Unit B Blog #5

I believe that it was easy to see from the videos that the problem of the working poor is a very public problem. In the interviews on the streets of what looked like a very metropolitan city nearly every person that the interviewers spoke too were well aware of the problem of the working poor and the poverty line. It is also strange to see the view of the government and what they view as the poverty line because even the common citizens on the street knew that it is nearly impossible, or at least an everyday struggle, to try to survive off even double of what the government considers the poverty line.

There are certain paths or ways that can be navigated through in life that make it almost impossible to survive. It can be seen in examples all over the United States how people can be born into a life with nearly no chance of escaping, comparable almost to a caste system but with a hint of "American Dream." If one is born into a family of let's say, a single mother, and they cannot afford to stay current with their bills, then children often have to drop out of high school to help with money. When something like this happens the best that child can now do is a GED, and in a market where education is a give in for most jobs, the opportunity to make a living wage can be eliminated and thus we have another family starting down the path of attempting to live below the poverty line. I believe that additional government help is essential for these peoples survival, especially in large cities like New York, L.A., and Chicago.