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Getting Ahead is hard to Do

This article explores the challenges faced by individuals trying to move up economically, including changes in the labor market, workplace violations, the failed promise of higher education, barriers to homeownership, an unreliable safety net, and growing debt.

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Getting Ahead is hard to Do

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  1. Getting Ahead is hard to Do Kristin S. Seefeldt UM School of Social Work and Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy

  2. Assumptions about poverty • Deeply engrained beliefs that poverty is often the result of personal failings • Embedded in anti-poverty policy is that people experiencing poverty should emulate behavior of the middle class: • Work steadily • Become educated • Save and invest • Much of our safety net is structured as programs of “last resort”

  3. Why is Getting Ahead So Difficult? • Economic, policy, and political changes have altered the structures of opportunity • Labor, post-secondary, and housing markets do not offer the same opportunities for advancement and wealth building • Social protections have been stripped away, leaving families exposed to great financial risk • Families are not only unable to move up economically, but they are left in debt from both their investments in the future and their struggles to make ends meet.

  4. Employment and Stalled Mobility • Changes in the labor market – “just in time” scheduling; contingent employment; “gig economy” etc • Working alone • Workplace violations

  5. Working Alone Why does working alone matter? • Invisible to employer (easier to fire?) • No connections to others (harder to learn from others, harder to organize, harder to form bonds?) • Many low wage jobs are isolating

  6. Workplace Violations • Unjust firing can be litigated • In the low wage labor market, workers are unlikely to go this route • Having previously endured abusive behavior in the workplace, they may not know that recourse could be available • With workplace isolation- few ways to learn about options

  7. The Failed Promise of Higher Ed • Different educational markets=> • For-profit institutions • Community colleges • Online coursework • Degree completion is low • Completing a degree does not necessarily provide upward mobility

  8. Abandoned by the American Dream of Home Ownership • Redlining • Arson • Predatory Lending • No $ for home improvements (including improving energy efficiency)

  9. Unreliable Safety Net • Families could not count on benefits • Obtaining them often entailed fighting with lawyers, employers, and bureaucrats • Employers and their lawyers contested filings for Unemployment and other work-related benefits

  10. Debt • Insufficient income from work and safety net leads to debt • Use of credit cards to pay basic expenses • Non-payment of some bills to pay others- DTE bills • Upward mobility attempts contributed to debt • High interest rates and low income prevented paying down of debt

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