In Robert Reich's text, "Why the Rich are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer," he points out some economic issues according to today. Also, he compares how people inequality back then and how it is different now by saying"All Americans used to be roughly in the same economic boat," which means the rich weren't s rich as they are now and the same goes with the poor were not as poor as now. It is made clear that the people of today become richer due to the division of labor, and the roles that people are being allocated to. Says that if you don't have at least a high school diploma, or nothing more than a high school diploma, it won't be easy to find a good job. The employer would take the college degree person over the high school diploma person if they both were fighting for a teaching position for instead. Because they have a better level of education in the field.

The Injustice Of Income Inequality

                   Robert Reich's theory of income inequality is extremely useful because it sheds light on the difficult problem of the globalization of the workforce.  As Reich details, the proliferation of the global economy and the resulting export of the workforce from America to other, more willing countries has been hurting the American economy since at least the 1980's.  Jobs that do not require high degrees of education and specialization have seen significant decreases in wages and employment opportunities.  The export of jobs, taken in combination with a decline in union membership, has led to a nation-wide drop in wages.  Although somewhat dated, Reich's summary of the effects of globalization is still dead-on.  The wage losses that Reich details have only increased with time and the ever-increasing levels of technology in today's society. The trend seems to be downward.
                   Although I conceded that Reich's points are valid, I still insist that his claims did not go far enough and that the passage of time has seen a massive increase in the problems of workforce globalization.  College costs have gone up because jobs that do not require college degrees no longer pay living wages.  Efforts to increase the minimum wage have revived as a direct result of the loss of wages paid to employees in more traditional jobs and the loss of accountability employers assume without the presence of a mostly American economy and strong labor unions.  Without a college degree and some luck, most Americans are finding it much more difficult to earn a living wage in today's economy.
                    Mike Rose argues that the diverse intelligence of the general American workforce should be acknowledged.  Those unfamiliar with this school of thought may be interested to know that it basically boils down to education.  Workers with lower paying jobs are not necessarily less intelligent than their better-paid counterparts.  Education and networking generally equate to economic success.  Neither of these factors are based solely on any kind of intelligence.  Taking myself as an example, I skipped two grades and graduated high school at 16.  My raw IQ is embarrassingly high when put next to my annual income.  Intelligence DOES NOT equate with economic success, education does.  Having the right pieces of paper and knowing the right people is what increases a person's income, not how smart they are.  Many Americans who work low paying jobs are more intelligent than those that make millions--they simply lack the formal education and connections of their counterparts.
                    Although I concede that Rose's points are valid, I still insist that his thesis is ultimately futile.  Acknowledging the intelligence of the average low income worker does very little to improve his plight and, frankly, most people of lower intelligence have low paying jobs.  While the American educational system may be completely and utterly broken, a certain amount of intelligence is required to obtain a college degree and succeed in any kind of economic context--outside influences notwithstanding.  Profoundly stupid people do not get to become executives in large global companies.  A significant percentage of doctors and lawyers possess a raw intelligence that is greater than that of the average dockworker.  While education and connections are the primary indicators of economic success, they are--generally speaking--unobtainable to those that do not possess a requisite intelligence.
                   

Unequal Financial Stability and What it Says About Today's Time

"Why the Rich are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer," by Robert Reich really contained a few points that should have stood out to the average american that grew up in todays time. Robert Reich states that, "All Americans used to be roughly in the same economic boat," meaning that the rich were never as rich as they are now and the poor were never once as poor as they were now. It is made clear to see that the rich was corporate owners, and entrepreneurs, and the poor was strictly the people who worked to be paid minimum wage. There really was no in between, and when there was it was at a very minimum. It is no wonder that the people of today become richer due to the division of labor, and the roles that people are being allocated to. Another factor that I believe plays a role in the increase of financial instability, is that the roles are not allocated equally and pretty much you get what you work for, or what you take the time to be educated on. It is no wonder that a doctor gets paid more than a nurse, all thought they semi know the same material, and nurses are known to do the dirty work, the doctor still stayed in school longer and therefore, they have the qualifications that meet a certain pay rate. Now that American Corps. are vanishing and everything is not made in the USA, it is more likely to see an America family really be successful or to really miss out on fortune. I think it is really eye opening to see how much money the rich combined, really own and how much the the poor hold.

