Often when we think about the impact of poverty we think about things such as difficulties obtaining basic necessities (housing, food, heat), a lack of transportation, and the inability to save for your child's college fund. These are all very real and serious ways in which poverty impacts individuals but there is another way that we often neglect to think about: work. This goes beyond unemployment, underemployment, or working multiple jobs, to issues within certain policies and expectations that make it difficult for people of lower economic statuses to thrive at work. This is not something that I had given much thought to until I attended Part 1 of "Poverty in an Unequal Economy -- and what we can do about it."  The PJC hosted this workshop by Equity Solutions on October 12. 

 

One of the first activities we participated in was called Ten Chairs. This activity consisted of one participant laying out across seven chairs while nine others shared the remaining three. Not only was this a striking visual representation of how much wealth and power the top 1% has in comparison to the bottom 99% but it also highlighted our misguided response to this problem. Instead of calling out the system and fighting to gain the extra chairs that they deserved, the nine participants were left trying to get their small sliver of three chairs. As with most people in America today, they had been conditioned to fight over crumbs when there is still an entire cake before them .