Compare and Contrast on Poverty in America Lars Eighner and Barbara Ehrenreich, both authors of autobiographies account their personal experiences with poverty in America nearly a decade apart. In America many people working minimum wage jobs have difficulty with making ends meet. In Eighner’s experience he chose not to have a job, resulting in living off stranger’s trash. Ehrenreich was doing an experiment to see what life would be like to work a low paying job. While Eighner and Ehrenreich are both well educated, their experiences with poverty, finding food and where they live are vastly different.
The neighborhoods where blacks and Hispanics live are made up of families where both parents usually work at lower wages to make ends meet. The children who live in these neighborhoods do not have the same advantages as those students who live in the more expensive suburbs. They are forced to attend the neighborhood public schools. Their parents would never be able to afford private schools or live in the suburbs. In Jonathan Kozol’s essay, Still Separate, Still Unequal, he writes “One of the most disheartening experiences for those who grew up in the years when Martin Luther King Jr. and Thurgood Marshall were alive is to visit public schools today that bear their names or names of other honored leaders of the integration struggles that produced the temporary progress that took place in the three decades after Brown v the Board of Education and to find out how many of these schools are bastions of contemporary segregation” (Kozol 240).
Many lower class citizens are at or below the poverty line and are have and unavoidable disadvantages and poorer chances to discover life’s possibilities. Regardless of the potential and ambition that a lower class individual could possess, he or she will not be given opportunities to succeed like a higher class individual. People who are considered lower class do not have access to many of the resources like a wealthier societies do. Based on their economic situation, they automatically start behind the eight ball. Wealthier societies have exceptional educational services which include better teachers, utilities, and curriculum, whereas poorer societies just get by on the bare minimum.
Statistics shows that 87% of students living below the poverty line. Poverty is one of the leading reasons for homicide in America (Moore). Michael Moore wanted to find out more about the case of the death of Kayla Rolland. He found out that Dedrick Owens brought the gun from his uncle’s house while his mother was working hours away from her son. They were in poverty and she had no choice but to work.
Because “The Negro was born in depression”, they had always been poor no matter how blooming the economy was. Though things were worse for Terry’s family, Burke and Benton’s situation were better. They got more free food in the Great Depression, but white men would not allow themself to do like them. Clifford Burke said, “The American white man has been superior so long, he can’t figure out why he should come down”. This meant that America had been a wealthy country that made the people could not take the pressure from the Great Depression.
Jurgis struggled to make the kind of money he needed to maintain his family. “And, for this, at the end of the week, he will carry home three dollars to his family, being his pay at the rate of five cents per hour-just about his proper share of the million and three quarters of children who are now engaged in earning their living in the United States.” (Pg. 6) The kind of money these people made was absolutely ridiculous, such low wages should not be acceptable for the kind of work they due daily. “They were beaten; they had lost the game, they were swept aside. It was not less tragic because it was so sordid, because that it had to do with wages and grocery bills and rents.
No Child Left behind Act Craig Allen PUB-650 Professor Huberman September 29, 2011 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In this competitive global economy, there are concerns that children receiving an education in the United States are performing below the national average. This dilemma is well recognized around the country therefore the Federal Government instituted an act that will potentially narrow this educational gap. Studies have pin pointed the origin of the academic failures and attributed the children’s poor performance to their social and /economic background, their parents education level, the lack of access to high-quality preschool instruction, school funding,
The contigent chooser Accodring to Reay the contigent chooser 'is typically a first generation applicant to higher education whose parents were educatied outside of the UK'(Reay,2005,113).Their parents are working class families and have low incomes.THe students expect little support from their parents.Because they came from working class family,finance becomes the main concern and constraint.The choice for Higher education becomes distant or unreal.The students and family have fewer direct links to higher education experiences and in many cases none.Visits to institutions or attendances to open days are rare.Leacing London or leaving home is rarely an option for these students,although some would be keen to do si if circumstances
Because of the malnourishment and poverty they lived in, Richard was not able to have a happy, bright, normal life as that of a child born during the 21st century. Not only did Richard not have a normal life, his life revolved around getting a job to help maintain his family at a very young age. When Richard was less than five years old, his father left him and his brother in his sick mother’s care. Although Richard’s mother looked after them, she needed her husband’s help financially. “You ought to be ashamed…Giving your son a nickel when he is hungry.
Social classes in America are often very overlooked in the eyes of many Americans and people throughout the world. Contrary to what many people believe, the wealth of a child’s parents has much to do with how successful that child is later in life. Wealth in America has a great deal of say in determining a child's future; for example, a child from a wealthy family is able to afford high quality pre-school before mandatory schooling begins. On the other end, a child coming from a poor family, that is not able to afford this extra schooling, will already be at a disadvantage when compared to that of a wealthy family. In an article by the New York Times titled, “A Great Nation If You’re Born Rich” author Miles Clark talks as if he were to come from poor parents in America and says: “If my parents lived in the U.S I would have a 1 in 5 chance of being stuck in the bottom 10% of the earnings distribution”(Clark).