Stephen T. Evans (2015) wrote a scholarly article “An evaluation of the unemployment rates of the United States”, which he essentially criticized the government about the unemployment rates and their ignorance to the middle class. In Evans (2015) article, he began by stating the current unemployment rate which was 6.1% in 2014. Evans (2015) wrote, “This rate peaked at 10% in October 2010 and has steadily declined to 6.1% as disclosed on July 3, 2014”(p.157). Then he described how the unemployment rate doesn’t measure discouraged workers, marginally attached, and workers seeking part-time. Evans (2015) stated that 288,000 part-time jobs were added, one the other side 523,000 full-time jobs were lost. He also added a fact that 2.4 million Americans …show more content…
159). Evans(2015) stated the non-governmental unemployment, “When this unemployment number of 23.1% is considered, it is no wonder that those in positions of authority hesitate to use it”(pg. 160). He continued if they add the number of people who does not want a job, this number would increase from 23.1% to 37.2%. Evans (2015) then wrote about “The problem with labor force participation” (pg. 161). Evans (2015) emphasized that the unemployment rate only decreased because people are withdrawing from the labor force but not because jobs increased. He stated that the unemployment rate decreased by about 4% and that the participation rate also has decreased by about 4 percent from 67.3% to 62.8% which is a prove that people are withdrawing from the labor …show more content…
Evans (2015) wrote, “And while the number of people receiving food stamps has nearly doubled, the amount of assistance received by each person has also increased significantly from about $95 per person in 2007 to $133.07 in 2013”(pg. 162). Evans (2015) described how some people depends on food stamps and stopped searching for a job, which harms the country’s economy. He also discussed the issue of part-time jobs, and how it is increasing, and on the other side, full-time jobs are decreasing. Evans (2015) wrote, “ full-time workers dropping by 523,000 during the month of June while part-time workers increased by 799,000” (pg.165). Evans (2015) concluded that the government has to do something to help the middle class from getting poorer and moving to
A key to victory this November is the unemployment rate. According to a Bloomberg National Poll conducted in March 8-11, 42% of Americans consider unemployment and jobs as “the most important issue facing the country right now” (Priorities). Although there has been 24 consecutive months of private sector employment growth, the Federal Reserve suggests that the numbers could fade in the coming months. The importance of creating more jobs cannot be stressed enough. No President in the recent era has been reelected with the unemployment rate above 7.2% (Roth). To paint a picture, in late 1982, the unemployment rate topped 10.8 under Ronald Reagan. However, about 36 months later, the rate dropped to 7.2% percent. The drastic drop in the n...
?Off Welfare, Better Off.? National Center for Policy Analysis. October 1,2002. http://www.ncpa.org/iss/wel/2002/pd100102a.html. (March 26, 2003).
In the summer of 1996, Congress finally passed and the President signed the "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996", transforming the nation's welfare system. The passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act sets the stage for ongoing reconstruction of welfare systems on a state-by-state basis. The combined programs will increase from nearly $100 billion this year to $130 billion per year in 6 years. Programs included are for food stamps, SSI, child nutrition, foster care, the bloss grant program for child- care, and the new block grant to take the place of AFDC. All of those programs will seek $700 billion over the next 6 years, from the taxpayers of America. This program in its reformed mode will cost $55 billion less than it was assumed to cost if there were no changes and the entitlements were left alone. The current welfare system has failed the very families it was intended to serve. If the present welfare system was working so well we would not be here today.
Sheffield, Rachel, and T. Elliot Gaiser. "Food Stamps Don't Stimulate Economic Growth." The Foundry Conservative Policy News from the Heritage Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.
Murray, Sara. “Numbers On Welfare See Sharp Increase.” The Wall Street Journal. 22 Jun. 2009. 20 May. 2012.
