The year was 1976. The presidential race was starting to pick up, with all of the nomination hopefuls attempting to make their mark. At one of the campaign stops, one of the two candidates from the Republican party, former governor of California Ronald Reagan stepped up onto the stage to speak. He knew the speech he was about to give, as he performed it at almost every stop, according to the press accounts following him. “There’s a woman in Chicago,” Reagan says. “She has 80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards.
She’s got Medicaid, getting food stamps and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income alone is over $150,000. ” With a single speech, Reagan was able to establish the single story of the “Welfare Queen”, building the stereotype that will define the working poor for the next 40 years. This narrative is always about someone, usually of the working poor or underclass, who abuses the benefits given to them. The single story about the working poor becomes, because of this narrative, that poor people will always abuse benefits, if given benefits.
While the story was certainly powerful, investigators later concluded it wasn’t true. However, the repeating of the story stuck with many people, especially in the Republican party. Today, many people believe this stereotype that most working poor are like this stereotype: lazy, not really trying to move upwards on the socioeconomic ladder, and living off the rest of the taxpayer’s money. In the community I was raised in, I believed this myth. Today, however, I want to disprove this single story, one that is about a of quarter of all Americans.
Perhaps, being poor isn’t really what it seems to be. In order to investigate and uncover the single story based around the stereotypes of the working poor and underclass, getting a straight source from the group itself is essential. I interviewed two of my high school friends who are in the working poor class. Isaiah*, who is a college freshmen at the local Community College, is working class, and Victor*, who is a senior at my old high school, is working poor. I was able to gain some very different answers from the two.
Isaiah believes that stigmas against the poor don’t occur as much as one would think. While he agrees that this might be because of the majority-working class hometown in which he resides, discussion of money and class just isn’t “a thing”. According to him, “people just accept their circumstances and live on with their lives”. Also, upward mobility is possible, according to Isaiah. Government benefits have had a significant part in that. “If you have the support and the work ethic, upwards mobility is possible”.
Talking to Isaiah made me realize that the single story of the working class is a perspective held by people outside of their communities. On the other hand, Victor had another opinion. He does believe that because of his class, he is often treated negatively. He said, “In my youth (elementary) I often had to wear hand me downs, and shoes were always well worn, one year I had to wear snow boots because of my lack of shoes. However as I came to junior high and high school, we stabled out a little. ” Victor, who is also half-black and half-arabic, talked about race and poverty.
He told me that “when you’re a minority, it’s also a lot harder to live in poverty, I think. ” He went on to add to that statement, saying that because of programs like the criminal justice system that tend to lean heavily towards focusing on people of color, it’s harder to keep your money. “You can’t save up for dinner when you’re being pulled over almost every week”, Victor said. From this interview, I was able to understand that even from within the group in the single story, perspectives can be different due to different circumstances.
If there is one thing that Isaiah and Victor agree on, however, is that governmental programs like welfare and foodstamps are essential to helping the working class and the working poor. However, as mentioned before, many people don’t see it that way. Indeed, it may seem like the programs are doing nothing to help those under the poverty line. In a Lincoln Journal Star report published April 20th, 2015 titled, “Even with full-time jobs, families stuck in poverty”, by Erin Anderson, poverty seems to be a lifelong and multigenerational problem.
According to a survey done in Lancaster county, more than 33 percent of those surveyed said they have been in poverty their entire lives “– a 5 percent jump over last year’s findings”. The article goes on to say that even with welfare and food stamps, it can still be very difficult to get by. Almost 50 percent of families said they sometimes have to skip meals because of lack of money. 34 percent said they go without medical care because they can’t afford it.
Nearly 73 percent said they were worried about utility bills, and 43 percent had received utility shut-off notices in the past year. Now that doesn’t sound like you’re living like a “queen”, now does it? There are also other stereotypes about the poor, like that they are all high school dropouts and don’t care about education. In a Washington Post article published October 28th, 2013, titled “Five stereotypes about poor families and education”, by Valerie Strauss, we are able to see, for example, one of the stereotypes is that poor people do not value education.
Strauss cites, however, that “based on their study of 234 low-income parents and guardians, Kathryn Drummond and Deborah Stipek (2004) found that they worked tirelessly to support their children’s intellectual development”, and that “using data from the more than 20,000 families that participated in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Carey Cooper and her colleagues (2010) found, quite simply, that “poor parents reported engaging their children in home-learning activities as often as nonpoor (sic) parents”. Another myth that is listed in the article is that poor people are lazy when it comes to education.
