The lack of education leads to further development of barriers such as a financial barrier and poor lifestyle that makes them unable to provide for themselves and their child. Most jobs that do not require a high school diploma only offer a minimum wage and do not offer adequate benefits to meet all medical needs. “key indicators of health, infant mortality rates and low-birth weight rates, were elevated when infants were born to mothers who were less educated” (Flores et al,1998). Considering that statement I believe that the biggest barrier affecting this vulnerable population’s health is education. Vulnerable mothers that do not finish getting their education become discouraged and loose the motivation and drive to tackle the oncoming challenges that life brings, creating for them another barrier on the micro level; it being a financial barrier.
Most young people are turning to their local colleges for this reason. For a young person with little to no working experience it is difficult for them to obtain Employment in a workforce that has little to no jobs available. Reason 2: Kids are in debt Evidence 1: Kids get out of college with debt from loans, they can’t find work and move home and can’t pay loan payments on their own. Evidence 2: They have low paying jobs and can’t afford their bills. With no job yet and a college degree in hand young people are forced to face the cold realities of a country in economic turmoil.
The lack of motivation caused by years of not having a job and watching your family suffer in poverty is a condition that not too many of us are familiar with. “Native American Poverty,” by Tom Rodgers justifies the allegations that a large percentage, about 25%, of the Native Americans live in poverty. “According to the US Census Bureau, these Americans earn a median annual income of $33,627. One in every four (25.3 percent) lives in poverty and nearly a third (29.9 percent) are without health insurance coverage.” The lack of money has become a huge component in the dismemberment of the culture that the Natives so lavishly submerged themselves into, and the picking up other undesirable traits such as drinking. The
Men struggled to maintain and find jobs to support his family, and women struggled to put food on the table and care for her children with the little or no money that the men brought home. Many schools were forced to close down because the lack of money to stay open, three million children between seven and seventeen had to leave school and almost 40% young people between the ages of 16 to 24 were not working nor in school. Many children
Schools are also affected by poverty. Struggling schools cannot afford new materials or a better environment for the school. High quality schools have more opportunities than the less fortunate schools with education. For the less fortunate school there are limits to what students could learn. People stuck in poverty sometimes have to do illegal things to just make it to the next month.
One example of this was the simple that no able bodied man was able to live in these projects along with their families. They were forced to struggle on their own to look for low-end jobs. This idea of the American family that consisted of a working father and a working mother clearly weren’t in affect here. It proved hurtful to the lifestyle of many African American families. As a women stated in the film, “The strong and tightly knit families I had grew up around had begun to shatter and it was one of the most tragic things I had seen”(Pruitt-Igoe).
Lower-income children are not always given the same opportunity to receive a high quality education. When impoverished children are subjected to an education where there is a 35 to 1 student-teacher ratio and limited amount of class materials and resources such as books, they are sent a message that no one values them or their education, causing many students to lose their passion for education. The impoverished are also viewed as individuals who cannot handle their finances and save for a rainy day. Many like to believe that the impoverished do not know the value of a dollar, and only splurge on frivolous things. The reality is that lower-income families barley makes enough to cover their bills.
Many of these women are not only forced to support themselves, but they are also now forced to be the sole caretakers of the children from the marriage. As divorce rates continue to rise, combined with today’s economy, many of these women are forced to take care of these children on their own as their ex-husbands are not able to, or do not want to pay child support. “The United States has one of the highest percentages of children living in poverty among, because the majority of them are living in mother-headed households” (DiNitto and McNeece). Although the children are both the mother’s and father’s responsibility, many times the mothers are left alone as the fathers figure out ways to avoid their financial responsibilities. As such, many of these formerly unskilled women are now forced to learn a trade and join the workforce.
Either they’re not poor enough, they’re not poor in the right way ‘ or they need the money for the wrong reasons. The reading in the book Keeping Woman and Children Last, showed time and time again the shocking stories of how people fall into poverty after living a middle class life for decades. Reasons pertaining to illness, death, unemployment, divorce and accidents left these people with nothing and the government would refuse to help them. These people are called the “New Poor”(Sidel, 1998, p.60). Their social security and pensions are not enough for them to live on so they must rely on these funds
They are forced to live in very crowded places for example some are forced to live in a place where ten people are living in at the same time giving them no privacy to do their necessities. They live in places with no boundaries to separate them from one room to another. The children are faced to live with the risk of catching a deadly infection and non deadly infections due to not having any health insurance. Most children in poverty haven’t seen a doctor in a very long time only when the doctors that volunteer to help children in poverty is when they get the chance to see one. If it wasn’t for that I don’t think they would ever see one in their lives.