Frontline Two American Family Reflection Paper

In preparation for this reflection paper I watched Frontline: Two American Families, read two peer reviewed articles, and reflected on the personal experiences I had with poverty in my own life. As I watched the families of the Newman’s and the Stanley’s grow over the course of twenty years I could not help but notice how their lives are a mere reflection of not just my life, but the lives of almost every family in America who struggle to put food on the table and clothes on their children’s back. This documentary served as a representation of many social issues, one in particular is poverty. A moment with the father of the Stanley household stood out to me the most. It was a moment when he was being interviewed at the age of sixty, still working himself to the bone to try to provide for his family. The interviewer asked him the question, “how

long can you go on like this?” Referring to the long hours he was putting into his jobs. He responded by saying, “Not much longer”. At that moment in the broadcast, the fear of their future flashed before my eyes, and I put myself in his shoes. I realized that when you are in poverty you cannot just stop; you have to do what you can so that you can survive. In that moment I gained a new understanding of what poverty was. You see, poverty isn’t just a condition that you are faced with for a moment because of not having an education or a job. Poverty is a curse that you deal with every second of your life. Poverty is waking up one morning and going to your job only to find out that you are being laid off, and as we see from the example of the Stanley’s father, poverty is working your hardest every day, and despite the matter of how hard you work you will always have to work that much harder to get yourself out of the cycle of poverty that you were born in. There were many social welfare themes that came to mind as I watched this documentary, one theme from the social work code of ethics is service. In most poverty cases families are not always educated on the services and the programs that are available to them. For example, both parents in the Newman household worked long hours and their children often had to return to an empty home. There are services and programs put into play that provides after school care for children whose parents are at work. This is one of the few examples of how services could help families in poverty.
Examine
According to the U.S census bureau, “In the year 2014, 47 million people lived in poverty in the U.S.” Over the years there have been many programs such as the War on Poverty program- which used food stamps and social security, to help solve some of the issues of poverty. However, none of these programs seemed to be enough to end poverty altogether. While doing research, I came to understand what our social welfare book calls the “structural causes of poverty” which concludes that poverty creates a vicious cycle leaving the poor trapped in their current situation not just for that generation but the generations to come. As I watched the 2 American families grow over the course of twenty years, there were only one person out of the nine children in the two families who graduated college and went on to start a career. That person in a way beat the odds of the poverty stricken society that was against him. This example demonstrates just how hard it is to break the cycle of poverty. With all the social welfare programs put in place to end poverty, the question is, why haven’t we achieved more than we have today? I’ve come to conclude that programs and services aren’t just enough. Stapleton 1993 study of victims in poverty shows that recipients who receive aid in most cases found it difficult to sustain themselves without continued assistance. His study shows that “When a higher proportion of those being assisted began receiving relief, large numbers would remain in poverty until death” (Stapleton 2013). This study offers the opinion that accepting welfare is like stepping into quicksand, it’s easy to get into but hard to live without the dependence of it. Edman 2012 gives a solution to poverty by stating that, “The first thing needed if we’re to get people out of poverty is more jobs that pay decent wages. The need for good jobs extends far beyond the current crisis; we’ll need a full-employment policy if we’re to have any hope of breaking out of the current economic malaise” (Edman 2012). This strategy asserts that by providing more jobs with better wages an individual can potentially work our way out of poverty. While Edman presents a strong argument, Joel Berg opposes it in his article by proposing that welfare programs should be cut and that poverty is caused by people trying to live above their means. He implies that, “The main cause of domestic poverty is irresponsible behavior by poor people.” (Berg 2013) Bergs viewpoint offers a different perspective on this topic because although welfare is an important part of the society that we live in, there are millions of people taking advantage of the welfare system. Berg’s argument also allowed me to put into perspective how many people use welfare as a crutch and an excuse not to work. While both of these authors make strong arguments I tend to lean more toward Edmans argument in this case because as we’ve seen from the documentary once the Newman and the Stanly family were laid off from their high paying cooperate jobs, it seemed impossible for them to find another job to pay similar wages. I don’t think jobs with higher wages could end poverty, I do think it could be a short term solution
Articulate Learning
What I Learned:
I’ve learned many things from the research done on the causes of poverty.

Like these two families, I’ve watched everyone in my family end up under the curse of poverty, allowing me to come to the biased opinion that there is no way out. Before my research, I thought more towards the ideas of the structural causes of poverty, living with the fear that just like my family I may end up in poverty. The differentiating perspectives allowed me to see both sides of this social issue. Berg’s viewpoint made me realize that taking away welfare programs, may create an incentive for individuals to work harder if the welfare systems that they’ve use as a crutch were taken away. While Edmans argument on jobs with higher wages, gave me new insights on how having higher wages will help benefit those in poverty. My opinion on this issue is that the government should put money into more programs that benefit the people. One of this should include education, the average college student goes to school, only to come out thousands of dollars in debt. How can we be expected to get out of poverty when we go to college only to end up in

debt.
Its importance:
As a developing social worker, this issue is very important to providing services to clients who are living in poverty today. Because being born into poverty it may seem like there is no way out. Doing research on this topic not only allowed me to develop myself in the way that I see poverty but it also provides me with information that I can give when dealing with clients living in poverty in the future. This is important because in most cases people living in poverty are not aware of the services that are available to them.

Integration of new ideas:
Now that I’ve done research on the topic of poverty, one thing from the video that I’ve noticed is that there was no one available to provide services for these two families. As I develop as a social worker, I will continue to do research by studying families and finding out what strategies work when dealing with clients in poverty.