Sample Article Review On Average Income For My Person Is $31,673.

1.
I chose a female, other race, between ages 25-34, with some college.

My person is compared to a white male and a black female. The white male makes $4,366 more than my person, at $36,038 per year. The black female makes $1,840 less than my person, at $29,834 per year.
One of the reasons for the differences in income is background. For instance, the couple in “Working Lives” both come from lower class backgrounds. Jamal’s mother was a drug addict, while Kathy was estranged from her family. They had no one to turn to for help.
“When Working Harder Does Not Pay” talks about the disproportionate amount of taxes lower income pay. If a lower income person tries to make a change and make more money, it is often predominately lost to taxes.
2) Kathy stood out to me in Newman’s “Working Lives”. In Kathy’s case she could not work because of her situation, but her husband Jamal worked. Jamal made $680 before taxes.
Jamal does not receive any benefits like the case studies in “When Working Harder Does Not Pay”, but even without the threat of a loss of assistance a raise at Burger Barn would do him little good.
According to “When Working Harder Does Not Pay”, “recent reforms to policies that affect the working poor create a barrier to workers who try to increase their families’ financial well-being through greater earnings” (Romich, Simmelink, Holt, n.p.). In the case of Jamal and Kathy they were put in an impossible situation. They needed to secure an apartment in order to get their baby back. Kathy could not work because then they would consider her neglecting her childs care, but Jamal’s salary was not enough to do anything with. Considering their need to secure a two bedroom apartment, which means having a deposit and first month’s rent, a small increase in salary would make no discernable difference for this couple.

Works Cited

Newman, Katherine S. "Working Lives." No Shame in My Game: The Working Poor in the Inner City. New York: Knopf and the Russell Sage Foundation, 1999. 3-35. Print.
Romich, Jennifer L., Jennifer Simmelink, and Stephen D. Holt. "When Working Harder Does Not Pay: Low-Income Working Families, Tax Liabilities, and Benefit Reductions." Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services 88.3 (2007): 418-26. Web.