In the article Too Poor to Make the News that appeared in The New York Times on the 13 of June, the author Barbara Ehrenreich predicts the emergence of a new class called ‘the Nouveau Poor’. Ehrenreich believes that this inequality that can be seen for a couple of decades will be leveled by ‘recession porn’. With this term she refers to a new genre of media that makes peoples’ lives harder and forces to refuse from habitual and beloved things. (Ehrenreich)
Barbara Ehrenreich in her article Too Poor to Make the News answers on the question that disturbs a lot of people: “What are the stations between poverty and destitution?” (Ehrenreich)
In the article Ehrenreich talks about the reaction on the term she introduced and quotes Davin Corona “The organizers even expressed a certain impatience with the Nouveau Poor, once I introduced the phrase. If there’s a symbol for the recession in Los Angeles, Davin Corona of Strategic Actions for a Just Economy said, it’s “the policeman facing foreclosure in the suburbs.” The already poor, he said — the undocumented immigrants, the sweatshop workers, the janitors, maids and security guards — had all but “disappeared” from both the news media and public policy discussions.” (Ehrenreich)
This is what Barbara Ehrenreich says about the working poor: “But the outlook is not so cozy when we look at the effects of the recession on a group generally omitted from all the vivid narratives of downward mobility []” (Ehrenreich)
“Disappearing with [the poor] is what may be the most distinctive and compelling story of this recession” adds Ehrenreich.
The fact that a lot of women from different social groups fall back on strip clubs that in their turn also get hit by recession is commented by Ehrenreich in the following way: “The rural poor are turning increasingly to “food auctions,” which offer items that may be past their sell-by dates.” (Ehrenreich)
In Too Poor to Make the News Barbara Ehrenreich refers to the words of Candy Hill, a vice-president of Catholic Charities U.S.A.: “All the focus is on the middle class — on Wall Street and Main Street — but it’s the people on the back streets who are really suffering.” (Ehrennreich)
Work Cited
Ehrenreich, Barbara. "Too Poor To Make The News". Nytimes.com. N.p., 2009. Web. 28 Aug. 2016.
