UNIT B - Blog 5

When chaudry said "we are asking the less fortunate to strive and work harder, we are deeply discounting our public responsibility for the children born into poor families and disadvantaged communities” (p. 14) I think he meant that the working poor or people at or below poverty line are having to work extra hard in order to make ends meet and that more public assistance should be available to help out their children who are also in need. There really isn't alot of assistance out there for poor families and their children and the programs that are out there seem to have certain standards that make it hard for families to even receive their help. The videos support his statement because in Katherine Newmans video she was talking about health insurance being an issue because most people work for companies that don't offer health plans and they sometimes don't qualify for programs such as axis or medicare because they make too much even though what they make still isn't enough to even fully support them and their families. Also in the video poverty in America, it stated that according to the government the poverty line for a family of four is at $21,614 and when shelter, utilities, transportation, food, health and child care were calculated the family was left with a negative balance of $2,121 which is ridiculous. This is appalling to claim that this yearly salary is enough to cover a family of four, i make more than that and can barely afford myself and all my bills and i have no children or anybody else I need to support. In no way is this solely a personal problem for the working poor, as a community and a world we need to come together to form some programs that can help this situation because if life continues this way then everybody will be left on the streets unless they are considered middle class or rich.