There are many barriers that prevent people from getting a job other than those mentioned above. Mental illness, addiction, disability and discrimination based on gender, race, age or sexual orientation contribute to a labor market that is inaccessible to many people living in poverty. Vanessa Solivan’s mother’s house, garden law, Credit, Devin Yalkin for The New York Times As a subscriber, you have 10 gift items to give away each month. Anyone can read what you share.
In her childhood home, Vanessa began caring for her sick father. He had been a functional crack addict for most of his life, working as a landscaper in the warmer months and claiming unemployment when business slowed down. Vanessa, 33, has black hair that is usually tied in a bow and wire-framed glasses that slide down her nose; a shy smile appears when she feels proud of herself. So that the children wouldn’t flee out of anger or shame, Vanessa learned to park next to Route 1, in crevices of the city that were so quiet and abandoned that no one dared to open a door until dawn. Growing up in poverty as a child can have lasting effects, making targeted policies like the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit crucial for families with children to help break the cycle of child poverty.
In the morning, Vanessa would drive to her mother’s house so the children could prepare for school and she for work. What is inflation? Inflation is a loss of purchasing power over time, meaning that your dollar won’t go as far tomorrow as it did today. It is generally expressed as the annual change in the prices of everyday goods and services, such as food, furniture, clothing, transportation and toys. What causes inflation? It may be the result of increased consumer demand.
However, inflation can also rise and fall depending on events that have little to do with economic conditions, such as limited oil production and supply chain problems. Is inflation bad? It depends on the circumstances. Rapid price increases bring problems, but moderate price increases can lead to higher wages and. How does inflation affect the poor? Inflation can be especially difficult for poor households to bear because they spend more of their budgets on basic necessities, such as food, housing and gas. Some economists argue that more inflation might be necessary to stimulate economic growth and increase incomes for lower- and middle-class families.
Can inflation affect the stock market? Rapid inflation often means problems for stocks. Historically, financial assets have fared poorly during inflation booms, while tangible assets, such as homes, have held their value better. When life feels especially hard, Vanessa often calls Sheri Sprouse, her best friend since high school. Sheri is a reserve of emotional support and perspective, and often encourages her friend to be patient and grateful for what she has.
But Sheri herself is also surviving, raising two daughters with a fixed disability check. And since Sheri’s home is subsidized through a federally administered voucher, it’s also being monitored. When Vanessa was homeless, Sheri couldn’t offer her much more than love. Until the end of the 18th century, poverty in the West was considered not only durable but also desirable for economic growth. These issues have persisted for decades, with poverty and policy debates continuing to affect multiple generations.
Mercantilism, the dominant economic theory of the early modern era, held that hunger encouraged work and kept wages low. Public welfare neighborhoods were jailed and forced to work to eat. In the current era, politicians and their audiences have continued to demand effort and sweat from the poor. In the 1980s, conservatives wanted to set labor requirements on food stamps.
In the 1990s, they wanted to impose labor requirements on subsidized housing programs. Both proposals failed, but the momentum has endured. One of the Trump administration’s top priorities is to expand labor requirements for some of the country’s most important safety net programs. In January, the federal government announced that it would allow states to require Medicaid beneficiaries to work.
A dozen states have formally requested a federal exemption to include work requirements in their Medicaid programs. In June, Arkansas became the first to implement the newly approved work requirements. If all states introduced Medicaid work requirements similar to those in Arkansas, up to four million Americans could lose their health insurance. In April, President Trump issued an executive order requiring federal agencies to review social assistance programs, from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to housing assistance, and to propose new regulations. Many have lost access to essential benefits like Medicaid, food stamps, or stable employment due to these changes.
While SNAP already has employment requirements, in June the House of Representatives passed a farm bill that would deny SNAP benefits to healthy adults for an entire year if they didn’t work or participate in work-related activities (such as job training) for at least 20 hours a week during a month only. If you fall short a second time, you could be excluded for three years. The Senate agricultural bill, a bipartisan effort, eliminated these harsh rules and sanctions, establishing a confrontation with the House of Representatives, whose version Trump has backed. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that labor requirements could deny 1.2 million people the benefit they used to eat.
