Sociological Imagination Analysis of Poverty: Essay

The impoverished tend to face many injustices. For example, a tenant could be charged outrageous rates for their rent compared to what they are living in or punished and evicted for simple accidents that occur during their stay on their landlord’s property. The tenants typically do not complain that they are being mistreated since they don’t have many options on where they can live. An example of this is told in one of the stories in “Evicted” by Matthew Desmond:

But for the most part, tenants had a high tolerance for inequality. They spent little time questioning the wide gulf separating their …rent for a worn-out aluminum-wrapped trailer took such a large chunk of their income…Who had time to protest inequality when you were trying to get the rotten spot in your floorboard patched before your daughter put her foot through it again? Who cared what the landlord was making as long as he was willing to work with you until you got back on your feet? (Desmond, 2016, p. 245)

Here, the tenants don’t complain about the financial gap between them and their landlord or the state of their housing as they have to deal with the stress of potentially causing or repairing any accidental damage to the house that they are renting since they could be punished by the landlord for the damage no matter the reason. They were more focused on their own survival and were simply grateful that they could live there.

Using sociological imagination, I can assume that a tenant could be treated with injustice, unequally, and discriminated against just for having a child. A tenant could be discriminated against if they had a young child because the landlord would worry that the child could cause damage to their property. The tenant could then either be denied the right to rent the property or treated unequally by being charged more than what another tenant who does not have a child would be charged. The tenant faces injustice in that if their child does something that the landlord does not approve of or causes any damage to the property, the landlord could punish them by charging them for the repairs or evicting them. The tenants having to worry about their child could directly cause them to be even deeper in poverty as they would have to now worry about finding a babysitter to watch their child when they’re at work on top of the high costs of childcare. Another option is for them to miss work and watch over their child themself if they can’t find a babysitter. According to Poverty and Power:

The costs of child care and other work-related expenses, including transportation, may exceed potential earnings. Poor parents lacking affordable child care, because of its effects on work effort, are trapped in poverty. Their continued poverty, in turn, means they cannot afford quality child care...” (Royce, 2018, p. 6941)

If a parent is forced into the position of having to constantly miss work and watch their child themselves, they lose a source of income as their job would fire them. Even if they live in a state that does have paternity/maternity leave laws there’s no guarantee that they would receive paternity/maternity pay as not many states offer pay. If they lived in a state that does have paternity/maternity leave laws, they most likely work in a job that doesn’t have paternity/maternity pay since most of their job options wouldn’t offer it thus leaving them without money causing them to get deeper into poverty. A simple way to help fix this problem is to have the government pass a bill that provides people with paternity and maternity pay.

Another major theme from Evicted is how the impoverished deal with hopelessness and face the fact that they have a lack of choice. This means that a person living in poverty generally doesn’t have an option to escape poverty. Desmond touches on this when he says, “To Sammy, Pastor Daryl, and others, Larraine was poor because she threw money away, But the reverse was more true. Larraine threw money away because she was poor (Desmond, 2016, p. 288). Larraine’s acquaintances believe that she continues to be poor because she constantly spends her money on nonessential luxury things like fancy dinners. To Larraine, she has no hope of ever escaping poverty, so she believes that she has the right to spend her money on leisure goods. Using sociological imagination, one can see that the reason why the impoverished tend to have bad spending habits is because they are poor. They don’t see a situation where they magically escape poverty, so to them, there is no point in saving money and they should just enjoy themselves whenever they can.

Royce touches on how the poor tend to not have any savings accounts or any safety whatsoever. He states that

In 2014 nearly half of American households were “liquid asset poor,”…and about a third of American households did not even have a savings account. One recent study of low-income and middle-class families reported that more than half had no personal safety net…funds they could draw on to cope with a medical crisis or spell on unemployment.” (Royce, 2018, p. 345)

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Some of the reasons that these people don’t have money saved up are not getting paid enough, high costs of bills, general living expenses, and, as stated earlier, they don’t see a point in saving money since they don’t think that they can escape being poor. Some ways to help mitigate this issue is that the government should increase the minimum wage to a point where a person working full time can make enough to live not just survive, healthcare should be free for everyone so that a person doesn’t become even more impoverished if they suffer a medical emergency, and housing should be free as well as in good condition so that a person doesn’t have to dedicate a part of their paycheck just to have a roof over their head.

Poverty can be structured around ethnicity. For starters, according to Royce,

In 2016, according to the official poverty measure, 40.6 million Americans were poor, 12.7 percent of the population. The rate of poverty is higher for selected subgroups: 18.0 percent for children, 22.0 percent for African Americans, 30.8 percent for black children, 19.4 percent for Hispanics, and 26.6 percent for Hispanic children. (Royce, 2018, p. 145).

Using sociological imagination, one can see that a major cause of poverty being structured around ethnicity is racism. Minorities tend to be exploited due to their race. For example, an undocumented immigrant might be paid under minimum wage because they are undocumented. Their employer can blackmail them into keeping quiet about their wages by threatening to report them to ICE if they complain about their pay. They're being paid less causes them to be stuck in poverty.

Another effect of racism affecting poverty is discrimination. Society has this prejudice against African Americans in that they’re all criminals. Due to this belief, they tend to be discriminated against and not offered the same opportunities as other races. For example, a company might not want to hire an African American because they’re black and think that they’ll steal from the company due to the preconception that they’re all thieves. This means that there are fewer job opportunities for African Americans resulting in poverty.

Poverty can also be structured around age. Many of the older population face the threat of being driven into poverty due to their old age most jobs are not willing to hire an older person. Royce states that older workers can find it hard to find a job due to age discrimination and the slow rate of employment growth (Royce, 2018, p. 7163). Using sociological imagination, one of the reasons why it's hard for old people to find a job is because employers would rather hire someone younger. Younger people tend to be stronger and have more stamina compared to older people which gives them the advantage in physically demanding jobs.

For jobs on the more technical side, younger people tend to be more technologically literate compared to older people making it hard for them to get jobs in that field. This also makes it hard for people who went through a long period of unemployment to get a job since they would be behind in current technology.

Companies are also unwilling to hire older people because they want to keep a worker long-term. An older person has the chance to retire and leave the job causing the employer to use resources to find and train another worker. A younger person doesn’t carry the risk of suddenly retiring. These challenges result in poverty since older people can’t find work.

In chapter 18, Larraine spends her food stamps buying luxury foods to celebrate an anniversary after thinking about buying a TV on a layaway plan. Without using sociological imagination, one would think that someone living in poverty should have no business buying a TV or luxury food. They should instead be saving their money and only buying essential things to get by. Larraine’s friends hold this opinion and believe that Larraine herself is to blame for her situation.

Using sociological imagination, one can see why Larraine thinks buying the TV is a good idea. For starters, she believes it is a good decision since it empties money from her bank account which is good since if she has too much money saved, she loses her welfare benefits. This shows how it is difficult to escape poverty as people are afraid to save up money due to being threatened with losing their welfare. Larraine also does not see a point in saving money as she believes that she will never escape poverty leading her to treat herself with luxury goods when given the chance. She, like many other impoverished, is blamed for her own situation even though it is out of her control.