Anju Gurung
Professor Sarah
ESOL 054
12-5-2014

Reading Project: The Working Poor
1. The American working poor are the people whose income fall below a given poverty line. The workers who are most likely to be allocated to the low wage jobs that fail to provide full year employment. Even if they are working they are consider poor because of the low income rate. People get their income according to the job they are doing. Therefore, these people hold the lowest paying and they mostly have an unstable jobs.
2. As a solution the author propose solutions like prioritizing programs that target fundamental human rights. Also, there must be opportunity of lots of jobs with the job’s training available. To solve the problem of poverty we first need to help government by paying taxes, and the reason to do this is to have a more progressive income tax so that we all could be above the poverty line. It is complicated because many people like the immigrants are unable to speak English due to which it is hard for them to get a qualify jobs.
3. Tax time in a poor neighborhood means the time period in January where individuals file their annual tax, prepare the previous year’s financial statement and reports. Their annual tax would be return by April. Mostly people who pays their tax and has a low income gets an opportunity to save money or get a large amount of money. Poor neighborhood people usually take a loan from someone else promising them that they will pay back the money when they get their tax return. Therefore, this tax time is really important for poor neighborhood.
4. Willie and Sarah Goodell lived together in a house where the windows were broken, there were no carpets on the floors. Plenty of CDs and toys. Willie was lanky, mild, easy with glasses and a mop of light brown hair he had two kids, whereas Sarah had short, spiky with reddish hair. Her face was very pale and always sunken. She was kind of lazy and always on bed. She spoke in a morose and despairing tone, almost a whine. Willie had a job. He earned quiet good amount per hour but they spent their money constantly on buying cigarettes, shoes and clothes. Even though Willie worked for 14 hours a day they were not able to save money because their expenditure was always higher than an income. Their children got an eligible for State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) through which Sarah bought foods for children. After filing for the income tax they got their money with the additional amount but after one year they ended up using some money for tattoo. In this way even though they had a job they used money more than their income.
5. Working or having a job doesn’t lift someone out of poverty because there are many people who are working with the very minimum wage. Their expenditure is always double of the income. Therefore, many people work over time to fulfill their basic need, but still it is not enough for some people. The more the number of family there will be more expenses. If only one person in a family is working then it will be more difficult for that one person to handle the household problems. Working always doesn’t work because there are many immigrants who came America to work and earn money but due to