constitution. For example, the national government has taken control over educational matters, civil rights because the state government has been slow in responding to the issues (Magleby, Light & Nemacheck, 2013). The boundaries for the state government and the local government are not well stipulated.

Both the state national and the state governments face various challenges, as discussed below. First, financial distress is a big challenge which restricts the g...