The Working Poor Response

The first thing that struck me was the way cleaning companies take advantage of immigrants. I could not believe that they work for free for a couple of months because that is supposedly part of the deal and then they are fired because of “Too many complaints.” I just don’t understand how people in these companies who are hiring the immigrants and basically using them for slave labor can live with themselves. I think that there should be organizations that help low wage workers get set up with companies who will not take advantage of them.

I think the fear that these people must experience all the time seems so unfair. I think everyone in America has a kind of fear of falling, but these people are so afraid of not making it that they give themselves over entirely to an untrustworthy source. They are totally vulnerable like children.

The section on credit card companies also scared me because they are targeting people who don’t have a lot of money and charging them ridiculous fines. It is so sad. Then there is the problem of taxes. I have already filled out tax forms for the work, and they are so confusing! Then people have to pay absurd prices like 100 dollars to get someone else to do their taxes for them. As Shipler says, ““Easy- money lenders point fingers at the subprime class they helped create, then punish the borrowers with significantly higher interest rates and fees” College students are now new target”(23).

Then there is the problem of the advertising culture of the United States. People who cannot afford food and water are paying for cable.

The most devastating example for me was Caroline. She could not afford healthcare, so her teeth rotted and fell out. So, then when she interviewed for a job she was not hired because of her appearance. She worked so hard and she seemed like such a good person. It was so disgusting that her ex was sexually abusing her daughter, and it is so sad that her daughter was mentally disabled because it guarantees that she also will not be able to make any money. It’s this vicious circle that I never knew existed. Then her mentality was kind of shocking. I can’t believe she said, “I want to be average, I think rich people have a lot of problems” (72).

The Korean people were also very sad because they came to the states expecting they could get and education and move up in the world. Yet the price of living is so absurd that they ended up working in a Korean restaurant, which pays them next to nothing.

All, these examples make me realize that these people are really not much different from me. They have been sucked in by the advertising culture of the US, they want and education and they value it even though it is almost impossible for them to obtain. The only thing that makes them different from me is the money they were not born into.