When Work Disappears Essay Example
When Work Disappears Essay Example

When Work Disappears Essay Example

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  • Pages: 4 (1019 words)
  • Published: December 3, 2017
  • Type: Analysis
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When Work Disappears Americans believe that inner city residents, mainly African Americans, struggle to survive and choose violence and crime intentionally, and that they are lazy and unmotivated to improve their lifestyle. However, William Julius Wilson, writer of When Work Disappears, disagrees with these thoughts, and he believes that results of joblessness have caused the violent behavior and the poverty in inner cities. Wilson states,”Many of today’s problems in the inner-city neighborhoods—crime, family dissolution, welfare—are fundamentally a consequence of the disappearance of work.

He also explains how this problem will cause “lasting and harmful consequences” if it is not addressed. He also believes that there are practical solutions to these problems and writes, “…those solutions are at hand. ” To begin, Wilson explains how location of jobs,

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cost of child care and medical insurance, training and education required for jobs, and racial segregation are factors of joblessness in these inner cities. Each of these factors caused many people in the inner cities to become unemployed.Some cause people to become unqualified to work, and some cause inner cities residents to become obsolete.

One factor makes the job too far away and causes the people unable to get to the job. Furthermore, location of the jobs is one major factor of out of work people in inner cities. Since 1960, many businesses moved away from the inner cities toward the suburbs where there were better dealings, and this caused the struggle for inner city residents to find jobs.Employment was available in suburbs, but most inner city residents did not own automobiles and could not afford public transportation to leave the city to get to their jobs. Thes

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changes in job locations cause much crime and violence because they could make more money illegally (drug deals, pimps, etc.

) than legally, which paid minimum wage. In addition, the cost of childcare and medical insurance causes residents of inner cities to not work and get public aid. People may think that people who are not working do not want to have a job, but this is not true and only a myth.Wilson gives an example of a mother in a “new poverty neighborhood” that was on welfare even though she wanted to be employed, and she says that, while she was working, she was making only $7 an hour. Since she couldn’t pay the babysitter or get medical insurance for her children, she applied for public aid, and she could not even find a job that her benefits. Moreover, the advancement in technologies causes higher requirements for education and training for potential employees, and the lack of education in the inner cities cause the residents to fall short of these requirements.

Wilson speaks about the lack of motivation the teachers have to teach their students will great enthusiasm, the lack of skills the teachers had, and the overcrowding of schools. A woman gave details on how her daughter isn’t going to a public school because since they don’t get the amount of money a private school makes, the teachers do not care and the schools are overcrowded. There are also no schools that give the specific training that particular jobs require from their employers. Along with the other factors, the one factor that has a historic legacy is the factor of racial segregation.Wilson illustrates how

race can affect whether a person is hired or not, and the fact that most inner city residents are African American makes it harder for them to become employed. Wilson asked an employer of a car transport company if race affected work ethics and he said that it definitely does.

He said that the Asians are more “aggressive and intelligent,” the Hispanics put everything off for another day, and the native-born blacks were” the laziest of the bunch. ” This shows that many employers discriminate African Americans as the lazy and undetermined workers, which makes it hard for them to gain employment.Employers also discriminate against the way they believe every African American speaks in an unprofessional manner, and Wilson gives an example on how the president of an advertising agency refused to give a job to a “black man” because he used “ax” and “ask. ” A secretary told an African American in confidence that at the end of the day, all the applications for employment from African Americans are ripped up and thrown away. In conclusion, USA inner cities’ unemployed residents have greatly increased over the last couple of years, and Wilson believes four major factors are ausing this.

First, the moving of jobs away from the city causes people not being able to transport to potential jobs. Second, the high cost of childcare and health insurance causes employees to quit their minimum wage jobs to apply for welfare. Third, the technological advances causes jobs to require higher education and training for potential employers, and since the schools in the inner cities are unmotivated and ineffective, residents of the inner city loose those potential

jobs.Fourth, the long lasting racial discrimination of African Americans decline the amount of jobs that African Americans have an actual chance of getting.

A solution, based on Gemeinschaft, is for the community in the inner city to establish a basic moral of racial nondiscrimination while reviewing potential employees. In addition, there could be a system of master and apprentice so a person can receive the specific training needed to be hired in certain jobs. Another Gemeinschaft solution can be that employers provided transportation and carpooling for their employees to help their transportation needs.Other solutions, based on Gesellschaft, are to reward schools who provide excellent education. For example, if a school creates an average of a ‘B’ or greater for each student, the school will receive a bonus from the government, and this will provide motivation for the teachers and schools.

Another solution will also reward employers who provide benefits (childcare at the office and medical insurance) with their employment with tax cuts. This will encourage employers to provide benefits which will allow people, who want to work but can’t because of children, to work.

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