Poverty is a worldwide social problem that effects billions of people and in the video clip People Like us: Social Class in America: Tammy’s Story we are able to get a deeper look into just one of the many heart wrenching cases. Tammy’s story is a documentation of the life of the Crabtree family in Waverly, Ohio, a family that lives in rural poverty. The Crabtree family consist of the mother Tammy and her four children in which only two are featured, Beau and Matt. Tammy is the only money-earning member of the family with a minimum wage job at Burger King. This amount of income leaves them below the poverty line in the United States, which classified them as an impoverished family. In the video clip the Crabtree family discusses various negative effects of being below the poverty line including not having enough money …show more content…
Within this one video clip several social problems are discussed and analyzed in a real world situation.
People Like us: Social Class in America: Tammy’s Story brings to life the social problem of poverty and the many effects of it. To begin, Tammy mentions that it is not her fault that she is poor, she grew up poor so of course she will always be poor. This represents the lack of social mobility that comes with poverty. People that are born into poverty are significantly more likely to live below the line
David K. Shipler in his essay At the Edge of Poverty talks about the forgotten America. He tries to make the readers feel how hard is to live at the edge of poverty in America. Shipler states “Poverty, then, does not lend itself to easy definition” (252). He lays emphasis on the fact that there is no single universal definition of poverty. In fact poverty is a widespread concept with different dimensions; every person, country or culture has its own definition for poverty and its own definition of a comfortable life.
The socioeconomic gradient that exists in civilizations with low levels of societal equity has increasingly been implicated as a major contributor to the health status of individual citizens. Thus, it is unsurprising that the neighborhood or place in which a person lives, works, and plays is also a significant social determinant of health. The consequences of one’s environment can range from diminished mental health and increased stress all the way to the development of chronic disease and early mortality. The documentary Rich Hill successfully encapsulates the problems associated with living in poverty by examining the lives of three families from an impoverished area of Missouri. The filmmakers delve into the intricate interpersonal, family,
Poverty in America is a very complex issue that can be looked at from many directions. There are a plethora of statistics and theories about poverty in America that can be confusing and at times contradicting. It is important to objectively view statistics to gain a better understanding of poverty and to wade through the stereotypes and the haze of cultural views that can misrepresent the situation.The official poverty line in America begins with a person making at or below $12,060. To calculate the poverty line for a family, an additional $4,180 is added to the base of $12,060 for each additional member(“Federal Poverty Level Guidelines”). According to the last U.S. census, over 45 million or 14.5% of Americans are at or below the poverty line(Worstall). At this level, the U.S. poverty level has not changed much from the 1970s when the government began a “War on Poverty.” However,
However, she never really experienced the actual life of living in poverty as the majority of people living in poverty experience. Barbara, an educated white women had just that on other people living in poverty, because of the color of her skin and education level that is more often than not restricted from people living in poverty. She was able and more qualified for jobs than other people living amongst the status she was playing. She also was able to more readily seek better benefits than people living in poverty. When she first start her journey in Florida she had a car, a car that in most cases people living in poverty do not have. She was also able to use the internet to find local jobs and available housing in the area that many people living in poverty are restricted from. Another great benefit she had was the luxury of affording a drug detox cleansing her of drugs deemed bad. Many people living in poverty do not have much extra cash laying around much less fifty dollars to afford a detox for prescription drugs. She also had the luxury to afford her prescription drugs, another option that many people living in poverty do not have. Another element that made Barbara’s experience not that genuine was the fact that she was not providing for anybody other than herself. Twenty-two percent of kids under the age of 18 are living below the poverty line (http://npc.umich.edu/poverty/#5) , Barbara did not have to provide for pets or kids which would of changed her experience altogether of living in poverty. Not to belittle Barbara’s experience, but many factors of what life is like living in poverty were not taken into consideration during her
Social stratification as defined by Brinkerhoff et al. is “an institutionalized pattern of inequality in which social statuses are ranked on the basis of their access to scarce resources” (Brinkerhoff et al. 152). By scarce resources, many people have to deal with poverty and having a lack of money to buy the things they need in their lives. Social class is defined as “a category of people who share roughly the same class, status, and power and who have a sense of identification with each other” (Brinkerhoff et al. 155). Your social class has to do with your socioeconomic status along with the power and connections you have. Social mobility on the other hand is “the process of changing one’s social class” (Brinkerhoff et al. 153).
Living in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, our culture has naturally valued prestige and luxuries. We admire fancy items and often judge other individuals by the clothes they wear, the car they drive, and the schools that they attend. The “American Dream” serves as a motivational factor for people; believing that hard work and dedication can bring “success” to ones’ life. Although this is partially true, it is difficult for individuals in the middle class and lower class.