The work requirements of other programs place similar demands. Kentucky’s proposed Medicaid requirements are only met after 80 hours of work or work-related training each month. In a low-wage labor market characterized by fluctuating hours, precarious jobs and involuntary part-time work, a large proportion of vulnerable workers do not meet these requirements. Nationally representative data from the Income and Program Participation Survey show that, among workers who qualify for Medicaid, nearly 50 percent recorded fewer than 80 hours in at least one month.
In July, the White House Council of Economic Advisors released a report in which it enthusiastically endorsed the employment requirements of the country’s most important social assistance programs. The council was in favor of “negative” incentives, linking aid to labor market effort, and ruled out “positive incentives”, such as tax benefits for low-income workers, because the former are cheaper. The council also stated that U.S. welfare policies have led to a “decline in self-sufficiency.”.
Is that true? The researchers set out to study the dependence on social assistance in the 1980s and 1990s, when this topic dominated public debate. They didn’t find much evidence of that. Most people started using social assistance in cash after a divorce or separation and didn’t stay long on the benefit, even if they returned to social assistance periodically. A study found that 90 percent of young women receiving social assistance stopped depending on it within two years of starting the program, but most of them returned to social assistance at some point in the future.
Even at its peak, social assistance didn’t work as a dependency trap for most beneficiaries; rather, it was something people relied on when they were between jobs or after a family crisis. A 1988 review published in Science concluded that “the welfare system does not encourage dependence on social assistance, but rather acts as insurance against temporary misfortune. We might think that the existence of millions of poor, hardworking Americans, like Vanessa, would make us question the idea that indolence and poverty go hand in hand. While other myths that justify inequality have vanished under the force of collective rebuke, we hold on to this devastatingly effective formula.
Most of us lack a sure explanation for growing political polarization, rising prescription drug costs, urban sprawl, or any number of social ills. But ask us why the poor are poor, and we have a quick and ready answer, waiting for this palliative explanation. We have to do it, or else national shame would be too difficult to bear. How can a country with such a high poverty rate, higher than that of Latvia, Greece, Poland, Ireland and all other member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, claim to be the best in the world? Vanessa’s presence is a trial.
But instead of taking responsibility, the United States reverses its role by blaming the poor for its own miseries. First, value work as a means of getting out of poverty and challenging the provision of care as something other than work. Look at a single mom without a formal job and tell her that she’s not working; look for one who works part time and demands that she work more. Then force the poor to work longer hours in a labor market that treats them as consumables. A single mother faces unique challenges, especially when it comes to affordable childcare and balancing employment with raising children.
Rest assured that you can pay them little and deny them sick time and health insurance because the U.S. taxpayer will step in and subsidize programs such as the earned income tax credit and food stamps on which their workforce will depend. Watch social assistance spending increase while the poverty rate stagnates because, well, it’s accumulating profits. When that happens, evade responsibility by blaming the safety net itself.
From there, politicians will invent new ways of denying help to families, such as imposing unrealistic labor requirements on aid to the poor. Democrats may mock Republicans’ labor requirements, but they have yet to challenge the dominant conception of poverty that fuels such petty politics. Instead of offering a counter-narrative to America’s deserving moral trope, liberals in general have submitted to it, perhaps even embraced it, thinking that the public will not support aid that doesn’t require the poor to submit to the low-paying jobs they now have at their disposal. Even the stalwarts of the progressive movement seem to reserve economic prosperity for the full-time worker.
Senator Bernie Sanders once stated, echoing a long list of Democrats who have come before and after him: “No one who works 40 hours a week should live in poverty. Sure, but what about people who work 20 or 30 hours, like Vanessa? While Washington continues to demand more vulnerable workers, it has demanded little from employers in the form of living wages or job security, creating a labor market in which the biggest disincentive to work is not social assistance but the terrible jobs available. Many people avoid taking a low wage job because the pay and benefits are insufficient to meet their needs, and even those who work a full time job in gig work or low-wage sectors often lack basic benefits and security. Judging by the current state of the nation’s poverty agenda, it seems that most people who create federal and state policies don’t know many people like Vanessa. Meanwhile, this is the richest Congress in history, with one in 13 members belonging to the richest 1 percent.
