Barbara Ehrenreich's Class Matters

The trend of deflation intensified. The reason that nobody warned America of deflation was due to false prosperity. The 1920’s were called “the Roaring Twenties”, while mainstream culture at this time supported that it was a time better than anytime before then there were many misconceptions with masses of people at this time (Facts). America was very dependent on production and 42% of people were impoverished. Poverty in 1920’s

I have selected this problem because many previous governments have ignored this problem and due to this ignorance this problem is getting worse day by day. I also have selected this issue base on a fact that 15.79% is the poverty rate of America which is the highest among all the developed countries. It means that poverty rate is highest in United States than all other developed countries. This problem has both social and economical concerns. This problem is also creating some other problems in American such as increase crime rate is also because of poverty.

They are the future that holds this country together and some of them can 't seem to make a living for themselves due to something out of their control, being born into poverty. An article by NCCP.org, information about child poverty states, “ Children are over represented among our nation 's poor; they represent 23 percent of the population but compromise 32 percent of all people in poverty.” Some people might say that a lot of children earn honest living and is just a way of life. This might seem true to others but, the poor keep growing in numbers as the “top ten percent” get richer. APA.org states, “Poverty is linked with negative conditions such as substandard housing, inadequate nutrition and food insecurity, inadequate child care, lack of access to healthcare, unsafe neighborhoods and under resourced schools.”

We live a much different time where the cost of living has increased and the job availability has decreased. “According to the Pew Study on the American Dream, social mobility is increasingly difficult, if not impossible; the study found those born at both the top and the bottom of the “income ladder” stay where they are from one generation to the next.” (Rooks) Meaning that if you are born into poverty it is more likely than not that you will stay there. This could help to reason why politicians have a hard time coming up with a good plan of action to help those in poverty.

America has long faced criticism due to some of its social issues with various groups of people. Consequently, the central thought that the article is trying to point out is that the United States has long had a problem with its lack of racial economic equality. One way the article conveys this message to the reader is that various studies show that black annual incomes are significantly lower than the average annual income, and that the gap between white income and black income is very large. Another way the article sends the message to the reader is when the article talks about how this conflict was derived and why this is happening in our society, and the reason why America doesn’t have racial economic equality is because of our history with racism and treating blacks as inferior to whites.

The successful reduction of federal budget deficit encouraged wall street which allowed the creation of 22 million jobs ( the highest number ever under a single administration) and reduced the unemployment rate from 7.3% on January 20, 1993 to 4.2 on January20,2001 (Appendix B), which explain the decrease of the poverty rate. He also maintained a GDP average growth rate of 3.8 which could be considered as a good result, comparing to the precedent presidents after the Second World War only 3 of them performed better than him. We can mention Truman (4.8), Kennedy (5.2) and Johnson (5.1). Plus, Federal spending decreased from 22.2 percent of GDP in 1992 to 18.4 percent in 2000. According to the Washington Post the inflation rate was stable during bill Clinton presidency.

The source of the difference is no secret. African Americans have been subject to a long history of social and economic oppression and disadvantage; they have experienced higher levels of poverty and lower levels of education than white Americans. After the Brown decision in 1954, the federal government and many states adopted policies to redress the past inequities, but those systems were insufficient to overcome generations of racism, which limited access to jobs and education. Despite significant progress in expanding educational access, education attainment, and economic opportunities for black citizens in the past half century, blacks continue to agonize. African Americans face many trials such as being disproportionately poor and attending racially isolated communities, where children are likely to be exposed to violence, gangs, and drug

On the income side, 84% of Americans have surpassed their parents when it came to the American Dream. Some things that happen to come with it is student debts, legal problem and health care complications. The American Dream is still alive but there are some disadvantages related to financial problems, legal problems, and healthcare complications. In my opinion, financial problems are the leading cause of the downfall of most Americans not achieving their dreams. The average income of a part-time working student is 9 to 10,000 dollars a year.(¨¨)

Welfare dependency was a social problem that start from 1997. After 1997, the CSSA cases are increasing in the few year. In 1998, Leung Kin Pong who is the social welfare department president at that time said “only lazy people would live on CSSA.” This quotations let the people who need to pay for tax and the people who get CSSA feel angry and have some conflict from in the society. Poverty, lower class and unemployment think can’t maintain their life so they need to get CSSA

In 2009 the estimated number of impoverished families was more than 45 million, which is about 14.5 percent of the total U.S. population (Gongloff 2014). Majority of the poor Americans are white, but the poverty rate is much higher among minorities. Poverty can affect a child in many different ways. It can affect the whole child, the development of the child’s brain; it can also affect the child’s performance at school. Poverty can not only hinder a child, but it can also cause stress within the family.

During the mid-1970 's the Red Scare began to slowly move past us and home life settled; there was a new problem dawning, economic inequality. During the 70 's the income gap widened as lower/middle-class American 's income growth slowed down, while the high-class continued to see marginal gain. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the top 1% of earners have experienced a 200% annual income increase from 1980—2010. During his January 28 'th 2014 State of the Union address, President Obama claimed "America does not stand still - and neither will I, so wherever and whenever I can take steps without legislation to expand opportunity for more American families, that 's what I 'm going to do." Despite the promises, hope, and trust that is created when a President addresses the people, it’s always brought to an end by the realization of perpetuating

Many times this pattern begins at an early age as a juvenile and progress up through adulthood, leading to the so call school to prison pipeline. A 2007 study by two civil rights organizations further demonstrated the government’s emphasis on incarceration over education. Researchers found “the U.S. spent almost $70 billion annually on incarceration, probation and parole.” This figure represented a 127% increase from 1987 to 2007, dramatically outpacing the funding for higher education during the same time period (Porter, 2015). In addition, Mothers who give birth to children in poor conditions have really set the child up to be disadvantaged from the very beginning.

The unemployment rate among our veterans is 6.9 percent compared to the national average of 7.3 percent according to Covert in the article, The Four Economic Challenges Veterans Face. This means that our veterans are clearly having a hard time getting employed after they retired. The military only gives veterans two years of unemployment after they release them back to the civilian life. President Barack Obama signed the "VOW to Hire Heroes Act" in into law in 2011 telling companies that they would receive tax credit if they were to hire a veteran who’s been unemployed for four weeks, and that he was also willing to give even a higher tax break to those companies if that would to hire a veteran who’s been unemployed for six months. As Compton mentioned, ‘This is just one of the initiatives the President has enacted in order to ensure that the country fulfills its obligation to our service members and their families (Compton, 2011).’

According to research taken in a U.S. Census, many people continue to live in poverty even though the state is recovering from the recession that occurred in 2007-2008. Poverty greatly affects any children that may be living in the poverty-stricken home in a positive and a negative way. Poverty can stunt a child’s long term outcomes,

America the land of opportunity where you can live the American dream, but as great as this sounds it is the American “dream” for a reason, because the harsh reality is poverty. In 2010 poverty and welfare was a National Debate topic, what many do not realize is poverty can take many forms, currently 37 million Americans are living in poverty, and this number has been increasing since 2000 (“National Debate Topic”). In America, there several types of poverty, in order to combat poverty the government instituted the welfare system was put in place by temporarily assisting individuals with the hopes of getting these individual back to supporting themselves. Due to there being several different types of poverty, the welfare system is not effective in combating all types because of the varying degrees of severity and longevity of each types of poverty, and the amount and types of programs that are in place are not the most effective for all types. Life does not always go the one would like it to road bumps and unexpected situations always come up, examples of these unexpected situations are unemployment, medical crisis, death, and other unexpected situations.