Working Poor Research Paper

1565 Words7 Pages
Poor and Working In today society and before, we see poverty as a huge social issue and view the working poor as the main target. The working poor constitute is the fastest growing population in poverty in the United States (Rocha, 1997). It is viewed as individuals who work full-time but still seem to fall short or below the federal poverty threshold based on rather their wages are less than 70% of the median income or falls below the 10th percentile range of all workers. This issue is examined in many ways. First and foremost the poverty line is below the realistic standards of adequately living, it does not consider the fact that income tax and Social Security taxes are both taking out of everyone’s pay. And because of that relatively…show more content…
The working poor have programs such as food stamps, housing, and child care subsidies that extend their services to them and attempt to provide a safety net. However, Earned Income Tax Credit is the only program specifically designed to benefit poor workers (Rocha, 1997). This program is paid through the federal government to low income working families with children, in a form of a tax subsidy design to attempt to bring these families out of poverty. The program has produce substantial increases in employment and reductions in welfare receipt among single parents, and also have had a lot to do with the large decreases in poverty (Greenstein,…show more content…
Saying that, “failure to address these issues not only hurts these workers’ families, it erodes the functioning of America’s communities, its economy and our very notions of what democracy can achieve (Fairness Initiative).” Also, although food stamps are supposed to be there to help working poor families, it still in the end leads to further erode in their economic well-being. So in dealing with all these issues, many working poor families are left stressed. The fact of these families living in poverty is enough, but also the fact that children have to endure these conditions in poverty is unbearable. “. . .[T]he appropriate emotion is shame--shame at our own dependence, in this case, on the underpaid labor of others. When someone works for less pay than she can live on--when, for example, she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently--then she has made a great sacrifice for you, she has made you a gift of some part of her abilities, her health, and her life. The 'working poor,' as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure deprivation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be
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