From such a high position, poverty seems like a minor problem, a little less exhausting, and work seems like a bigger solution, something more rewarding. But when we reduce the problem, the solution is reduced by it; when small solutions are applied to a huge problem, they don’t work; and when weak anti-poverty initiatives don’t work, many raise their hands and argue that we must stop spending money on the problem altogether. Cheap solutions only make the problem cheaper. Thanks for the kind response, Brendan.
The belief is that people living in poverty should work, because they “don’t” and work as many hours as humanly possible, since the salary for the jobs available to them is generally quite low. And I don’t want to be too political, but Republican-dominated state and federal legislatures systematically vote against minimum wage increases and repeatedly vote to decimate the safety net that makes working poor people, like my sister, simply subsist at best and need Help from friends and family. on many occasions. Corbin’s tweet also talks about people being unable to pay the money to comply with the dress code for a job interview, let alone the multiple appropriate outfits needed for a job.
However, you’re right that job performance matters most and that resources are also needed to make people look good for their jobs once hired. Safety net programs that help families cope with food insecurity, housing unaffordability and periods of unemployment raise tens of millions of people above the poverty line. Benefits for the working poor are continuously reduced at the federal level without requiring employers to pay enough so that workers don’t need assistance programs or don’t need to live in motels. People who work should not have to live in poverty and struggle simply to live or to raise and care for a family. Many workers are income constrained, employed but still unable to afford basic needs or access social benefits.
There needs to be more resources for people who, as you once were because of the sound of things, are too poor for a job. In other words, the working poor are not primarily teenagers who pack food or who collect ice cream in paper hats. The Bureau of Labor Statistics defines a “working poor person” as someone below the poverty line who spent at least half of the year working or seeking employment. This includes people who have spent at least 27 weeks working or looking for work during the year, yet still struggle to escape poverty. The national safety net now heavily favors employees, with benefits such as the earned income tax credit, a once-a-year cash increase that applies only to people who work.
But they were all united in their inability to explain poverty in a way that didn’t somehow hold the poor responsible for their plight. For many immigrants and those rebuilding their lives, starting from the ground up is necessary, facing foundational challenges in re-establishing their careers and supporting their families. Many have hopes for a better life, but achieving those hopes can be difficult amid systemic barriers. In care-related jobs, such as home health aides, workers—often Black women—are underpaid and lack adequate protections. Incomes for these workers and others in low-wage sectors have stagnated for decades, making it even harder to get ahead. When jobs are lost, people like Vanessa or her sister often rely on an unemployment check as a crucial safety net during periods of unemployment. Finally, it is clear that persistent poverty, stagnant incomes, and inadequate policy responses have left millions struggling for stability and opportunity.
Introduction to Poverty and Employment
Poverty is a persistent challenge that affects millions of people across the country, including many who are employed. The term “working poor” describes individuals who hold full-time or nearly full-time jobs, yet still find themselves below the poverty line. For these workers, the federal minimum wage—unchanged at $7.25 per hour for over a decade—simply isn’t enough to cover the rising costs of rent, food, and healthcare. As a result, low income households often struggle to afford even the most basic necessities, despite their best efforts to stay employed.
Many working poor families rely on government support programs like food stamps and Medicaid just to get by, underscoring the gap between what they earn and what it actually takes to achieve economic security. The need for a living wage—one that allows workers to meet their needs without additional assistance—has never been more urgent. According to the Economic Policy Institute, about 60% of workers earning less than $7.42 per hour receive some form of government assistance, and more than half of those earning between $7.42 and $9.91 per hour do as well. This reality highlights a fundamental flaw in our labor market: having a job does not guarantee freedom from poverty. Instead, it often means working harder just to stay afloat, with little hope of building a better future.