Again, Strauss says in her article that “poor working adults work, on average, 2,500 hours per year, the rough equivalent of 1. 2 full time jobs (Waldron, Roberts, & Reamer, 2004), often patching together several part-time jobs in order to support their families”. If there’s one fact that you can conclude from the article, it’s that the working class and working poor appreciate and strive towards education just as much as anyone else in the United States. Why are the middle and upper middle classes so invested in this myth?
In the book ‘America’s Poor and the Great Recession’ by Kristin S. Seefeldt and John D. Graham, the reasoning that in a post-recession world, having two sections of an extreme poor and an extreme rich are becoming commonplace. The book talked about how the recession was just a reaction to how much power the 1% are getting, and how their recklessness caused an economic crisis America hadn’t seen since the 1930’s. In conclusion, the authors came to the answer that not only is becoming easier to fall into the hole of poverty, it’s becoming harder to climb out, and all because of the higher-ups.
It may be because the middle class are afraid to fall into the hole of poverty themselves, and the myth makes them more comfortable, knowing that they are not “lazy”, or “undereducated”. The upper class, on the other hand, might be trying to deflect the blame. “It’s not OUR fault! ”, they say. When learning about a group, and trying to erase the single story you may have about them, it’s very important to be able to see eye-to-eye. I was able to do this on a virtual reality plane of existence by looking at some art made by people who are in the working poor class.
The art was made by Chris Stain and Billy Mode, and published online on BrooklynStreetArt. com. I found that it brought up some very controversial points of discussion, particularly about graffiti. In the middle class, it is viewed as not only illegal, but ruinous to the property of the city. However, the art I saw showcased graffiti as an expression of frustration and anger at the establishment. One piece of art, for example, is “of (a) boy along with his signature atmosphere urban signposts… reat(ing) a graff-style sign across the front spelling the word that is associated with poverty. …The mural says ‘Danger’ and it’s a tribute to our friend VOKE. One of his early tags was DANGER. He was the most creative person that Bill and I knew, always pushing the boundary of what graffiti was about and what it could become. With this piece we tried to do just that by incorporating graffiti style lettering and stencils. ” Through this, I was able to understand that the upper class might see those in poverty as dangerous.
They don’t want to associate themselves or learn about those in the working class. Considering that the unknown causes a feeling of danger, and danger causes fear, and that fear causes a push-back, it’s no wonder why the poor are stereotyped with ‘danger’. When learning about a group, it’s also important to hear their stories. There are many different essays and articles written about those under the poverty line. While pathos can play a very important role in persuading someone to care about their point of view, I believe that logos is just as important.
That is why providing facts to a population who might have a single story towards a certain group could be crucial in changing their minds. For example, in a 2012 survey conducted by centerforpeopleinneed. org discussing the face of poverty in Lincoln, Nebraska, the average person in poverty is female, 30-34 years old, married, white, and US-born. The average household size of a family in poverty is 4 people. The most surprising fact, however, could be that those in poverty are not all high school dropouts. 6% have their high school degree; 25% have some college; 17% have an AA/BA or higher. Like I said in the beginning, I once believe this myth. It wasn’t because I was raised by bad people, or that my neighborhood was prejudiced. It was just that they themselves had fallen into this myth. When you’re cut off from a certain group, and have no contact, how can you disprove the stories that you hear? When you don’t know something, it causes fear. Fear causes push-back, and, like mentioned before, this creates a cycle of believing that there is a danger.
I’ve learned that being in the working class or working poor class can be something you’re born into, and something that most aspire to climb out of. Other times, a person might have fallen upon hard times financially. Either way, being in poverty or close to it in our country is an issue. Thankfully, there are answers to our problems. According to an article by Center for American Progress titled “The Top 10 Solutions to Cut Poverty and Grow the Middle Class”, there are actions we can take to help the quarter of our population that’s nearing or under the poverty line.
Many of the solutions in the article, which was written in September 2014, are already happening. We’ve begun to raise the minimum wage. The support for pay equity is growing in numbers by the day. Many of our democratic presidential candidates have promised to expand Medicaid. By this, you can see that change is occurring in America. Hopefully, the more middle and upper class people we can educate about this group, the more action we can do to help them out.
