Sunday, March 27, 2016

Daja Hearn- Blog Post #2

Welfare, Weight Loss, and The invisible working class 


               The first topic I choose to discuss was titled welfare, weight loss, and the invisible working class. This section of the reading talked about how money was spent prior to the War on Poverty. An example the text gave was that there was more concern and money put into account for immigrant birds than there was for immigrant humans. Also stated within this section it discussed that the new homes that were being built were being built on a much higher income status, when then leads to not enough affordable homes for people. 40 years prior this underinvestment of affordable home resulted in one and twenty Americans and one in six children were living in homes that were claimed to be what the government called “worst case”.  Along with this the ones who could “afford” and home their income was half the local income median income and what they made, more than half was going to housing. In reality you are only supposed to pay thirty percent of your income on housing. This section of the book gave things that people spent money on. I could not believe how much money was spent on certain things. For example they said that pets, maintaining their law/gardens, and weight loss products were the main things. Liposuction was one of the weight loss products. Cryogenically frozen was another thing people spent large amounts of money on too. This is when you are dead they just keep your body frozen. To do this it is approximately 30,000 per person. Raquel story was included within this section as well.  It showed an mom with two sons barley making ends meet. One aspect I did not like about his part was that the money that she did make was going towards paying her brother rent. To me I feel this is wrong especially if he witnessed how bad she was truly struggling to just feed her two sons who were both going through puberty. In this case I would have asked her to contribute to an electric bill and groceries, but not rent, because she was already struggling enough. I feel that this was in the text to bring awareness that people do not just do not want to work and to show how these programs to help people get along have all of these rules and regulations, and instead of being able to find a job to keep some of these assistance you had to do community service hours. This woman was given $300 dollars to last a month for food, which at times only got her three months. One thing I would have recommended was a class to see how to buy and make meals for cheap. I feel some people do not realize what can be done with a small amount of money. 


 Hurricanes, Tornadoes, and some big bills

            Another section of the reading that I am going to discuss is Hurricanes, Tornadoes and some awfully big bills. This section mainly focused on Hurricane Katrina. This section I feel brought awareness to what this state and town primary focus was on after this devastating disaster. The section discussed how the part of town referred to as the lower ninth was just left to rot after this disaster. It discussed that the sections of the town that were better off were the ones that got up and moving quickly after this occurred. The part where all the tourists come another part of the town that was quickly built back up. Today people who are living within the lower ninth of the town are homeless people. This part of the town is still run down, but it is slowly getting the community back. This section was provided to show how natural disaster can destroy ones who had already lived in poverty and that there are not enough resources available to handle a problem like Hurricane Katrina. I was a little ticked off reading this section. I felt that with what little warning they did have they would have had a better thought out plan.  The book stated that they were not prepared at all for this disaster.  Maybe it is just me, and I am a planner, but I feel if you live near a body of water there should always be a plan to implement and to revise yearly not mater the situation. 


 Burial Plots, Broken Glasses, and Other problems with medicaid  

           The third section of the reading I picked out was burial plots broken glasses and other problems with Medicaid.  This section of the reading brought awareness to what Medicaid is and what things you qualify and do not qualify.  The story told by the family who lost their care and had no other valuable items still could not get this. This really opens my eyes for the future to show that make sure to have a job that offers retirement, and one with good benefits and decent pay to be able to save up for these types of crisis. I can do nothing but feel bad for these people facing these different situations. This is another reason why I am in the field I am. I would like to make a difference even if it is getting an individual a coupon to help assist with the cost of their medication. In reality it does not cost the doctors and surgeons tons of money to perform a surgery and the materials used to preform, so my question is where are all of these charges coming from and how much does one needle actually cost a hospital?  I understand that doctors and surgeons need to make money for their living, but people also need to be able to have these procedures done to help them live. 




Reference:

Ambrasky, S. (2013). The American Way of Poverty: How the other half still lives. New Work, NY:
Nation Books

No comments:

Post a Comment