America Needs More Government Programs to Pull People Out of Poverty

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A frightened young girl sits in a doctor’s office ready to receive the news that will change her life forever. She has made foolish choices which will leave her with a child, no husband, and an uphill struggle against poverty. In high school, she dreamed of college, a career, and later a family. Now the order has been reversed as she takes on a new role — a single mom. This role will keep her from graduating from high school and leave her without an education. She will never have a well-paying career and she will face unending struggles to support her child.

It has often been believed that hard work will lead to financial success. The underprivileged look to figures such as Andrew Carnegie and an enticing story of rags to riches. Americans turn their eyes toward a dream of being a great entrepreneur and establishing a legacy of wealth. The typical citizen believes that with hard work, obstacles can be overcome with a life of luxury as the prize. Unexpected obstacles, such as pregnancy at a young age, are not calculated into this dream. In addition, society tells us that the poor are in a state of poverty because the lower class is not willing to do the hard work that is necessary to acquire any kind of high-esteemed position. This, however, is not the case.

A single mother, like the sixteen year-old girl, can work long hours and multiple jobs but still not make an adequate amount of money to support her child. Poverty exists in a cyclical fashion, as David Shipler shows:

A run-down apartment can exacerbate a child’s asthma, which leads to a call for an ambulance, which generates a medical bill that cannot be paid, which ruins a credit record, which hikes the interest rate on an auto loan, which forces the purchase of an unreliable used car, which jeopardizes a mother’s punctuality at work, which limits her promotions and earning capacity, which confines her to poor housing (11).

Something must be done to aid the girl so that she might provide for her new baby. However, segregation exists between the various income levels in America. The wealthy have little to no interaction with the financially unstable, yet according to Barbara Ehrenreich:

the affluent exert inordinate power over the lives of the less affluent, and especially over the lives of the poor, determining what public services will be available, if any, what minimum wage, what laws governing the treatment of labor (216).

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