So today I am seeing Oprah talk about low wage workers. I first read about the life of the low wage worker in Barbara Ehrenich's Nickel and Dimed. I really liked that book, but was very disappointed when she voted for Nader in Florida. Anyway today's Oprah is focusing on low wage workers and the lives they lead.
They are showing how some families have to go without health insurance. They profiled one young couple fighting over movie tickets and candy. It was very sad to see one woman feeling upset because she has "to walk to work everyday" and because her boyfrined bought their four kind "candy".
Then they showed the poor healthcare these families receive. The father had to go to an emergency room. The mother had to go to a free clinic. They ended up owning $500 in medical bills with no prospect of paying their bills.
This show reminded me how fortunate I really, really am. I don't want to say much of my personal story here on this board, but I have been out of work since March/April. I have had to touch my savings and it has been very upsetting watching me tap into my assets. As the stock market fell in the last few months, it made me feel worse. I have had some interviews, but no offers yet.
I have a ton of student loans to pay from graduate school. Because I live in the DC area, the cost of living is high. Coupled with car payments and credit card bills--the last two jobs before the one I lost just didn't give me a decent enough salary--I can barely make ends meet too.
I sometimes wonder why Oprah doesn't do a show on people like me--the "white collar working poor"--those who have degrees and decent paying jobs, but still can't make ends meet. But watching this show made me realize that I do have it (slightly) better off than those people profiled. Eventually I probably will find a good-paying job, with salary increases over time; and maybe, just maybe, I will get ahead.
It just sometimes does hurt because a lot of my friends from college and graduate school have homes, families, and seem to be moving forward. Sometimes I feel stuck in my current position. But watching these families makes me realize that I should be more grateful for what I (still) have.
I then listen to see how many of these families can't "qualify for aid because they make too much". And that's even more frustrating because many of them need help. But because they make $10 per hour, they are technically "above the poverty line." So this is really upsetting to watch.
I've often heard from people I know that these people don't deserve help or sympathy because "no one told them to have five children." I used to hear this a lot from people I went to school with. I went to a small liberal arts college and these comments would generally fill up my political science classes. I'd hear from people that "it's their fault that they didn't go to college" or that "they are lazy." But these were from people who had no idea what the realities of being without parental support is like.
I had to start supporting myself at age 18. I had to take out a ton of loans to pay for my education. And that's why I often struggle. Honestly I've been told that I could have gone to public univeristies and college. I could have also waited and worked for several years before I went for my MA. But the reality is that something is wrong when people start out their lives heavily in debt from education.
This show is making me realize how grateful I should still be. Even though I am not working right now, to see what these other families have to go through, it hits home a lot. These people are closer to the "edge" than I am. And yet I share a lot of their fears.
I'm not sure if this is from Barbara Ehrneich, but at some point one writer once said that "the middle class has a 'fear of falling'". Is this why some middle class and affluent people are sometimes judgmental to the working poor? Is this why many people ascribe poverty to more failiures, laziness, and other pathological traits to convince themselves that "it couldn't happen to them"? I often wonder. I guess that many in affluent surburbs do often ascribe to moral failings since "it can't happen to them because they work hard." I don't really, really know.
It just amazes me, though, that life can be terribly cruel at times. It only takes one or two minutes for someone's life to change. Natural disasters, accidents, deaths, illness that insurance won't cover, unemployment, and numerous other tragedies can strike in the blink of an eye. They can wreak havoc on peoples' finances.
Anyway I get angry when I think of the bankrupty bill. That was my biggest disappointment of 2005. I get angry when the student loan companies basically are profiting from creating a new class of indentured borrowers, who will be paying back their bills for decades. I get angry when the cost of college rises to the point where even families making $120,000 per year in places like DC and NY still can't afford tuition.
Right now, in my spare time, I've been reading the book The Shame of the Nation. That book focuses on the horrid condition of many of the US's public schools, with a focus on the inner city. What I have read is upsetting. Many of those children are "written off" before they even start kindergarten. What I found most shocking is how low income children are tracked early on to "be managers" and that potential "careers" for them are described as being at places like Wal-Mart, McDonald's, KMart, and other low wage retailers and fast food establishments. It's almost as if these children are tracked out to be tomorrow's low wage workforce at the outset. Maybe it is true that most of these kids probably can only hope for those jobs, but there's just something horrible at the fact that we allow this.
We allow these children to not aspire to go to law school, medical school, MBA programs, or college. No, these children are taught that the "best they can be" is sales associates at Wal-Mart or Target. One poginant scene in Kozol's book occurs when he recounts a scene where a Latino girl wants to take AP classes, but a classmate tells her that "she's 'ghetto', so she'll sew". This girl was instead thrown into a sewing class.
I hear all the time that "life isn't fair". And maybe that is the case, but something about this just seems horribly wrong. It truly is.