Economic inequality and injustice come in the same hand. Poor people are more likely to experience inequality and injustice. The negative assumptions of poor people are credited by the media and politicians. Promoting economic justice by offering people living in poverty some form of social support. Barbara Ehrenreich found that it was difficult to work in a low-wage job. Conley talks about the different types of social inequalities and how they have failed. People living in poverty choose to stay in poverty is a popular assumption of poor people. Another stereotype of why people are poor is that they are lazy. Every person in the United States has an equal opportunity to succeed and poor people choose not to. If a person is living in poverty, …show more content…
She sets out to explore the world that welfare mothers are entered. The point was not so much to become poor as to get a sense of the spectrum of low-wage work that existed-from waitressing to housekeeping. She feel mistreated when it was announced that there has been a report on “drug activity”, as a result, the new employees will be required to be tested, as will the current employees on a random basis. She explained feeling mistreated, “I haven 't been treated this way-lined up in the corridor, threatened with locker searches, peppered with carelessly aimed accusations-since junior high school” (Ehrenreich,286). The other problem is that this job shows no sign of being financially viable. Ehrenreich states that there is no secret economies that nourish the poor, “If you can 't put up the two months’ rent you need to secure an apartment, you end up paying through the nose for a room by the week” (286). On the first day of housekeeping, she is yelled and given nineteen rooms to clean. For four hours without a break she striped and remake the beds. At the end of the experience she explained that she couldn 't hold two jobs and couldn 't make enough money to live on with one as with single mothers. She has advantages compare to the long-term …show more content…
The first standard of equality is ontological equality which is the notion that everyone is created equal at birth. Ontological equality often justifies material inequality. In fact, this type of equality is sometimes used to put forth the notion that poverty is a virtue. A second standard of equality is equality of opportunity meaning that “everyone has an equal chance to achieve wealth, social prestige, and power because the rules of the game, so to speak, are the same for everyone”( Conley, 247). Therefore, any existing inequality is fair as long as everyone plays by the rules. The standard of equality is equality of condition, which is the idea that everyone should have an equal starting point. The last form of equality is equality of outcome which states, everyone should end up with the same outcome regardless of
...Even with the pitfalls in Ehrenreich's research, she managed to shine a light on the everyday plight of the low wage worker. She achieved employment at several different low wage service jobs and she also achieved friendliness with the coworkers there. Unfortunately, she could not achieve her goal of making enough money to pay the following month's rent at her accommodations, as she dictated to be her sign of success at the beginning of the project. Without this success, she can truly say that the plight of the low wage worker and the women leaving welfare is an extremely difficult one with great hardship and lack of fulfillment as these participants of the lower class work day to day to keep their chins up and make do with what, even if little, they have.
She knows she will never truly experience poverty because this is nothing more than a project but she leaves behind her old life and becomes known as a divorced homemaker reentering the workforce after many years. Her main goal is to get enough income to be able to pay for all her expenses and have enough money to pay next months rent.
Her next phase of her undercover work takes her to Portland Maine, where she begins to see just how poorly people are treated in the lower class. Working as a maid, she is looked down upon by others in society, and treated even worse by her boss, who completely extorts her fellow workers. Here she realizes that people are completely stuck in the job they are in, and have to work every day, just to make ends meet (Ehrenreich 119).
...her job opportunities. I am aware now that this along with many other issues are beyond their control. The poorer they are the more constrained their mobility is. Usually relying on someone else to pick you up and drop you off pretty much limits you to one place of employment. This book has changed my thinking in so many ways, mostly that the problems that limit their progression are out of their reach. The government needs to step in and provide for more assistance and aids to help the situation. Just based on the difficulty Ehrenreich had when trying to locate food shelter that would feed her disappointed me greatly. It is unbelievable that it is expected from a poor person, who has limited money and resources, to do that much work in order to find food or even shelter! Everyone should read this book in order to grasp the harsh realities of the working poor.
