Over the course of this project our team sought out to understand what it means to be working poor, who the working poor are, and if that term properly represents them. We began by researching Arkansas incomes by county, and interpreting the data. The numbers seemed bleak. There were steep rates of single mothers in poverty, especially in comparison to the general community. According the the U.S. Census some races in the Northwest Arkansas area have poverty rates that reach over 50 percent. We also found that the higher the median income for a community the lower the amount of people whose annual income was $25,000 or less. The association with median income, and those with a low annual income made the solution seem to be raising wages. However, there was far more to be uncovered through our in-person interviews with low wage workers in Northwest Arkansas.
When we moved on to interviewing low wage workers, there were a few necessities we needed to keep in mind. Our interviewees must work full time, they must be making something close, or equal to minimum wage, and that we should aim to find a diverse, thought-provoking subject. With the research we had conducted there was intimidation in starting the process, the numbers had made the low wage employees’ situation seem like an unrelenting struggle–in Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich in which as an embedded reporter, she takes on the role of working poor in Florida for an extended period. Her experiences are very humbling as she pinches pennies, goes hungry, and physically and mentally drains herself to make ends meet. There was pressure to represent the people who were opening up to us about their work and personal life with dignity. One man I interviewed at a barbershop while he was cutting hair and said his number one goal was to be able to leave something to his children. He told me about his closeness with his clients, and pride in his position. One of our reporters, Andrew Epperson was able to interview a woman that had overcome homelessness, and now works to do the same for others at a local homeless resource, 7 Hills. Another reporter, Ann Claire Johnson interviewed a man working as a gas station clerk, while homeless, and pursuing his GED. The commonality in the array of people that we spoke to was their uplifting attitudes. Apprehension became insignificant to the overwhelming air of positivity in the interviews of people matching the requirements we were seeking. These working poor people never offered complaints, they consistently portrayed hope for working to be better, and that accomplishing more was within their grasp.
Something to consider is the definition of working poor, and if that definition is correctly representing the people. We took the experiences of 20 different people that could fall under the category of working poor. If you define working poor as an employed person, making less than or equal to $25,000. At times even when the interviewee met this description, they accounted for luxuries they could afford and time they were able to spend for themselves, or their families. Interviewees often didn’t define themselves as poor, many considered their lifestyles to be middle class. What does working poor mean to you?
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