Katrina Gilbert Poverty

As we have come to know, poverty has been one of the most highlighted, worldwide issues. It is an adversity we yearn to improve, but the question that has been posed for years is, how? From the United States, many individuals travel to undeveloped countries in hopes of diminishing health disparities. While this is beneficial, it is difficult to maximize our assistance overseas when we fail to attend to our local poverty and struggles. As it is clearly stated and seen in the documentary, Paycheck to Paycheck: The Life & Times of Katrina Gilbert, “42 million live in or on the brink of poverty.” As this problem is too common, there’s no doubt there are impoverished people who have no choice but to skip meals or those who get lucky enough to
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This is exactly what the main character of the film, Katrina Gilbert, aims to do.
Katrina Gilbert is introduced as a single mother of three children earning only $9.49 to support her family. Just in this statement alone, there are three primary societal factors to help understand why Katrina is living from paycheck to paycheck: economic status, children, and the lack of support from her former partner. Although Katrina is unsatisfied with her job workload, she remains committed to bringing in source of income because of these factors. However, this was not the end of the list considering Katrina’s health care and educational status. She suffered from Graves’ disease, yet was put in the position between paying for these medical costs or paying for bills pertaining to her children and their home. For a long period, she chose her family over attending her thyroid condition. In another influential aspect of her life, Katrina has underestimated her potential due to not continuing onto post-secondary school initially. In the duration of the documentary, Katrina’s lifestyle remains constant, with little change, until …show more content…
For instance, we were quickly introduced to the advantages of the daycare her children attended. This ‘24-hour state-assisted childcare center’ helps families under similar circumstances such as Katrina’s lessen the worries about the expenses of paying a regular daycare. As mentioned, Katrina would have had to pay $300 per week for this type of childcare. Though, this would’ve been her whole paycheck so it would end up defeating the purpose of working. Later in the document, wonderful news is brought to the family when Trent, her son, also qualified for the Head Start program. On top of this, economic support was still seen from child support and the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is a federal subsidy provided to low-wage working parent(s). We seen Katrina struggling with her financial state, but her emotional state was struggling just as much, if not more. Initially, Katrina could only rely on herself considering the father of her children lived four hours away. Although this did improve when the father moved closer, enlightenment was brought to this aspect of her life when