Essay Example on Poverty in America

The Low-Wage Workers are Finding Poverty Harder to Escape

Poverty is recognized as the lack of the socially or usual acceptable material possession or amount of money, mainly, in the United States. In the United States, the most common measure that has been used in the past to measure poverty is the threshold that has been put in place the government of United States. Referring to the two articles, with the first article being how "The Low-Wage Workers are Finding Poverty Harder to Escape" featured in The New York Times with the author being recognized as Steven Greenhouse on March 16, 2014.With the second article being the "MSNBC news the Rust Belt and Poverty" written by Trymaine Lee focusing on the poverty level that was fueled by great depression. The two articles expressed the high degree of poverty in America which was resulted by different phenomena like the falling labor prices, industries quitting the American market, poor living standards and lack of jobs. In the essays, all the variables have been incorporated to achieve the aim successfully.

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Critically the two great articles share different stories on the result of poverty in American through the fall of the labor market. The article, "The Rust Belt" providing historical background on how events and the decline of the mighty cities have been taking place and how the auto giant company that existed in an area brought the region to its knee through low wages. And finally led to unemployment, the GM industry that employed up to 200,000 resident in Flint only managed 5,000 (Our Green Policy). On the other hand, the article low-wage workers are finding poverty harder to escape also share the theme of poverty. Showing some of the serious challenges that low pay and salaries are associated with, providing much emphasis on the nurse's aide which is not enough when it comes to keeping their family above the poverty line. Through unemployment and small payment in both the two articles, minimum wage as a theme that causes suffering is broadly experienced.

Great Depression

Through the first article that demonstrates how the low wage workers are finding poverty harder to escape. In this case, low wage creates a significant drift in the type of relationships the family is having; we realize that some of the family members sacrificed a lot of things and nothing is left to the providers to offer to the family. A good example is expressed by thirty-four years Nick Mason who earns as low as $ 9 an hour as an assistant manager(Greenhouse). Basically, through the little pay, he is unable to cater for his children needs adequately; another family through the minimum wage finds it difficult with McCurdy is thrown to the wall finding her to a financially stretched level where she cannot take care of his son and daughters needs in pursuing a career. In the second article, The Rust Belt, low pay which finally leads to great depression "forced individuals to every day between 11 am and noon to head to Lincoln Park Methodist united church for some soup".

Ideally, it is all realized that Great Depression and recession brought poor living standards in America during the time of the articles. Where we find out that in the article Low- Wage Workers Are Finding Poverty to Escape, during this period those who are making $9 or even less than that hourly were teenagers. With most companies getting shut down and thousand of manufacturing jobs disappearing, with Ms. McCurdy having to make serious sacrifices after getting laid off from work and ended up falling in a minimum pay $9 (Greenhouse). In the second article, the great depression is expressed as the leading cause of poverty where close to eleven factories in the United States closed and open in Mexico, where they paid workers up to seventy cents an hour (Our Green Policy).

In conclusion, economic poverty that is resulted due to inflation, depression, and recession is one of the dangerous and tend to leave the population of a country to lack job and experience minimum pay which causes hunger and even death when not controlled.

Work cited

Greenhouse, Steven. Low-Wage Workers Are Finding Poverty Harder to Escape. The New York Times 16 Mar. 2014. NYTimes.com. Web. 4 Apr. 2017.

Geography of Poverty Northeast | Msnbc.t N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Apr. 2017.