Analysis Of Jonathan Kozel's How The Poor Are Made To Pay For Their Poverty

In “How The Poor Are Made To Pay For Their Poverty” Barbara Ehrenreich argues the poor are getting exploited for their poorness not only is it the creditors and businesses it is also local government that are syphoning off money of the poor. In Jonathan Kozel’s “Preparing Minds For Market” he’s research how public schools are now leading students down a particular path of careers and marketing systems set up for just this purpose. In both essays, there are examples that the poor or less fortunate are trapped by local government and businesses and put in situations they can’t get out of which is a cycle that seems unbreakable if you don’t know the traps they set.
There are all kinds of traps that are set up for the poor to get stuck in, some include interest rates

from credit card companies and imagination stunting from school systems. The way credit companies trap the poor is by raising interest rate at a ridicules high rate, so now they pay only for the interests and never on the actual bill that was originally charged. Ehrenreich refers to credit companies as the modern day loan sharks “charging the poor insanely high rates of interest. When supplemented with late fees (themselves subject to interest), the resulting effective interest rate can be as high as 600% a year”. (380). The credit companies know full well that the poor don’t have the money to pay for their interest rates but they charge them anyway, to make matters worse they add interest onto the interests they previously charged. This makes it so the poor have to pay until they file for bankruptcy or die. Another way they are trapping the poor is by first stunting children’s imagination on future endeavors. “Turning a corner I encountered a “HELP WANTED” sign. Several of these signs, I found were posted on the walls of various locations in the school. These were not advertisements for school employees, but for children” (Kozel 302). Kozel Describes how he was in an urban school he visited and saw these advertisements for companies and businesses posted on the walls for the children. When brainwashing the first step is to get into the other persons mind, and that’s what these companies are doing to these urban city kids. These large companies and businesses don’t want the poor to know what they are doing, and to keep them in the slumps they start with the kids in school which make it easier to manipulate and control them later in life.
One of the seemingly unbreakable cycles the poor gets trapped in is the criminal correction system. “Once you have been deemed a criminal, you can pretty much kiss your remaining assets goodbye. Not only will you face the aforementioned court costs, but you’ll have a hard time ever finding a job again once you’ve acquired a criminal record”. (Ehrenreich 383). It’s no secret that after you receive a criminal record it’s hard to find a job, but what’s real freighting is the cycle you can go through. First you get sentenced and serve your time; after you serve your time you get released, and now need to find a job but since you have a record you can’t find one. This leads to unpaid bills, which can lead to lose your house. Even after becoming homeless they can still send you to jail for sleeping on the streets which completes the cycle. The other cycle that is also nearly impossible to escape is interests rates. Mentioned earlier credit companies can hike up your rates up to 600%. Although you may think you are paying for the bill you are only paying the interest and as you’re trying to pay that you are also getting charged constantly for not being able to pay the bill and it stays this way until you find a way to pay it off, file for bankruptcy or die.
Companies and even local government are forcefully molding the poor into these situations, knowing this they still continue to do so.

The way companies are molding the poor are by owning schools in the urban area and treat the kids as products not human beings. “The package of skills they learn, or do not learn, is called “the product” of the school. Sometimes the educated child is referred to as the “product” too”. (Kozel 304). Right out they don’t see students as human but one of their worker bees, a statistic in their company. As the children are being taught the businesses are micromanaging what they do so they are ready to go working for them. Kozel continues to ask that if the “product” doesn’t turn out how they like does that make them a bad investment. Companies aren’t the only ones molding the poor; it’s also the local government. “Each of these crimes, neo-crimes, and pseudo-crimes carries financial penalties as well as the threat of jail time.” (Ehrenreich 282). The reason this is forcefully molding is because when the government nitpicks at every minor infraction and give high penalties they are taking away the little money the poor have, keeping them from paying other bills and

interests.
In all, the poor are getting exploited by credit companies and local government. They give the poor so high of an interest that they are unable to pay it off. Although knowing they do it to scrap every nickel and dime they can from the poor keeping them in a cycle of poverty and interest. They don’t just start after the poor become an adult, they start when they’re in school molding their minds to reach what they have been taught with no imagination. But as one of my professors said knowing is half the battle, if you know the tricks and traps that are set up by these large companies and governments you are less likely to fall in the traps and more incline to pass it on.