In the second part of the book “The American Way of Poverty”, Abramsky presents the individual, real-life stories of people living in poverty day-to-day. He was very diverse in the locations and people he chose to share stories from, and it was much more interesting and intriguing to me as a reader to hear people’s real life testimonies of the hardships they’ve been through. I think many Americans believe that because we live in the best country in the world and are free, that there aren’t actually many homeless people suffering everyday and living on the streets just fighting to stay alive. Since the recession in 2008 the amount of individuals needing financial assistance had gone up tremendously. Most individuals needing assistance struggled to become eligible and they are not getting enough to take care of their families. I couldn’t believe all of the stories about parents hurting to feed their children. Children in poverty are at a high risk of danger; dealing with more frequent hospital visits, missing school, and other activities. You could never imagine being in someone’s shoes until you read about their daily struggles most take for granted. There are more children living in poverty now than ever before, and we are the generation that needs to acknowledge this detrimental problem in our society and come together to take care of our fellow Americans.
Potential test question:
Is there an alternative to the TANF program that our government can implement that would better serve Americans living in poverty?
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