Barbara Ehrenreich’s book Nickel and Dimed illuminates the issues that are surrounded by being an individual that experiences poverty. This essay will take the information that was provided by Ehrenreich’s experience and compare it to social welfare policy in the United states to see if it is helping those who are affected by poverty. The essay will also consider the ideology that surrounds the government and if that has any effect on the social welfare state in the current era. Social welfare policies are important for poverty but often do not have enough traction to accomplish what they are set out for.
Despite the best efforts surrounding American social welfare policies in most cases they seem to be punishing the poor more than they are helping them. In many cases, poverty is still being looked at as being an individual’s fault because of their actions or believed lack of actions. The concept of working hard to achieve greatness is still something that is prevalent. Ehrenreich’s experience shows that no matter how hard some poor individuals work, they will always be stuck in poverty due to the lack of programs to help them succeed.
An overlying theme in the book and in life incorporates the poor’s disability to move to an area that might better pay. In many situations, the …show more content…
The concerns about the government and their spending fluctuate considerably, however, it is almost consistently seen that social welfare policy and associated programs are a part of the unnecessary spending. These over spending concerns and the debt that the nation faces calls to action a reason to cut a good majority of programs or a decent amount of funding to those programs. For instance, the Section 8 Public housing that has not had decent funding since the 1970’s due to the idea that providing poor individuals with aid would only cause them to rely on it
Despite the best efforts surrounding American social welfare policies in most cases they seem to be punishing the poor more than they are helping them. In many cases, poverty is still being looked at as being an individual’s fault because of their actions or believed lack of actions. The concept of working hard to achieve greatness is still something that is prevalent. Ehrenreich’s experience shows that no matter how hard some poor individuals work, they will always be stuck in poverty due to the lack of programs to help them succeed.
An overlying theme in the book and in life incorporates the poor’s disability to move to an area that might better pay. In many situations, the …show more content…
The concerns about the government and their spending fluctuate considerably, however, it is almost consistently seen that social welfare policy and associated programs are a part of the unnecessary spending. These over spending concerns and the debt that the nation faces calls to action a reason to cut a good majority of programs or a decent amount of funding to those programs. For instance, the Section 8 Public housing that has not had decent funding since the 1970’s due to the idea that providing poor individuals with aid would only cause them to rely on it