How the socio-economic factors of America in the 1970s depict the poverty mentioned in

Goodwin Parker’s essay? Does this kind of poverty actually exist?

It was back in the 1970s when America has just concluded itself from the Vietnam War. Though
on one hand, it was good news to have a war ended but to America, it was in rather contrasting
colors. When the country could’ve used some complacency from back in the 1950s, America
was in its most tenuous state. Not only was it brittle but America’s economy has never hit quite
much of a rock bottom as it did in the 1970s. Parker inked down this essay “What Is Poverty?”
during the dark age of America in the 1970s, which was then published in America’s other
children: Public Schools outside Suburbs by George Henderson in 1971, by the University of
Oklahoma Press. However, it is vital to highlight the voraciousness and to acknowledge the kind
of poverty that Parker has explained in her essay, with the exact amount of attentiveness that
was needed back then in the 1970s to bring America’s economy back to life again.

It was when people started to argue about the authenticity of whether this kind of poverty in
reality exists or not, history started to justify itself in rather vivid imagery. The 1970s the Vietnam
War ended but America has just begun to start hurting. One of the biggest broken glass of
America’s economy was inflation. There is no better mirror to 1970s history than Parker’s
poverty essay. She talked about having no proper underwear to wear, ill-fitting shoes, illness
stained mattresses, sheets used instead of diapers, and no money to buy any kind of
medicines. She also underlines how she saved for two months to buy a jar of Vaseline just to
get to know that its price has climbed higher up to 2 cents. It is clearly stated that in 1969, 24.3
million people had incomes below the poverty level due to high inflation caused by the
government’s poor management to gain taxes back that was spent on the Vietnam War from the
people after the conclusion of the war. Another reason for high inflation was the high demand
for housing and facilities after the war which only made things worse. To further authenticate the
conditionings mentioned in the essay; it was calculated that one-half part of poor families
headed by men was decreased during these 10 years; however, there was no seemingly
significant change in the percentage of poor families headed by a woman. Whereas, the family
portrayed in Parker’s family is seen to be led by a woman who happened to destroy her
marriage because she was unable to afford birth control medicines due to high inflation, which
again in Parker’s essay accurately articulates how poverty due to inflation existed in the 1960s-
70s.

Another shattered piece of America’s economy was energy and oil shortage. Initially, the oil
shortage in America happened because of the worldwide deprivation of oil. Nations all over the
world were trying to preserve their oil and Arabs being the greatest shareholder of the oil had
everyone dependent on them. But what made America's condition even worse was its foolish
decision to help Israel during the war between Arab and Israel; “Yon Kippur” which eventually
led Arab to put an embargo on west i.e. “Arab Embargo” which prevented America to gain any
kind of energy, pushing it towards the increase of inflation in every energy, electricity, gas, and
oil used accommodations. Parker has yet again produced images of the family suffering due to
a shortage of energy and inflation. She has mentioned a long broken refrigerator, no warm
water because of no fuel, and no electricity to burn. Though she mentioned not having money to
afford any of it, the shortage of oil and energy at that time inflated the prices of every energy
supplies, even more, making it harder for the family to afford it.

Parker has further talked about how the whole downfall of this family was linked to the last
shattered piece of America's economy which was unemployment. She mentioned, having a
good life with her husband along with everything that she was deprived of at the current moment
till it all started to sink when her husband faced unemployment. She has explained how
everything slowly hit the lower end of the rock bottom after that unemployment, saying “soon, all
our nice things were repossessed and we moved here.” America in 1960-70s was suffering a
high percentage of unemployment because of changes in poor economic policies, certain
changes in labor forces, and deprivation of several raw materials. Although inflation helps to
increase the employment rates instead America faced stagflation, resulting in unemployment to
reach 9.8 percent. This traces the actual temple of Parker’s defined poverty.

Parker has vividly enclosed the true image of poverty taking place in the 1960-70s in America. It
all could be argued even further with assumptions left on loose ends in the essay like; what race
did the woman belong to? One may argue that she belonged to the Negro race which
authenticates the kind of poverty described even more as the poverty rate for blacks was much
higher than any other race. But in the end, it remains open for an argument. However, Parker
has boldly attempted to orchestrate the sensitivity of the veracious poverty existing in the 1960-
70s. She has also made her readers feel the depth of true poverty and has unleashed an ugly
and unbarring side of human life’s biggest downfall by carving sense detaching images in her
essay to make us feel as close as to have lived that exact life as the woman in the essay. She
has made us realize that poverty is living in the continuous spiral of making choices to survive
and that no one knows the pain of it until you have experienced it yourself.