Session 9

Even though I think we should still improve our welfare programs, I think the welfare programs are pretty helpful to low income families. Statistics has even showed since the late 1990s that employment rate and full time workers has increase due to Child Care Assistance Programs. There are specific qualifications to be eligible for these programs such as Medicaid and Medicare; they are very useful to families with children. Children are among the highest rate in poverty. These programs such as Medicaid and Medicare offer benefits of dental care and healthcare. It’s good that the government is at least putting some sort of effort to decrease families spending on emergency healthcare and free/reduce lunch at school as well for low income families.

session 7

Many of the facts I looked over in this session isn’t new to me. Anyone getting paid minimum wage will not make ends meet. Minimum workers consist of waiting, cashier, retail, clerk, and working at fast food joints flipping burgers. Not until last year, Federal minimum wage increased to $7.25. Most workers making minimum wages are to believe adults without a high degree/ college diploma and females.

I watched the video on Ulearn/Youtube about minimum wage where the lady asks you, what can you buy for $2.13? The only thing I could think of was one or two sandwich/burgers from a dollar menu at a fast food restaurant. A gallon of gas is more than $2.50!! $2.13 is not enough. It’s ridiculous that waiters and waitresses used to make $2.13 an hour. These waiters and waitresses rely on tip wages which isn’t too bad depending on location and who your client is, but what’s so surprising to me is most of them have to split their tips with busboys and other workers by 5%. It’s horrible to believe the working class could live off of minimum wages. How could they survive when expenses are increasing but not there income?

Many believe if maybe we just raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour, it would help the working class manage their time and money spent. It could maybe even help thousands of children and adult out of poverty, but realistically, most businesses won’t increase minimum wages because it could hurt their own pockets to pay more to each individual and maybe cause unemployment. It’s also hard to find jobs for typical American workers because we also have immigrants to compete with in getting hired. Companies who need workers without little skills are most likely to hire immigrants willing to work at a lower cost and since most immigrant don’t have documents, they are least likely to file law suits if anything thing was to happen.

Believe it or not, poverty will never go away and it will always be a problematic as long as someone is benefiting from it.

session 6

My perspective-

Of course the reason we have poverty is because of inequality. There’s a huge gap between the rich and the poor. The rich will always be “rich” from generation to generation because children who are born rich have the advantages. They have easy access to advance technology and able to receive the best education they can get. On the other hand, poor children don’t.  Some people argue that people are rich because they go to school and work hard to become rich. That’s not always the case.  Children from poor families aren’t getting the right education because of the school they may attend. These schools don’t have enough books or teachers. Poor families can’t afford or have time to waste to have their kid transfer to a better school. When the schools aren’t putting any effort to improve education or classroom sizes perhaps, kids lack “school spirit” and fall out.

When it comes to jobs, I think that a person that is already rich getting a job would be easier than for a poor man because they are likely to have more social connections.