Justin Annas LBST 2215 Prof.

Arnold 1/29/14 Journal Entry 4 The research article that I chose to read and annotate was titled A Brief Look at Poverty in America and it was published in The Journal of Housing and Community Development. This short article discussed the topic of conflicting reports that have been in the news regarding the decline of unemployment numbers but the rise in poverty. At the beginning of the article the are many statistics given that show how the unemployment rate is falling and how more and more people are finding jobs. This article was published in the March/April 2013 edition of its Journal, and at that time the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the nation had created almost 6 million new jobs since February 2010 also it was reported that in November 2012 unemployment had fallen to 7.7%, a four-year low. Both of these statistics seem to show that the United States is steadily climbing out of the recession and that the quality of life here should be steadily increasing along with the job numbers. As a person who watches the news fairly regularly these stats were pretty familiar to me. It seems as though every night there is new evidence that the country economy is doing much better and that we are digging our way out of the recession, but another thing that I have often seen on the news is how the rate of poverty in our country is still on the rise. This article also reported that in 2011 almost one-third of families did not make enough money to make ends meet. The idea that we could have more people in jobs now than last year, but at the same time have more people living below the poverty line than last year has always confused me however later in the article it becomes clear how this is

possible. According to the Working Poor Families Project from 2007-2011, the number of low income working families rose from 28% to 32% nationwide. In an August 2012 report by the National Employment Law Project showed that low-wage jobs have made up the majority of job growth since the recession. When people are losing mid-wage and higher-wage jobs the odds are that they will not be able to find another job where they will make as much money as they used to. This leads those who are unemployed to seek employment anywhere, including parttime/temporary minimum to low-wage jobs. There has been a large debate in the country recently in regard to minimum wage and whether or not it truly is enough money to live off of, and I believe that the statistics provided in this article show that one cannot provide for themselves, let alone a family, with only a minimum wage job.