U-4 Total unemployed plus discouraged workers, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus discouraged workers
In the year 2015, around 40 million U.S. citizens were food insecure (Randall para. 3). Food insecurity can be defined in paragraph 3 by “[having] difficulty at some time during the year providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources. This 12.7% of American citizens also contains another group - children. Aged 10-17, 6.8 million adolescents struggle with a food insecurity. There have been several years of cuts to the social programs designed to help these people, along with the Great Recession continuing to leave an impact on the U.S. economy (para. 6). Under the Obama administration, $8.6 billion was cut from the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as Food Stamps. From 1993-2001 under the Clinton administration, former President Bill Clinton’s administration “gutted the welfare system” (para. 15). Because of these budget cuts, the families who rely on food assistance from the government have been allotted less throughout the years. From a sociological perspective, the concepts of sociological imagination, class stratification, and social location are in effect when it comes to child hunger in the United States. Being hungry is an issue larger than any one individual can control.
Food insecurity does not discriminate; it reaches many segments of society (Whitney, DeBruyne, Pinna, & Rolfes, 2007). Even through closely related to poverty, not all that have food insecurities are in poverty. Often it is the working poor that are hit the hardest. The working poor are a group that despite having a job, there income is too low to meet their need or that of their family. Most of the working poor (56%) live in families with children, so that the poverty of these workers affects many others as well (Problems Facing the Working Poor, Kim 1999). Many lower to middle class families will temporarily struggle with food insecurity at various times during the year. For these families government assistance may not immediately available. Appling for Supplemental Nutrition Assistanc...
Food insecurity is an issue faced by millions of Americans every day, and the biggest group affected by this is working families with children. Food insecurity is so big that the United States government has now recognized it and provided a definition for it. The United States government has defined food insecurity as “a household level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food” (USDA.gov). Food banks and anti-hunger advocates agree that some of the causes of food insecurity are stagnant wages, increase in housing costs, unemployment, and inflation of the cost of food. These factors have caused food banks to see a change in the groups of people needing assistance. Doug O’Brien, director of public policy and research at Chicago-based Second Harvest says “’we’ve seen a real shift in who we serve. A decade ago, it was almost always homeless, single men and chronic substance abusers. Now we have children and working families at soup kitchens’” (Koch). These families that are feeling the effects of food insecurity will not be only ones affected by it, but all of America. Studies have shown that there is a link between food security, performance in the classroom, and obesity. If this issue is not faced head on, America will have a generation of children not fully prepared for the workforce and high health insurance rates due to obesity health issues.
I have concluded that there are five major problems within our American government assistance system. One, the welfare system is too generous. There is evidence of this within the article because it states that government assistance spending has more than doubled since 2008. It also states that in poor countries people only have the choice to work or starve. They choose to work long hours and we choose to not work and receive benefits. There is definitely a problem with our assistance system if a single mother could receive more money in benefits than a secretary who works. Two, the welfare system becomes a crutch and acts as a government safety net. It creates idleness and comfort with people who rather receive a generous amount of benefits than work. Three, one-third of people claim disability are actually able to work. Four, states have significantly differen...
The most often cited cause of the decline of the middle class in the United States is stagnant wages. Between 1955 and 1970, real wages adjusted and inflation rose by an average of 2.5 percent per year. Between 1971 and 1994, the average growth of real wages was 0.3 percent a year. The stagnation of wages has been especially noticeable to middle-class people, who rely very much on the money they make at their jobs. Recessions seem to hit higher income households much harder, which sends them down to the middle class. Middle-income households may or may not be more likely than higher-income households to qualify for unemployment compensation when jobs are scarce. But those who do are more likely than high-income households to receive benefits that replace a greater share of their regular wages, which helps them maintai...
“Welfare Can Not End Cycle Of Poverty In U.S.” UWIRE Text 13 Nov. 2014: 1. General Onefile. Web. 25 Sept.
The people that David Shipler interviewed are the type of people seen every day working at restaurants, Wal-Mart, and gas stations. They do not fit into the prejudice description of mooching welfare recipients. They are people on the edge of the poverty line that are affected by a multitude of issues that snowball into a lifetime of a constant debt and crisis. Shipler studies these working po...
Mouhammed, A. H. (2011). Important theories of unemployment and public policies. Journal of Applied Business and Economics, 12(5), 100-110.
Daly, Mary, Bart Hobijn, and Rob Valletta. 2011. “The Recent Evolution of the Natural Rate of Unemployment.”