I Just Wanna Be Successful *Trey Songz voice*

In the article "Why the Rich Are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer" by Robert Reich, a professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, says that if you don't have a high school diploma, or nothing more than a high school diploma, it will be difficult to find a steady and stable job. I completely agree with this because of the competitiveness in the job world today. For example, imagine there is one teaching position open at a high school and two teachers competing for the position. One teacher has a bachelor's degree in English, and the other teacher has a master's degree in English. The teacher with the master's degree will most likely get the job over the teacher because she has more knowledge than the teacher with just the bachelor's degree. It's the same with high school diplomas vs. college degrees. The employer is more likely to take the college degree candidate over the high school diploma candidate because they have a better level of education in the field.
In Blue Collar Brilliance by Mike Rose, he says the complete opposite. He says you don't quite need a college degree to live a "successful" life. I'm not sure if I agree with this or not because it depends on what the individual considers a successful life. Maybe a small town diner owner considers his/her life successful. Or a manager at a supermarket considers his/her career status successful. It all really depends on what you consider to be success. However I do still stand on what I stated earlier about the college degree. I feel that the higher the education the individual has, the more likely they are to get the job at hand. That doesn't mean they're any better over their opponent for what the job entails them to do, however from the employer's point of view it makes them look more distinguished.

agree to disagree

In the article why the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer by Robert Reich there are many points within the article that I had to agree with. When Robert says that “if you drop out of high school or have no more than a high school diploma do not expect a good routine production job.” I agree with this sentence because it is already known that you aren’t going to make a comfortable living if you don’t even make it through high school but today it almost feels like you won’t be comfortable if you don’t earn that basic bachelor’s degree. Reich goes into description about how although you need a degree it almost doesn’t matter because robots are slowly taking over the everyday jobs we have. In the article blue-collar brilliance by Mike Rose takes a different turn from the article by Reich, the article talks about how you don’t need the education to back up a successful life and in some cases I agree but these stores are from 50 years ago and therefore I disagree in today’s society. The article tells personal stories of how these people made it without going to college but worked very hard, but then again these people are making it check to check and not living under a good cushion.

If these two authors went into decision about this topic I don’t think either one of them would fully agree with each other. I think they both agree that machines are taking over but Rose still thinks human hands from directions must put the robots together, and Reich all over thinks that no matter what the robots will soon take control. The two authors disagree mainly on the topic of higher education, while Reich thinks it’s not an option Rose thinks it’s not necessary.

The War on Poverty

Works Cited:

Thompson, Derek. "The War on Poverty Turns 50: Why Aren't We Winning?" The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 6 Jan. 2014. Web. 01 Mar. 2016.

                The article I read, “The War on Poverty Turns 50: Why Aren’t We Winning?” was written by Derek Thompson and it was about the war on poverty which was published in The Atlantic.  He discusses why the war on poverty is still going on after 50 years since Lyndon B. Johnson declared the war. He explains how most people blame poverty on low wages, but that’s not exactly the reason why the U.S still remains in poverty. Thompson states that, “. . . the cast majority of people who earn the minimum wage or work cheap jobs on a full-time basis aren’t in poverty”.  He then states that the poverty rate isn’t just because of low wages, it’s because “Americans are- for a variety of reasons-working less”. He then shows many graphs that compare different family structures and their position in poverty. For example, the graphs show that the poverty rate is less in a family of two working parents compared to a family of a single mother/father. This proves that the structure of a family can really affect where they lie on the poverty scale.

This article is useful because it shows the reasons of poverty by showing graphs and percentages. By the author showing me these examples, it allows me to believe what he’s saying.  I can trust what the author is saying because there are links to prove what he is saying. The author of the article communicates its ideas by using events that happened in the past and showing me graphs. I really liked this article because it was more on the factual side. 

