Unit B- Blog 5

In the reading, Putting Children First, Chaudry argued that, "we were asking the least fortunate to strive and work harder, we were deeply discounting our public responsibility for the children born into poor families and disadvantages" (page 14). The reason he argued this point was because of the welfare reform that went into act in 1966. The Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1966, changed the policy for working mothers to get assistance. Now there were strict work requirements that had to have been met in order to get assistance which cause mothers to put their "work first, before their children needs" (pg. 14). Chaudry argued this point because while the government were placing strong guidelines on assistance and pushing mothers to work and work harder, children were being born to disadvantages. There were not as many opportunities for children that were being born in this environment due to the welfare reform that taken into effect.

In the videos there were many valid arguments and points that had been said. Currently, according to the Poverty in America video, if a family of four makes less than 20,614 then that family is living in poverty. The video displayed that there are "37 million people" that is currently living in poverty. This many people living in poverty clearly identifies that it is more of a public issue than a personal problem. The videos supports Chaudry perception because they give facts and also identify ways that can help poverty. One of the issues that was repeatedly addressed was raising minimum wage to decrease poverty. The videos address how the working poor barely have enough funds to make ends meet as well as they are forced to work long hours to achieve those funds. Sometimes that can conflict with assistance, if a person is working long hours and by chance make one dollar above the guidelines for assistance they are denied. This becomes a problem because even if that person really do need the assistance they are not able to achieve it because they do not reach the guidelines for assistance.