With the release of the Census Bureau’s 2005 poverty figures today, the economics of the poor have been blasted all over the blogosphere.
I have a post brewing on a recent personal intersection of poverty, parenthood, and education, but it’s going to have to wait since I’m watching “Waging a Living” tonight on PBS (10pm Eastern). This show follows a series real people over the course of three years as they try to support their families on $8-11 hour jobs.
Part of the synopsis reads:
One in four American workers — more than 30 million people — are stuck in jobs that pay less than the federal poverty level for a family of four. (i) Housing costs, to name just one of several essential living expenses, have tripled since 1979, (ii) while real wages for male low-wage workers are actually less than they were 30 years ago. (iii) But the new face of the working poor is overwhelmingly that of a woman struggling to support her children. Only 37 percent of single mothers receive child support, and that support averages just $1,331 per year. (iv) Nearly a quarter of the country’s children now live below the poverty line. (v)
What do these numbers mean in human terms? What is it really like to work full-time and remain poor? “Waging a Living” provides a sobering answer. Filmed over three years, the documentary offers intimate profiles of four working Americans — Jean Reynolds, Jerry Longoria, Barbara Brooks, and Mary Venittelli — as they struggle to lift their families out of poverty.
I know what poor looks like and I’m not poor-poor, but I do work a full time job and still can’t make ends meet. What separates me from many others in my position is having a university degree — even if I can’t find a job that actually utilizes the skills and knowledge I have, this provides me with opportunity that others do not have. Or so they tell me, “they” being whomever.
Ethan and I are currently living on a yearly income that puts us solidly under the poverty line. If my parents weren’t my landlords — and were not kind enough to waive part of the mortgage I pay while I try to amass some savings, in addition to taking on every bit of childcare that would otherwise farm Ethan out to an expensive after-school program — the two of us would quite literally be homeless. But for the kindness of others.
More on this and the previous teaser tomorrow. I’m putting my feet up.
H/T Barbara Ehrenreich
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Not since just post-college have a had to live on the kind of hourly wages the working class lives on. Quite frankly, I don’t see how folks do it. With rentals on the rise because of rising mortgage payments, it’s only going to get worse.