War on Poverty

AJ Callaway

Booker

College Writing 2

2/16/16

War on Poverty Summary

The article I read about the war on poverty was written by Derek Thompson in The Atlantic magazine. The reason I chose this article was because I found all the information very interesting and informative. Thompson, in his article discusses why we as a nation haven’t been winning the war on poverty. He starts off by stating how most experts blame lower wages, but then talks about how that isn’t the big issue. As Derek Thompson explains, “But poverty isn’t entirely a crisis of McJobs and minimum wage workers. In fact, the vast majority of people who earn the minimum wage or work cheap jobs on a full time basis aren’t in poverty.” Thompson goes on to say how the real issue is that the lack of full time jobs and the growth of single parent house holds are really what’s to blame. He also goes on to say how the labor participation rate has been the lowest its been since the 1970s, he finds that the aging of America and the amount of people dropping out of the workforce and choosing not to work is to blame for this. Thompson goes on to elaborate more on how the single parent household is becoming a big problem for the war on poverty by stating, “There are 62 million single-parent families in America. Forty-one percent of them (26 million households) don’t have any full-time workers. This is something beyond a wage crisis. It’s a jobs crisis, a participation crisis- and it’s a major driver of our elevated poverty rate.” Thompson closes by saying how the government has overlooked the problems in poverty in single parent households and focuses more on the double parent households, but due to the increase of single parent households, its hurting the war on poverty.

Works Cited

Thompson, Derek. “The War on Poverty Turns 50: Why Aren’t We Winning?” The Atlantic. The

       Atlantic Monthly Group, 6 Jan. 2014. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.

Everything you need to know about the war on poverty

Dylan Matthews

Dylan Matthews explains the war on poverty and what programs were included. The Social Security Amendments of 1965, which created Medicare and Medicaid and also expanded Social Security benefits for retirees, widows, the disabled and college-aged students, financed by an increase in the payroll tax cap and rates. The Food Stamp Act of 1964, which made the food stamps program, then only a pilot, permanent. The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which established the Job Corps, the VISTA program, the federal work-study program and a number of other initiatives. It also established the Office of Economic Opportunity, the arm of the White House responsible for implementing the war on poverty and which created the Head Start program in the process. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, signed into law in 1965, which established the Title I program subsidizing school districts with a large share of impoverished students, among other provisions. ESEA has since been reauthorized, most recently in the No Child Left behind Act. By introducing each of these programs, the government successfully brought down poverty by “10%”. Matthews says that we could do so many more things. We could expand existing working programs like Social Security, the Earned Income Tax Credit, the child tax credit and food stamps. We could be investing in education, such as by scaling up successful pre-K pilots, or by expanding high-performing charter schools and having traditional public schools adopt their approaches. We could raise the minimum wage, which all researchers find reduces poverty.

The War on Poverty and everything you need to know about it

As I was reading through the acritical that I discovered on google, “Everything you need to know about the war on poverty” by Dylan Matthews, I almost instantly began to realize that this war on poverty and its success is still, to this day, a debatable/unanswered question. My article that I found really lays the war on poverty out plain and simple. Word for word explains a who, what, when, where, why and how; straight facts. Matthews, actually right at the beginning, explains to his readers Lyndon Johnson’s “unconditional war” on poverty, stating that it was basically something people would either hate or love, Johnson just wanted a governments help and this article explains what he got.

I feel this acritical was very useful to me, in ways that helped me realize that programs like Medicare/aid and social security really have helped our nation grow positively as a whole over time. Because there is such a lack of “good jobs” that people can build a life off of, the poor population continues to grow larger and larger. In a society without the special care we Americans have, that would e a problem and poverty would over rule wealth quickly. But because we have the advantage of helping fix/change the community’s struggling lives, we do, and we do so because America is all big on growing as one. We are united and equal, and as this strong country we dislike being seen as poor, or at a disadvantage, that is weak in society’s eyes and because of that we create help (anti-poverty programs). This acritical obviously communicated well, it’s a list of information. The only thing I feel it fails to approach is the actual failure some of these programs have conducted. The debt some of these programs have put this country in, along with the laziness they continue to create in Americans everyday. Because systems like Medicare are so easy to get your hands on, a large amount of our community uncovers desire in obtaining this “easier way of living”, ultimately putting America in debt because of all the money going towards people who don’t necessarily need the care that others (the actual poor, not people who just classify for it) do. So, just depending on how you look at the whole situation, war on poverty can be a positive and/or negative thing. Did it and does it continue to help decrease the amount of poverty in out nation? Yes. Is it adding more, serious problems to America? Could be. It all just how you want your perspective of war on poverty to be. 


Dylan Matthews. "Everything you need to know about the war on poverty." The Washington Post. The Washington Post Company, 8 Jan. 2014. Web. 29 Feb. 2016