Elisa Ransom Blogger 3

I am so glad that it touched on having better schools in the communities because without better schools, our children will not have much to look forward to when it comes to education.  Stable economic environment tend to not produce gangs, street level drug markets, hunger, homelessness, and all the other daily facts of life poor kids have to navigate in their communities.  The point that Abramsky was trying to make was that without good schools in the communities problems would arise in such a way that violence would take precedence over schooling.  If schools produce a great environment for children then less things outside of school would probably happen by way of trouble.  

When Abramsky brought all the unique stories into his book explaining what poverty had done to their lives I think that was the best way to make the book come alive, otherwise I think it would have just been a book full of statistics and ratios.  Abramsky took the lives of others and allowed them to tell their stories.  Poverty is not something that is new to society.  It has been around for as long as time can remember.  Dealing with the haves and have nots is nothing new.  The issue how will we as a society combat the problem of poverty. 

The federal poverty line is somewhat hard to maintain when when your family is only dollars away from qualifying for welfare.  on page 148 Abramsky talks about how families who do manage to qualify for welfare just simply can not raise a family up to the poverty line because the cash assistance is just not enough to help get them there.  the government wants people to get off of welfare but only assists them to live meagerly from paycheck to paycheck not allowing them be able to stand up on their own two feet.  Many people who are poverty based will work but when the jobs are only paying minimum wage this forces them to fall short and have to depend on the government to assist them in their daily living situation.