[dropcap]J[/dropcap]airo Gomez is a 17 year old teenager who lives in a one room apartment with his eight other family members in New York City. On WNYC´s show Radio Rookies Jairo tells reporters the story on how poverty has affected his whole life. Jairo shares a bunk bed with his sister Judy, and on the floor there are two mattresses side by side and that is where his three other sisters sleep. He explains that they have to step toe to heel to get out of the room. To earn money their mother cleans other people’s houses, and when she gets home she keeps on cleaning and along with that takes care of his younger sisters and brothers. This does not earn their family much money at all.  Jairo explains, ¨my family makes $30,000 a year. According to the federal government, we’re $15,000 below the poverty line¨. When Jairo was younger all he would be able to do is go home right after school and take care of his younger siblings.  If he said no to this, most of the money his mom would make would go to a babysitter. Jairo tells the reporters, ¨When I was younger, I felt like a robot. All I did was go home and help baby-sit and clean. I never had that freedom before — to be able to hang out and skate with my friends¨. Most of the responsibility was put on him, and that is a lot for a kid.

There are more people living in poverty or living poor lives than there are rich people in the United States.

The official poverty rate in 2015 according to the U.S Census Bureau is 13.5 percent of the people, which is 43.1 million people in the United States.  This is way more people than the ¨rich people¨ population of this country.

According to Beeghleys definition of people who are super rich ¨[t]he top .01 percent of the population, with an annual income of $9.5 million or more, received 5% of the income of the United States in 2007¨. This means that there is only 15,000 families in the United States that are considered the richest people.

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Why?

Why don’t lower class people get as good careers as the upper class?

Socioeconomics occurs more often than people think, it is time that people open their eyes to what is happening in our world today. When people start to realize that financially unstable people of the society do not get as much privileges as the rich people do then everyone can come together to make an effort to change this.

According to Politifact Wisconsin in 2011 a billionaire named Warren Buffett explains that he only paid 17.4 percent of his income in taxes, this is less then any of his 20 employees have to pay.  In a March 2012 analysis it explains that what Buffett says happens not only in his situation, ¨A “large proportion” of millionaires pay a smaller percentage of their income in taxes than a “significant proportion” of moderate-income taxpayers, said the report, which defined moderate-income as taxpayers with taxable income below $100,000.¨

According to the report, people who earn below -$100,000 pay 35 percent of their income in taxes, While millionaires are paying 30 percent of their income. Millionaires are paying less in taxes when they are the people who have the money. If they have the money for it then why are they not paying more? On the other end, poor people usually do not have the money for that. Taxes can be taking up most of their money that they earn. This is just one way that rich people get more privileges than poor people.

That is not the only example of rich people getting more privileges. Shasta Matova from toughnickle explains the disadvantages that poor people have to go through that rich people do not:

1. They might start to become dependent on the help that they receive from people
2. Others may look down on you
   

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3. You might not be able to eat as healthy
4. The struggle with supporting your family, and even care for yourself
5. You might have to go without things you want, and more importantly things you need
6. Being poor can cause a lot of stress
7. You can start to feel unworthy

Some people will help poor people when they are struggling with money and finances. They might start to rely on that help too much, and might start getting used to it. Shasta mentions, ¨If your income is close to the outside range, it may be scary to try to increase your income, because you know you will stop getting help, and sometimes the amount of help you are receiving is greater than the initial increase in income¨. People should not have to rely on other people to much for help. People should be able to care for themselves and not have to worry about anything, but in this case that is not so easy.

Another thing is that people might look down on you just because you are poor or just because you do not have as much money as they do. [perfectpullquote align=”left” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Many people tend to think of poor people as fat, lazy, and even stupid.[/perfectpullquote] Think about it, people think this way just because they are ¨poor¨. People thinking like this can make poor people feel a lot of sham. Nobody should not have to feel that way. Some of the times they can not help how their lives have turned out and they have just learned to deal with it.

The third disadvantage is that you may not be able to eat as healthy as other people can. If you are poor that is saying you do not have much money. Without money you probably can not buy healthy foods at a food market or even a grocery store. That means there is a lot of eating at fast food restaurants and most likely ordering off the dollar menu because that is the cheapest way to go. By doing that you are consuming a lot of starches. Shasta explains this by saying, ¨By eating a lot of starches, you may gain weight. You may also have medical issues¨. When having medical issues it will be hard to keep up with it because you can not go to the doctor for checkups as much as others can. You will not be able to get as much check ups because of the cost and people sometimes can not afford that.

The thing people know of the most is not being able to support your family, and even yourself. It is hard to support your family if you can barely buy the things you need, because everything cost money these days. Some might even struggle with buying things for their personal hygiene. Going along with this you may have to live without things you want, and more importantly things you need. All because you can not afford the cost.

All of this causes a lot of stress. All of the help you get, shaming, your health, and not being able to support your family can make a person very overwhelmed. All someone wants in their life is to have no trouble with finances and a happy family. Arguing with your family can start to occur just because you are trying to figure out the bills, and deal with all of the struggles and problems that occur. This is very hard on a person.

Lastly, from all of this they may start to feel unworthy. When you do not get a job you want, or someone will not pay you more, you might start to believe that is what determines your worth as a person. Shasta says, ¨Even though you have the time to clean your house, you may not have the motivation to do so. You may find that it is too expensive to fix many things that go wrong in the house, and let them go. Over time, you may habitually learn to live with problems, even problems that are cheap and easy to solve. You may develop a mentality that forgets that most problems can be solved¨. All of these things just keep piling higher and higher and you might be getting tired of all of it. Tired of trying to feed your family, or yourself, tired of always struggling to balance your job and your family, and much more. Stress can make existing problems worse. An existing problem is being poor, and all of the stress and pressure making it worse by making your mental health go down and making you feel totally unworthy and unwanted just because you are not like everyone else.

People who are rich will never know what all of this feels like.

They will never know what it feels like, and will never have to even worry about knowing. Why? just because they have a little more money, just because they can afford a simple doctor checkup, just because they can spend time with their family not having to worry about spending too much money, just because if they have a problem they can fix it right away.

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Socioecomomics happens all over and the sad thing is that it goes right over our heads and we never think about the privileges we get that poor people do not get, I am guilty of doing this also.

It is time to change, it is time to start realizing what happens, and it is time to stop and start thinking about the people who struggle in this world. Little do we know, there are more people struggling with being poor and in poverty then there are rich people in this world.

It is time to open our eyes, and it is time to make a change.

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