Shipler Reading Assignment Response #3 - Ch. 2

Ron Hillier
Professor Wetzl
College Writing I
28 September, 2009
The Working Poor: Reading Response #3
In chapter two of The Working Poor, titled Work Doesn’t Work, Shipler wants to give the reader a better understanding of what it’s like to be an impoverished American. The general point of chapter two is that working a minimum wage job gets you absolutely nowhere in America, even if you receive government benefits on top of your wage. In fact, a promotion or a pay raise can actually work against you if you receive benefits.
Shipler’s first example is a lady named Christie. She worked at a YMCA in Akron, Ohio where she watched young kids while their parents went to work. She earned a measly $330 every two weeks. Needless to say, this was nowhere near enough to support her 2 children. In order to pay bills and support her children Christie received government benefits such as food stamps. The most surprising part of her situation to me was the fact that when she earned a $0.10 raise in her hourly wage, her monthly benefits decreased by $10. So in the end, her raise only earned her $6 more a month. I do have pity for Christie, but the situation she’s in cannot be completely blamed on society. She was enrolled in the University of Akron for a year before dropping out, and she had two children with two different men that were no good. I’m sorry for the situation she is in, but she did not make the wisest choices in her life either.
Another example Shipler uses is the story of Caroline Payne. Caroline is an older lady who has never met her accomplishment of holding a good paying job although she has an associates college degree. Instead, she has worked low paying jobs her whole life. A staggering statement is that Caroline earned $6 an hour in the 1970’s, and currently earns $6.80, only $0.80 more than she earned more than 20 years ago. She works as a cashier for a Wal-Mart Superstore and is a grade-A employee. She’s willing to work any hours of the day or night, not to mention she has to walk 20 minutes just to get to work, and she’s always on time. The unfair part of Caroline’s situation is that she sees younger, slimmer men and women being treated better at work by her bosses, although she feels that she’s a much better worker. I definitely believe Caroline when she says this because physical looks play a huge role in everyday life, right or wrong, and I have a lot of sympathy for Caroline because she seems like a very nice older lady who just has very bad luck.
Chapter 2 of The Working Poor opened my eyes to how hard it really is to live on a minimum wage job even if you are receiving government benefits. I realize how tough it would be to live on a low paying job because I haven’t had anything better and it’s very hard to make ends meet even with my short list of bills to pay. I can’t imagine trying to raise two kids on a paycheck as low as $330 a month. But the thing that stuck out most to me from this chapter is the fact that government benefits decrease in reaction to such a small pay raise. It makes sense that benefits would decrease as income level raised, but I think a decrease in benefits because of a $0.10 raise is ridiculous.