People living in poverty can be thought of as a “them” who can be easily ignored and forgotten; when, in reality, poverty can affect anyone. When people are living in poverty, sometimes it is not their fault. Often, unfortunate events that are out of someone’s control can set them up for failure. For example, the poverty rate for disabled adults from the age of 18-64 is 28.5%, while disabled 18-64 year olds only make up 7.7% of America’s population (Proctor, Semega, and Kollar 16). Therefore, poverty disproportionately affects disabled adults. The stories of those living in poverty are incredibly diverse, as Sasha Abramsky points out in The American Way of Poverty:
Gans wrote an essay on the uses of poverty (Gans, 1971). He came to the conclusion that our society needs the poor to function. Gans gave thirteen different reasons as to why we need the poor, and what their functions are. The first is that we need poverty to make sure that the “dirty work” gets done. By dirty work, he means jobs that are dangerous, underpaid, menial, temporary, undignified, and physically dirty. Both the Neumann family and the Stanley family had to take up jobs that fit in with Gans’ first point. They took up jobs that barely gave them any money and they were physically dirty, such as basement waterproofing by Claude Stanley. The second function is that the poor subsidize economic activities to benefit the affluent by working at low wages. It apparently makes life for their employers easier because they have to pay them less. The two families in the documentary were paid very low wages. They knew exactly how it felt. The third function is that the poor create jobs for the rest of society to serve or protect those in poverty. Welfare, food stamps, and homeless shelters are examples of services that help to protect the poor. Without the poor, those jobs would not be necessary. Both families could have used help from those services to get them through their rough patch of poverty. The fourth function is that the poor prolong the economic usefulness of items like day old bread and old fruit and vegetable. They buy the stuff that others do not want to buy. Secondhand clothes and deteriorating building are also included. The Stanley family went to thrift shops to buy their clothes. They couldn’t afford to buy the clothes from regular stores. The fifth function is that the poor are a deviant subculture that help uphold the legitimacy of societal norms. Gans says that the rest of the society can use the poor to be punished for being lazy, promiscuous, and dishonest. They are most likely to be caught for it. Some
Let me explain where I am coming from,so you may understand my aim in writing this article. In order for people to understand or realize the issue at hand, I first wanted to explain the explain the problem. Because these happenings effect you the reader along with most people in our society. Then I would like to give you examples of the issue in ways you can relate to it. I wanted to put the issue on a real level for you, which I initially attempted in the opening paragraph. Following that I will attempt to illustrate why this subject is relevant to our society and important to you. This is a topic in which I feel very deeply about, so what I am writing is real, worth reading, and is for you. ...
(262). Dalton goes forth and argues no matter individuals are born into a gloomy social class; he or she can still can breack though and go up in class. Dalton’s idea could happen to anyone but, the possibility is very slim. It’s a hard reality a person in lower class doing proficient in school having the likely hood of attending a University and also a full ride. In reality, the group who has more resources has the greater opportunity than those with less assists.
shows an African-American family struggling to get out of the poverty line, which is stopping them
America and Haiti’s social system works by everyone belonging into a different category of class. Few people belong to the 1 percent, some in the middle and the rest live in poverty. Some people many argue that poverty doesn’t exist in United States because it is one of the richest countries, but poverty seems to be hidden. Meanwhile in Haiti, poverty is every visible because natural disasters and the people on top have caused it. In both countries, poverty turns into misogyny because people view women as object. Therefore, the system of social class in America is similar to other countries in their problems, although the main difference is that poverty in America can be invisible.
In The Working Poor: Invisible in America, David K. Shipler tells the story of a handful of people he has interviewed and followed through their struggles with poverty over the course of six years. David Shipler is an accomplished writer and consultant on social issues. His knowledge, experience, and extensive field work is authoritative and trustworthy. Shipler describes a vicious cycle of low paying jobs, health issues, abuse, addiction, and other factors that all combine to create a mountain of adversity that is virtually impossible to overcome. The American dream and promise of prosperity through hard work fails to deliver to the 35 million people in America who make up the working poor. Since there is neither one problem nor one solution to poverty, Shipler connects all of the issues together to show how they escalate each other. Poor children are abused, drugs and gangs run rampant in the poor neighborhoods, low wage dead end jobs, immigrants are exploited, high interest loans and credit cards entice people in times of crisis and unhealthy diets and lack of health care cause a multitude of problems. The only way that we can begin to see positive change is through a community approach joining the poverty stricken individuals, community, businesses, and government to band together to make a commitment to improve all areas that need help.
In his essay “Land of Opportunity” James W. Loewen details the ignorance that most American students have towards class structure. He bemoans the fact that most textbooks completely ignore the issue of class, and when it does it is usually only mentions middle class in order to make the point that America is a “middle class country. This is particularly grievous to Loewen because he believes, “Social class is probably the single most important variable in society. From womb to tomb, it correlates with almost all other social characteristics of people that we can measure.” Loewen simply believes that social class usually determine the paths that a person will take in life. (Loewen 203)
Throughout Society, many families have seen struggle and lived through poverty. The economy is not always thriving which takes a toll on people who suffer through unemployment or low wage jobs. The Frontline documentary, “Two American Families”, is the perfect example of struggle in the United States. It shows the lives of two struggling families and their efforts to survive. Two essays, “The Sociological Imagination” by C. Wright Mills, and “The Uses of Poverty: The Poor Pay All” by Herbert J. Hans, support the analysis of the video strongly. They express many ideas that relate to the world and struggle throughout society. Also, there are many sociological terms that depict the events that occurred in the documentary.