At least in the United States, less than 4% of households report under 5,000 USD in taxable income, while between 14% and 20% of households are defined as under the poverty line (depending on source). The official BLS numbers put it at 10.4 million people who are ‘working poor’, aka working or looking-for-work for half the year and also under the poverty line (pdf warning), and a little over three quarters of households under the poverty line have at least one person who fits into the “working poor” category. This is further complicated by income disparities and cost of living varying heavily from state-to-state: one can live much more comfortably on 20k in the midwest than on 40k in California.
Reading the article again, I don’t quite understand why a person with two jobs complaining about a lack of time is also attending a school. Okay, it would make sense if the school is necessary for getting a better job in the future.
A little over half of off-campus college students live under the poverty line, making up a significant part of total poverty . There’s a perception that a degree (and usually a four-year-degree) is necessary for any desirable “real” (non-retail non-fast food) job. Worse, there’s a perception that any degree is both necessary and sufficient for long-term “real” jobs. So you do get a lot of people trying to take classes and make ends meet at the same time, even if the system eventually shoves them out the door with a lot of student loans and a liberal arts degree that barely improves their options (or not even that: low-income folk who drop out get screwed even worse).
It’s probably not the average case, but it does make up a non-trivial portion of the total.
((On the other hand, many of the issues raised in the linked blog post show problems related to information access. “Sliding scale” payments usually mean nearly free for a low-income mother, in the odd case where she doesn’t qualify for Medicaid. The documentation necessary to set up even a post-9/11 bank account is less than that necessary to get most forms of public assistance including WIC or TANF, while there are other complex reasons people in poverty avoid bank accounts. It’s quite possible to cook basic staples with nothing more than a microwave, a plate, and a couple pieces of silverware, but that’s not really something that’s taught in Home Ec or cookbooks. And the depression self-diagnosis is… not robust.))
another emerging issue is that degrees can have a negative utility these days. if your degree can’t land you a “real” job, and employers who would otherwise take you now see you as ‘overqualified’, your options are more limited than if you never went to college in the first place.
At least in the United States, less than 4% of households report under 5,000 USD in taxable income, while between 14% and 20% of households are defined as under the poverty line (depending on source). The official BLS numbers put it at 10.4 million people who are ‘working poor’, aka working or looking-for-work for half the year and also under the poverty line (pdf warning), and a little over three quarters of households under the poverty line have at least one person who fits into the “working poor” category. This is further complicated by income disparities and cost of living varying heavily from state-to-state: one can live much more comfortably on 20k in the midwest than on 40k in California.
A little over half of off-campus college students live under the poverty line, making up a significant part of total poverty . There’s a perception that a degree (and usually a four-year-degree) is necessary for any desirable “real” (non-retail non-fast food) job. Worse, there’s a perception that any degree is both necessary and sufficient for long-term “real” jobs. So you do get a lot of people trying to take classes and make ends meet at the same time, even if the system eventually shoves them out the door with a lot of student loans and a liberal arts degree that barely improves their options (or not even that: low-income folk who drop out get screwed even worse).
It’s probably not the average case, but it does make up a non-trivial portion of the total.
((On the other hand, many of the issues raised in the linked blog post show problems related to information access. “Sliding scale” payments usually mean nearly free for a low-income mother, in the odd case where she doesn’t qualify for Medicaid. The documentation necessary to set up even a post-9/11 bank account is less than that necessary to get most forms of public assistance including WIC or TANF, while there are other complex reasons people in poverty avoid bank accounts. It’s quite possible to cook basic staples with nothing more than a microwave, a plate, and a couple pieces of silverware, but that’s not really something that’s taught in Home Ec or cookbooks. And the depression self-diagnosis is… not robust.))
another emerging issue is that degrees can have a negative utility these days. if your degree can’t land you a “real” job, and employers who would otherwise take you now see you as ‘overqualified’, your options are more limited than if you never went to college in the first place.