Paycheck: Film Analysis

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Recommended: Financial issues that lead to divorce

Paycheck to Paycheck is a documentary that explores the life of Katrina Gilbert, a single mom of three kids living in Chattanooga, Tennessee and living dangerously close to the poverty line. Just as the title of the documentary suggests, Katrina is literally living paycheck to paycheck and for several reasons. To begin with Katrina was married to a man named Jeremy for 10 years who spent most of their money on his drug addiction leaving Katrina barely anything to support herself and their children with and leaving her with no other option but to kick him out of the house. In addition, Katrina is a certified nursing assistant (CNA) that makes only $9.49 an hour which equates to $734 at the end of two weeks and all of that money gets distributed …show more content…

Looking at the legal aspects, Katrina and Jeremy were not yet divorced in the documentary because filing for and following through with divorce is such an expensive process that it was more cost efficient to just remain separated for the time being. With that being said Katrina has to give Jeremy gas money just so he can still visit his kids because he doesn’t have enough work to pay for gas himself. Similarly, the child support Katrina should be receiving from Jeremy is between $490 and $550 a month but due to his joblessness Katrina gets no support leaving it up to her to provide for their children. This issue of still funding Jeremy is detrimental to Katrina and the children because it takes away money that she already doesn’t have and leaves her with less. In regards to economic factors that affect Katrina’s life, the cost of living, providing the bare necessities, and making just above minimum wage with little to no help result in Katrina’s decision to put her children above herself and focus solely on meeting their needs before her own. In one scene Katrina goes to the salon to get her hair done as a birthday present to herself but she was reluctant to do so because she knows that part of being

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