Barriers to Employment
Securing a job is not as simple as filling out an application—especially for those living in poverty. Many poor people face significant barriers to employment that go beyond motivation or willingness to work. A lack of education, job skills, and work experience can make it difficult to compete in a labor market that increasingly demands specialized knowledge. Access to job training programs, mentorship, and professional networks is often limited for low-income individuals, putting them at a disadvantage from the start.
For people with disabilities, mental illness, or addiction, the challenges are even greater. Discrimination and stigma can close doors before they even have a chance to prove themselves. Single mothers, for example, often struggle to balance work and family responsibilities, especially when affordable childcare is out of reach. Transportation is another major hurdle—many jobs require a car, but for someone with a low income or poor credit, owning and maintaining a vehicle may be impossible. The digital divide also plays a role, as reliable internet access and computer skills are now essential for job searching and employment.
The rise of the gig economy has introduced new complications. Many workers are classified as independent contractors, which means they are denied access to benefits like health insurance, paid leave, and job protections. This leaves them vulnerable to income instability and exploitation. All of these barriers combine to make the path to employment—and economic security—far more difficult for those who are already struggling.
Socio-Economic Factors
Socio-economic factors deeply influence who gets left behind in the labor market. The vast majority of low income households are asset limited, meaning they lack the savings or resources to handle even a single emergency, such as a medical bill or car repair. This financial fragility is not limited to the poor; many middle class families are also living paycheck to paycheck, just one emergency away from falling into poverty themselves.
The poverty line is often used as a benchmark to determine who qualifies for assistance, but it fails to reflect the true cost of living in many parts of the country. For example, a family of four may technically earn just above the poverty line, yet still struggle to afford housing, food, and healthcare. Homeless people face even greater obstacles, lacking access to personal finance resources, education, and job training that could help them re-enter the workforce. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2021, 6.4 million workers in the United States were classified as the “working poor,” many of whom depend on government programs to survive.
These socio-economic realities create a cycle of poverty that is difficult to break. Without assets or support, families are forced to make impossible choices between paying rent, buying food, or seeking medical care. The struggle to afford basic needs keeps people trapped, making it nearly impossible to get ahead or invest in a better future.
Job Market and Opportunities
The current job market is fiercely competitive, with far more workers than there are good jobs available. For many, low wage jobs are the only option, but these positions rarely offer the economic security or upward mobility needed to escape poverty. The labor market is also vulnerable to shifts in interest rates, inflation, and economic downturns, which can lead to layoffs, reduced hours, and increased financial instability for workers.
Employers often prioritize cost-cutting over employee well-being, resulting in jobs with low pay, few benefits, and little job security. Many workers are denied paid time off, health insurance, or retirement benefits, making it difficult to plan for the future. However, there is growing recognition among some employers that providing a living wage and benefits can actually improve productivity and reduce turnover. For example, research from the Economic Policy Institute shows that raising the minimum wage does not harm businesses as commonly claimed, and can even stimulate economic growth and create more jobs.
The federal government plays a crucial role in setting standards for the labor market, such as through the Fair Labor Standards Act, which establishes minimum wage, overtime pay, and working conditions. While these regulations are designed to protect workers, enforcement and coverage gaps mean that many low wage workers still fall through the cracks. Ultimately, the structure of the job market and employer practices have a profound impact on whether workers can achieve economic security and move beyond the poverty line.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Poverty and employment are deeply interconnected issues that cannot be solved by simply telling people to “get a job.” The reality is that many individuals face significant barriers to employment, and even those who are employed often struggle to make ends meet. To truly address poverty, we must focus on creating more good jobs that offer a living wage, benefits, and real economic security.
This requires a comprehensive approach that includes raising the federal minimum wage, expanding access to education and job training, and providing robust support for low income families—such as affordable childcare, healthcare, and housing. Addressing the root causes of poverty, including lack of transportation and access to personal finance resources, is essential for building a more equitable society.
Employers, the federal government, and communities all have a role to play in breaking down barriers and ensuring that all workers have the opportunity to succeed. By investing in people and prioritizing fair pay and benefits, we can create a labor market that works for everyone—not just the privileged few. Ultimately, providing a living wage, comprehensive benefits, and economic security to all workers is not just good policy—it’s the foundation of a just and prosperous society.
