Trapped in a Web of Inequality

After reading Matthew Desmond's Evicted, I decided to take a deeper look into economic inequality. Evicted focuses on the lives of 8 families living in poverty in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. One thing the reader discovers is that modern America is intimately tied to its history of segregation resulting in nonwhite people struggling to escape systems of oppression that many believe no longer exist. A pattern I noticed throughout the novel was that once these people became impoverished, or previously had been, they remained impoverished. I sought to find out why, while comparing Desmond's example of Milwaukee with Boston.

You might think this is a simple question; poverty is being poor right? Well, yes. But who are these impoverished people, why are they impoverished? According to the  U.S. Census Bureau,  10.5 percent of Americans are living in poverty. Poverty is defined as making about $12,760 a year for one person or about $26,000 for a family including 2 children. That's about $35 per day per person, or $71 per day for a family. Let’s take a closer look to see how much money that really is:

So using this scenario, I first divided his income by 12 to get how much he had to spend for a month. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, for low-income housing you spend 30% of your monthly income on rent, so I took 30% of that and subtracted it from his monthly income to find out that he had $722.2 to spend per month, while spending $361.10 on rent. Utilities for renters are usually about $100. Assuming that this person is on Medicaid, they would have to pay $75 for health insurance. The average person usually spends about $200 on groceries. Using the  MA SNAP calculator , this person would be eligible for $20 in food stamps. Now this man has to get to work, so there goes another $84 for a Charlie Card. Of course he needs cell service, so that’s another $80. If you add up utilities, Healthcare, groceries, transportation, and cell service, you get $539, then subtract $20 for food stamps, so $519 for other expenditures. So then I subtracted that from his leftover money after rent, $722.20, and got $203.20. He has $203.20 to save. Ideally, this money would be saved for emergencies, but that leaves little for the man to save the money for retirement. Multiplying this figure by 12, we can see that this person is able to save $2438.40 yearly, barring there are no emergencies. This is calculated without taking into consideration unexpected situations, like getting sick or getting into an accident, or even just needing anything extra.

In 2018, about 1 in 6 children were born into poverty in the U.S. Of those children, 73% were children of color. Poor children are more likely to have poor education and are likely to still be poor by the age of 30 ( NCCP ). This is because poverty is a trap. Once you are in, it is near impossible to escape.

There are several causes of poverty in the United States, two of the major factors being discrimination and education inequalities.

About 1 in 5 children live in poverty in the United States. Of these kids, about 30 percent never finish high-school. This is due to them being more likely to drop out in order to get a job and take care of their family. Impoverished children go to impoverished schools. "By every measure of qualifications— certification, subject matter background, pedagogical training, selectivity of college attended, test scores, or experience—less qualified teachers tend to serve in schools with greater numbers of low-income and minority students" (1). Without well-qualified teachers, these students get a lower quality education, and then get into colleges (if they can even afford to go) that are not as good, eventually leading to lower paying jobs. In Matthew Desmond's Evicted, Arleen, a single black mother, never graduated high school. One of Arleen's children, Larry, dropped out of school at age 17 and started selling cocaine. Another one of her children, Jafaris, had been showing signs of having learning difficulties. Rather than spending more time with him to help him improve, his teachers suggested medication. Arleen was not able to afford the medication and she believed that "one-on-one attention" was what he needed. Schools in lower income areas are less likely to be able to support their students; private and well-funded schools have the resources to afford tutors to assist them. It is really difficult to try to focus in school when you carry your parent's emotional stress from a lack of stability around you. By having a poor financial situation growing up, you do not get a good education, meaning that you cannot get a good job with a high paying salary and thus cannot give your children a good education; and so the cycle repeats. According to  ChildFund , children in poverty are more likely to not finish high school. It is not because they are less intelligent, it is because they lack the necessary components that help fuel success. To start, low-income neighborhoods have fewer resources and lower quality teachers. To make matters worse, these families usually have unstable living conditions where they have to be constantly moving from shelter to shelter, such as Arleen Bells’s children, making it difficult to concentrate on school. Parents also don't have the extra money to spend on tutors. With a low-quality education, these kids never get to a good college and thus can't obtain a high paying job. Where does that leave them? In the same impoverished place they were in before.

People of color are subjected to poor housing in high violence neighborhoods with bad healthcare options, underfunded schools, and underpaying jobs (U.S. Census). As racial minorities are more likely to have criminal records (Not because they are bad, but due to even more racial inequality), they are subjected to more stereotype based bias and thus less likely to experience better opportunities. "As late as 1960, rent in major cities was higher for blacks than for whites in similar accommodations... They were there—and this was especially true of the black poor—simply because they were allowed to be" (Desmond, Chapter 6).

Women are also highly discriminated against. "Men often avoided eviction by laying concrete, patching roofs, or painting rooms for landlords. But women almost never approached their landlord with a similar offer. Some women—taxed by child care, welfare requirements, or work obligations—could not spare the time" (Desmond, Chapter 9). Due to their labor ethic, men were more likely to be able to maintain their rent by providing odd jobs for landlords. On the other hand women (typically) don't do these tasks because they're busy with children or their jobs and they get kicked out.

The wealth chart shows how the poverty cycle is almost impossible to escape. White people are born into privilege, with a predisposition to make more than minorities. With this pattern repeating, the wealth gap only increases more and more. Black and Latino people are left struggling, stuck in low-income neighborhoods that have poor schools, which a social reality of discrimination that limits job opportunities.

I challenge you to try to make the decisions that someone in poverty faces everyday. Spent is a simulation where you are going to be put between a rock and a hard place, making choices such as either rewearing your dirty clothes or going to a laundromat, but that putting you back $30. Maybe a solution is to get a better education so that you can get a higher paying job... but can you afford the course? These tough decisions are daily struggles for those living below the poverty line, can you make it?

Bibliography

1. Adamson, Frank. "Addressing the Inequitable Distribution of Teachers: What It Will Take to Get Qualified, Effective Teachers in All Communities." Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education. December 2011. Web. December 2020.
2. Desmond, Matthew. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. Thorndike Press. 2017. Book.
3. "Racial Economic Inequality." inequality.org. Institute for Policy Studies. n.d. Web. December 2020.