“ A family spending more than 55% of its income on food, clothing and shelter is considered poor…The objective poverty definition is not value neutral; it is informed by relative poverty definitions” (Harman, 243). As said above, Kay Rice spends majority of the family’s income on being able to keep the home, thus resulting in her high dependence on second hand clothing and food stamps. With the family making less then $10,00 a year, Kay Rice needs $650 a month meaning that she spends almost $8000 on rent, compromising more then 55% of the income thus, making them a prime example for the concept of objective poverty. Lastly, the idea of subjective poverty can be used to describe Kay Rice’s outlook on her living situation. “I know we are poor, but that does not make us who we are, and that is not who we will be”. According to Harman, subjective poverty “refers to the way people think about their standard of living. A person’s subjective interpretation might not correlate with the objective poverty definition, a person can feel rich, or poor, despite the objective poverty measures” (Harman, 243). Although they are living in poverty Kay Rice refuses to define her family that way and feels lucky to have her children, always making them her first…
While reading the novel, 'My Antonia', one can very quickly notice that author, Willa Cather has much admiration for the character, Antonia. Throughout 'My Antonia', readers can conclude that Antonia is a very optimistic and inteligent girl who grows into an independent young woman. Due to such characteristics, many people could very easily find themselves admiring Antonia.…
When people think about welfare they normally think of Medicaid, WIA Work Investment Act, WIC Women, Infants, and Children and of course AFDC Aid to Families with Dependent Children now TANF, and HUD Housing and Urban Development. They tend to view it as the federal government giving away the countries money and the tax payers hard earned dollars to people who can’t support themselves. Most people do not like the idea regardless of what and some are sympathetic to the poor and think you should help if you can and are financially stable. They may wonder why they can’t support themselves, why don’t they work or go to school, why they are having all these children they can’t take care of. These reasons may vary. They could be a widow or lost their spouse, they could have been laid off from their jobs, or maybe their hours were cut as there could be many other explanations, but there are programs to help people get back into the swing of things such as training seminars, workshops, help with schooling and finding jobs as well as day care assistance, nutritional programs, finding housing and other needs.…
The flat they all live in is crowded because there are 8 of them to share 3 bedrooms and a small lounge and kitchen. The lift in the flat is broken so the children can't go out to play and get exercise. Also when the lift isn't working the twins cannot attend the nursery, so they will not learn all the simple things you learn in nursery. The mother cannot leave the flat to shop for food, so they will have to eat less food for each meal to last them until she can get to the shops. Also their father cannot leave the flat because he has a severe disability and he has to stay in bed. He can’t even work because of it, and the mother can't work because she has to look after the children and Wayne too, so they have to live on benefits.…
Today in America, there are thousands of Americans are welfare for different reasons. Whether people lost their job and can’t afford their necessities, or possibly they don’t have motivation to get a job and want to live off the government’s money. It could be that there is a single mother of two children who simply can’t afford the necessities for her children and herself even with a job, or maybe their handicapped or they are older and aren’t healthy enough to work and provide for themselves. Welfare is a program created by the government to improve the financial situation of people in need. Many people today in America who are on welfare are abusing the program, whether they don’t find a job and continue to stay on welfare for years, or spend money on drugs or something not needed instead of paying bills and buying necessary items. Other programs like Medicare and food stamps, to the elderly or the people that really need this help, are getting denied because they don’t qualify but yet they are barely providing for themselves or they can’t provide. Some of these programs that the government has created are not working the way they were meant to.…
Welfare and welfare reform has been a hot topic amongst politicians and their constituents for years. Feeling the pressure brought on by people crying out for welfare reform President Clinton brought about some changes in our welfare system. Prior to President Clinton's sweeping reforms this is not the first time that the whole idea of welfare has come under fire; former California governor Wilson, was a strong opponent of welfare. It was he, along with many other people, which really were the ones to spark the welfare reform that President Clinton enacted. These people believed that welfare does not solve anything, it is just letting people become reliant on the government; sucking up money and valuable resources that could be spent elsewhere. For the purpose of this paper if we could just for a moment focus on how President Clinton's welfare reform policies affect single African-American adolescent mothers.…