Throughout Ehrenreich 's journey, she becomes increasingly aware of the reality of her situation as a member of the working poor. She realizes that “the 'working poor, '... are in fact the major philanthropists of our society”(Ehrenreich 221). Despite having far less wealth than the average American, low income workers sacrifice their time and health to accept wages that are often fiscally unviable. The working poor must slave away at “jobs that… [are] physically demanding, some of them evan damaging (pg.195)” to benefit the financially adept, who give nothing in return. This process of giving and not receiving is exhibited when Ehrenreich attempts to find aid from welfare programs, but is disappointed when she can only qualify to receive less than a week 's worth of groceries. “There are no secret economies that nourish the poor”(Ehrenreich 27) and as a result individuals within this group are left on their own to support themselves and their families with mediocre wages. In addition to having little to no assistance when it comes to nourishment, the poor must also pay for additional costs that financially capable people do not have. An example of these additional costs can be seen when Ehrenreich must constantly pay for fast food because she has no source of refrigeration and also, when she must buy expensive medicine
Innocent: Confessions of a welfare mother is a memoir that defies the stigma that comes along with welfare and poverty. It outlines the trials and tribulations of a single Caucasian mother and her ability to maintain her family. Forced to make pivotal decisions and keep the best interest of her family in mind, she must take welfare handouts to get through her financial struggles. This memoir is a way to highlight the obstacles it takes to keep a stable household and get by at the worst times in a single mothers life. At a time of racism and despair, this single mother was able to find a place to call home and give her family a comfortable life.
Ensuring equality among the people promotes fairness and reduces conflict and jealousy. By treating everyone equally we maintain our respect and are able to work together better. The rule we create treats everyone the same and does not provide any special treatment to any specific person. As long as everyone does what is required of them they will obtain what is rightfully due to them.
Dr. Ehrenreich understands that she will never have a real experience with poverty, especially since this is nothing more than experiment for her. In addition to this she has a couple of important advantages over a lot of low income workers this being that she is a natural born English speaker and she owns a car as well. Her goal in this project is simply to see if she can live off that income and pay basic expenses as the lower class does on a daily basis. One of the well illustrated themes in this book is simply poverty in America. America has a lack of social programs for the lower class and can seem rather oblivious to this issue with its least privileged citizens. Poverty is not just a cause and effect of unemployment because nobody is safe from it those who are fully employed with a great check can still slip into deep poverty. This theme is demonstrated just by Dr. Ehrenreich even
She puts herself in the mindset of many women in her position by getting a job as a waitress, getting a small apartment, and working minimum wage to get by day to day. Ehrenreich’s states, her main goal is “to lift poor women out of poverty as well as raise their self-esteem.” (p. 224.) This is a powerful statement Ehrenreich makes because she is not doing this for the sake of experimenting she honestly wants to make a difference in American women lives. The story shows Ehrenreich’s experience as working as minimum waitress in Hearthside as well as describing her coworkers and their
Wealth inequality relates to race, gender, and access to health care as there are many wealth and income disparities among these groups of individuals. Justice, efficiency and liberty are the primary moral values when discussing economics and ethics. For example, a free-market system can be efficient because it creates maximizing profits, but can be immoral if it impedes on the liberties of individuals in a society. An economic system that produces an equal distribution of wealth, however, can be immoral as well, if it restricts liberties. Distributive justice, is a term used to describe how goods are apportioned among individuals. There are two fundamental types of distributive justice interpreted by philosophers; procedural justice and end-state distributive justice.
Throughout her chapter, Ehrenreich maintains a degrading tone on low income workers. She explains how "Work is what you do for others."
Over the past few decades, factors such as globalization, de-regulation, credentialism, and technological progress have brought momentous transformations to the economies of the world. Wealth imbalance between countries has contracted, while income inequality within countries has expanded. The demand for highly skilled workers has increased, and so have the salaries for the most successful individuals in society. Less educated people, however, have fared relatively worse. This is quickly attracting the attention of governments of many countries, including Canada.
Income inequality is when income is unevenly distributed in a country. This inequality has reached staggering heights across the world. Even in what we consider developed countries this disparity is only increasing. The causes for income equality can range anywhere from immigration to the policies and politics of a country. However, some critics of income inequality will argue that it will always be present and is necessary to stimulate growth. Nonetheless, the problem is not only that the gap between the poor and the rich is widening but that income inequality is causing devastating market and government failures.
Many people assume that those who live in poverty are just lazy and do not want to get a job. The people in poverty have this stereotype because they need help and do not manage very well to get by. The stereotype of being lazy these people have is very much not the case for all of them. As for many of us we are on the outside looking in and do not realize how hard it really is to live in poverty and deal with it. We need to realize that in our country we have a huge problem. People who live in poverty are hard workers and should be given an opportunity to contribute to society, one way to help them do so it with welfare which is something we need to reform.
Most people look down upon lower classes, failing to realize that inequality deprives those people of the equal rights to prosperity. This occurs not only in a few societies, but all around the world.