US Debates Causes Of ‘Working Poor’

CHUNDRA BRANTLEY: We feel like we're half a step from being outside again, or in a shelter. That bothers me. MARK SIMKIN: They can't afford a car, even though work is a 2-hour bus ride away. Chundra Brantley doesn't have enough money for reading glasses and sometimes skips meals because she can't pay the grocery bill. CHUNDRA BRANTLEY: I do. He doesn't know about it. If he did he'd be very upset because I'm pre-diabetic. So he's like, "If you skip meals you can go into a coma, if I skip a meal, it's OK". MARK SIMKIN: The Brantleys are from Texas. Two months ago when Hurricane Rita bore down on the Gulf Coast, they joined the mass exodus. Their house was smashed and they can't afford to return, but they don't blame the storm for their troubles, they blame the industrial relations system and the safety net that's full of holes. CHUNDRA BRANTLEY: We don't have vision, medical, dental. If anything were to happen to us, we're pretty much out of luck. There's Medicaid for us, for if we have a medical emergency we can go to a hospital and I think we only pay like a percentage back. But, we don't have anything to put towards a percentage. If you're not dying or bleeding to death you're not going to the hospital. MARK SIMKIN: According to media reports, the Brantleys are not alone. There's a story here about a family in New York. The mother and father both worked full-time but the woman fell sick and they got behind on their rent payments. An armed marshal threw the family out of their apartment and the two adults and six children spent seven months sleeping on public transport. You don't have to travel to New York to realise the world's biggest economy has a poverty problem. Just minutes from the heart of the nation's capital, a charity is handing out food and clothing to people who can't buy their own. LESLIE WHITE: We assist over 10,000 people every month. The poverty in the district is really quite extreme. It's edging on 20 per cent. MARK SIMKIN: In the United States if a family of four earns less than $19,000 a year, it's officially living in poverty. Nearly 40 million people meet that criteria. JARED BERNSTEIN: If you look at any American city and the amount of income you need for decent and safe housing, to pay for child care if you're a working family - and I should say safe child care - a place where you would feel comfortable leaving your kids, health care, if you want to save a little for college costs here, which have been going off the charts lately, you really need something like twice that poverty threshold. You really need income in the range of $30,000-$35,000 in order to make ends meet in a way I would recognise as safe and reliable. http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2005/s1521256.htm

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