The movement of the working class poor
President Elect, Barack Obama:
It is a common stereotype that the poor are lazy, that they do not work, and that they exploit the social services provided to them by our nation. Furthermore, women of the working class poor receive greater criticism still. They exist is such a class that they are deemed as bad mothers, as they are not able to provide for their children as well as women belonging to the middle and upper classes. While many and most of the working class poor use social services as a means of survival because they are truly in need, the small portion of the working class poor that do exploit such services have caused negative viewpoints of them by the general population. In order to break down such paradigms, radical social change is needed in our society. Please allow me to elaborate.
In their work “The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home,� Arlie Hochschild and Anne Machung consider race, class, and location the largest contributors to the cycle of poverty in the working class poor. In order to break the cycle, movement must occur, and programs may be added so as to initiate the movement.
Based on Hochschild’s and Machung’s work, I propose we consider the following. First, we must provide access to work for the poor. Due to urban sprawl, the working class poor may need to travel further for work without the means to do so. Therefore, we must improve the efficiency of public transportation so as to increase employment within the working class poor.
Public funding for child care must also increase. Parents of the working class poor have few options for their small children when it comes to child care and thus have limited opportunity to work. An increase in child care for the working class poor will provide movement within the demographic, as parents will have an increase in labor and wages.
Though these steps are small and few, coupled with other social programs, the status of the working class poor will be on the upswing.