First, Tamarla Owens had several social statuses where she lived near Flint, Michigan. She was part of a group or neighborhood in this circumstance, that had nearly half of it’s population making under $15,000 a year including Tamarla at $13,000. This was group stricken with poverty. Having moved to Flint as a teenager, Tamarla was almost born into this status. Let alone other ascribed statuses that lay claim to poverty such as being an African-American, being a woman (let alone single) and living near Flint, Michigan where unemployment was over 8% and the crime rate was over triple the national average in 1999. Tamarla had achieved the status of parenthood, having her first of three children at age 20. She had also achieved the status of a hardworking tax payer, working up to 70 hours week on a state run program that stemmed from the National Welfare to Work program. One must keep in mind, even though she put forth the kind of effort most never will, she remained in poverty and worse unable to sufficiently raise her children in this state sponsored program set forth by lawmakers with no idea of what life was like for Tamarla and many others in their master status role of society. Tamarla was trying to do the best she could for her family. Under the Welfare to Work program, Tamarla received food stamp benefits and medical insurance in exchange for paying pack welfare monies she had received. The issue with this program is that when you start making more money than what you receive in benefits you get cut off from the already at “poverty level” benefits. This was the case in Tamarla’s situation. She did not even make enough to cover…
In 1960, father lost job and Clendenin was moved from Long Island to Queens to get welfare; was in culture shock and had to fight for themselves…
The government has provided some help for these mothers with welfare. Welfare is a program for single parents with low income, so low that they can't support a family. Welfare helps with all childcare needs. They give the young mother food stamps for shopping at the grocery store and earned income tax credit. They play a big roll in helping these young mother collect child support from the absentee fathers. Although they have had a lot of trouble in finding jobs for these young mothers because they only have a high school diploma they always manage to find something. They try to help these young mothers who don't still live with their parents find an apartment. After welfare has helped them find work they do not stop helping then. They continue giving money and other needs for a mother and her child. "Welfare helps with child care to 60% of American families with children, which proves how many single parent families we have."(Bergman et al)…
It’s harder coming from poverty to become anything. If you live in the south it’s even harder because there are not as many job opportunities in the south. Especially for women, where In the south men have the majority of the jobs. Most jobs are better suited for the men. Mothers receiving welfare found the system cruel and humiliating, cause them to be more likely to not get help when they need it. This making it harder for them to get a job and help them get to where they need to be. When you consider that white people are more likely to get the the help of welfare it shows that it makes it even harder for some of the minority’s to get out of poverty.…
It’s hard for a minimum wage worker to find a place to live because they can’t pay the security deposit so they get stuck staying in a hotel or moving in with a friend or a family member. For example, Tina and her husband don’t make enough money so they had to stay in the Days Inn paying $60 a night. Getting stuck paying this every night would be impossible. Joan lives in her van. Gail is stuck with a roommate that keeps hitting on her. Claude shares a two room apartment with his girlfriend and two other people. And Annette lives with her mother. She’s six months pregnant and abandoned by her boyfriend.…
Women, namely single mothers, on welfare are trapped in the system by children, job mobility, and lack of funds to create a better life for themselves and their children, which ultimately leads to years of struggle to break free from a system that neither benefits nor supports the women they were created to help.…
Our book presentation was based on the book, $2 A Day. In the book, the authors argue that the 1996 welfare reform is incomplete with poor consequences. They argue that the new welfare reform not only cannot help the families in crisis, but also increase the number of individuals that live on only $2 a day. Throughout the book, the authors point out the flaws of the 1996 welfare reform and provide suggestions to modify it. The authors argue when we are trying to help the poor to live off poverty, we have to help them in a supportive way. Having to spend hours, days and weeks to apply and obtain cash assistance from the new welfare program when they are needed will greatly decrease their self-confidence in the society, which is very important…
Let us start at the beginning. Most women on welfare were raised in homes that collected welfare. This is the first major issue. Unfortunately, poverty and collection of welfare are often an issue that relate mostly to women with children. Not men or married families, but women who are in turn the heads of their home. Two out of three adult recipients of public assistance are women. Commonly these are women that became pregnant at a young age, or their partner left them after the child came. Most are lacking a high school diploma or were not able to attend college after graduation because they did not have the money or their grades were not good enough to give them a scholarship. So they are often stuck, left to raise children with no job, or an underpaying as the case often is.…
"The four children's mom (Tabeitha) and Tabeitha's boyfriend (unknown) does drug in the home. Tabeitha and her boyfriend smoke meth. Tabeitha and her boyfriend take pills (Lortab, Xana, and Soma). Tabitha and her boyfriend smoke weed (marijuana). Tabeitha and her boyfriend smoke mojo (synthetic weed). The drugs are not being managed in the home. It is unknown if the children had access to the drugs. Tabeitha does not pay any attention to the children. The children do want they want to do. Tabeitha's mom sometimes is at home. Tabeitha's mom knows Tabeitha does drugs in front of the children. Tabeitha's cousin (Hannah) has to bring her food to feed her children." Tabeitha does get food stamps. Tabeitha gives her food stamps to the…