In a generation where we pride ourselves on the amount of resources we have at our fingertips, why is it that so many low-income people and/or families still remain in situations such as poverty in spite of the availability of resources? Poverty is an enduring problem in the U.S. that remains at the center of attention for many researchers. While many focus on identifying what social groups are most at risk, like single woman, little attention is addressed in finding reasons behind differing poverty rates across groups.
Commonly, cultural pressures are exerted by communities, families, peers and media that encourage single mothers to conform to a subculture of poverty, but with that they are undermining opportunities to escape poverty. This conflict is realized by the experiences of low-income women who are primarily viewed as caretakers, burdened with responsibilities of raising their children and therefore are left with little to no options.
One of the concerns that were raised in an article, “Families in Poverty in the 1990’s”, states that job growth tends to be concentrated in the service sector, particularly in entry level or “secondary sector” jobs, such as cashier, waitress, or sales clerk. These jobs typically pay near minimum wage and generally do not offer resources such as health insurance, paid time off, etc. (Seccombe 1099). What tends to happen is that people that live in low-income situations or at poverty level, are presumed to be incapable or unwilling but the truth of the matter is the problem is not finding or wanting a job, but rather finding a job that pays well enough to get the family out of poverty. Instead of resources being given to them, resources are not available.
Denny Taylor's article Toxic Literacies: Exposing the Injustices of Bureaucratic Texts is another example of how people detect low-income families as incapable or unable to survive on their own. In a debate on the welfare system, a representative states that we cannot feed the alligators, if we feed the alligators we are creating a sense of dependency and therefore they cannot survive on their own, their own being the ones on welfare. Taylor goes on to disprove the representative's point by using stories of the actual people that have to go through these struggles every day. Again, due to lack of work and other resources, able bodied people are suffer from poor nutrition, they live without medical insurance, without dental care, in substandard housing, in abandoned buildings, on the streets, without work and again, without work (Taylor 2).
One after another, poverty-stricken people fall short of being able to support themselves or their families due to multiple explanations and this can be seen all throughout Denny Taylor’s article. Not all but many of the people that live this life want to work and want to get their necks above level but when the money that is being made just isn’t cutting it, what else can they do? They fight the battle to keep living but like the forty-two year old man who had pneumonia, some just don not make it. The official documentation stated that he died of pneumonia. Unofficially? He died of poverty.
