Ms. Cintorino
English 11R
September 11, 2016
During the welfare reforms of the 1990s was the most discussed topic since many people of the American population believe people were cheating the system by having more kids many acts came into play to balance out welfare the reasoning to see if low wage mothers could survive. What you don’t necessarily realize when you start selling your time by the hour is what you’re really selling is your life” (Ehrenreich) when you work a low paying job for little or no money you working for life. “When someone works for less pay than she can live on then she has made a great sacrifice for you she has made you a gift of some part of her abilities her health and her life. The working poor …show more content…
To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor a nameless benefactor to everyone else” (Ehrenreich) the average person neglects the lower class workers because they either don’t see or ignore them they don’t see the sacrifices these people make every day just to go to work or how it even affects their children and their lives. “I grew up hearing over and over to the point of tedium that hard work was the secret of success work hard and you’ll get ahead or its hard work that got us where we are no one ever said that you could work hard harder even than you ever thought possible and still find yourself sinking ever deeper into poverty and debt” (Ehrenreich) you hear all the time that hard work leads to success but sometimes that’s not always the case sometimes that’s how it starts. “A lot of what we experience as strength comes from knowing what to do with weakness” (Ehrenreich) you gain more strength in knowing how to deal with weakness. “Maybe its low wage work in general that has the effect of making feel like a pariah. When I watch TV over my dinner at night I see a world in which almost everyone …show more content…
The moneylenders have finally gotten Jesus out of the temple” (Ehrenreich) when you watch television you always see the rich people on their reality shows but you never see the working poor on TV. “I displayed or usually displayed all those traits deemed essential to job readiness punctuality cleanliness cheerfulness obedience. These are the qualities that welfare to work job training programs often seek inculcate though I suspect that most welfare recipients already possess them or would if their child care and transportation problems were solved” (Ehrenreich) the working class people are usually the best workers they display the best qualities and traits. “You might discover that nationwide Americas food banks are experiencing a torrent of need which they cannot meet and that according to a survey conducted by the U.S conference of mayors 67 percent of the adults requesting emergency food aid are people with jobs” the working poor are so poor that even with jobs the majority of them can’t buy food. “we can hardly pride ourselves on being the world’s preeminent democracy after all if the large numbers of citizens spend half their waking hours in what amounts in plain terms to a dictatorship” (Ehrenreich) even though this is a democracy