POV: What are the effects of poverty on daily life? My film gave me, and I hope the audience as well, an opportunity to vicariously experience their struggles, their frustrations, their setbacks and their accomplishments. And we all encounter these folks every day. And that impact is something we all experience everyday.įor example, when I walked into the building I didn't really give much thought to the security guard, or when I bought lunch today, I didn't give much thought to the cashier who was checking me out. What Waging a Living is really about is the impact that those forces are having on low-wage workers today. My film is not really about all of the reasons the situation has changed over time: it's not about globalization it's not about the transition from a manufacturing-based economy to a service-based economy it's not about the diminished power of labor unions today. But I want to show that it's different for folks on the bottom of that income ladder, and in many ways the situation now is different than it was years ago. Another reason this is such a difficult topic is because we all are struggling in our own ways to make a living, so we may not have that much sympathy for others when we have our own day-to-day struggles making ends meet. I think one of the reasons is that we have difficulty accepting that people can work full time and still not get ahead, can still be unable to support their families. Weisberg: There are probably a lot of reasons that people aren't aware of how prevalent the problems of the working poor are. In addition, she receives Medicaid, food stamps, child care subsidies, utility assistance and Section 8 rental assistance. Barbara works as a recreational therapist, earning $8.25 per hour. POV: What does it mean for someone to be one of the "working poor"?īarbara Brooks of Freeport, New York. I came of age in the 60s when that kind of idealism was so prevalent, and I've managed to hold on to some of it. So part of my motivation for making these kinds of films is to have a creative outlet, but another part of my motivation is the fact that the journalist and policy wonk in me wants to try to make a difference and fix our broken world. Why do I work on those kind of films? In large measure because I've had opportunities that aren't universally available, and I feel a sense of obligation to try to examine the barriers that prevent other people from taking advantage of the kind of opportunities that were made available to me. Most of the films that I have made have been about people grappling with problems associated with poverty. When Waging a Living airs, it will mark 30 years since I went to work at WNET in New York as a producer of documentaries for public television. So I wanted to devote our energies to looking at the lives of the so-called working poor, who were stuck in these low wage jobs and couldn't support their families. There were too many barriers thwarting their ability to advance in the workforce and pull their families out of poverty. I bought into this mythology for a long time, until - in the course of making many other films for PBS - I met lots of folks for whom this American dream was exactly that, just a dream. Roger Weisberg: Like most Americans, I grew up with the idea that hard work invariably leads to success. POV: What prompted you to make Waging a Living?
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