Online Assignment

The purpose of this assignment is to look at documents presented by the LSNJ, such as The Real Cost of Living in NJ and A Desperate and Widening Divide and to put these studies into context by seeing how the six families studied in Lareau’s Unequal Childhoods would fare in Essex County. The perception is that as educators our students will tend to be represented by one of the nine archetypes represented by Lareau’s study. As teachers in NJ—possibly Essex County, a county with which we as students are familiar—it is further important to be aware of our students’ financial and socioeconomic situations. Therefore, this analysis and comparison of data allows us as teachers to get even closer to the reality of our students and their lives.

Comparing The Real Cost of Living in NJ with the families in Lareau’s Unequal Childhoods paints a grim picture indeed. Of the families studied, only the most affluent families—those of the Tallingers and Williamses—should make it easily in Essex County. Of the remaining families, only Marshalls just get by; even then, it really is just getting by. In Essex county a four-person family with 2 adults and 2 school-aged children costs about $50,000 per year per parent. Therefore, in such straits, the minimum for this lifestyle in Essex Country is $100,000 per year. Ergo, the Marshalls, who made $100,000 in the study, seem to fit perfectly. However, there is a caveat: Based on the report, we learned that Mrs. Marshall felt uneasy about their living situation; working as a computer programmer, she felt as though employment was tenuous at best. Given Mr. Marshall’s employment as a civil servant, were Mrs. Marshall loses her job, there can be little doubt that a major life-style change would be necessary.

Then there are the families who wouldn’t make it in Essex County—The Taylors, the Brindles, the McAllisters, the Drivers, the Yanellis, and even surprisingly the Handlons. The tragedy here is two-fold. In terms of low-income families like the Taylors, Brindles, McAllisters, Drivers, and Yanellis, it begs the question, how do low-income families get by in Essex County. Not every town is Newark, and not every town is Livingston: Essex County is a varied county, with a gamut of salaries, ethnicities, and classes. From Lareau’s study, these five families represented the students I will encounter from low-income families. But if they can’t make it in Essex County, let alone in Lower Richmond, how will this affect their lives, school attendance, and performance?

As I mentioned earlier, the issue of families not making it in Essex County is two-fold. In the case of low-income families, the impact is apparent. However, the impact is less apparent for those families from middle-income households. In this case, I am referring directly to the Handlons who miss the 100K per year mark for 4-person families by 5K to15K. $85K to $95K per year is no small amount of money, and given that yearly income, most Americans would pigeonhole them as middle-class. Regardless, it just goes to show how expensive Essex County is, and further begs the question: If a 4-person family (as most American families are) requires $100K just to be self-sufficient (neglecting miscellany like activities), what happens to the rest? It is a daunting prospect, indeed.3

Matters for low-income families become worse when you take LSNJ’s A Desperate and Widening Divide into account. These families—many of whom are on public assistance and live in the projects—would have to move to Newark, if they chose to move to Essex county. Those families which would most likely fall into this category include: the Brindles, the McAllisters, and possibly the Yanellis.

(The Yanellis, however are hard to quantify because we don’t know how much Mr. Yanelli takes home, or the hours that Mrs. Yanelli works. As at one time they both worked off the books, however, I suspect underhandedness on the parts of their employers; ergo, I have placed them into the low-income category, as opposed to the working-class category.)

Living in Newark, however, would be no boon for these families, for in the ten year previous, the median household income for residents fell by about $1200! This is a staggering amount of money for any group, but would be devastating for those families that don’t have much to start. At the same time, the Brindles and McAllisters are textbook examples of those families most struck by poverty: They are households run by single female mothers. Couple this notion with that statistic that Essex county’s poverty rate has grown by 8.9% over the course of 10 years, and it is not difficult to imagine the great hurdles over which families would need to leap to escape poverty.

Group in the working class families—the Taylors and Drivers—and the picture grows worse. The Taylors at $20,000 would find themselves far below the median household income for families in Essex County. According the PRI, they are also in effective poverty, seeing as Ms. Taylor makes under $27,000 per year. Given that the monthly cost of food for an adult and three children is about $639, or $7668 per year, a good 38% of her paycheck, Ms. Taylor may have to forego such luxuries as monthly trips to Sizzler and yearly trips to the beach. At the same time, the Drivers make at $45,000 per year. Accordingly, the Drivers are not in effective poverty, and are just at the Median Household income for Essex County Residents. However, they do represent a 4-person household, and as such require $55,000 more in order to be self-sufficient. This comparison begs the question: How would other Essex County residents in the Drivers’ situation get by? As I have mentioned before, 4-person families are common, so it stands to reason that the median household income for a country would be sufficient. Results such as these are greatly disappointing.
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As a budding math teacher, I find all this information invaluable. As a potential urban educator, it gives me a good picture of my students before entering the classroom. It also illustrates how vastly expensive it is to live in New Jersey, and asks questions about those families that don’t make 100K per year. It also highlights the great disparity in income increase. Why should the most poverty-stricken community only see a $144-increase in median household salary over a period of 10 years, while the most affluent communities see a $5,000 to $8,000 increase? It is greatly unfair, and students need to not only know about it, but should learn about it, and use that knowledge to excel.

This, as in Jin’s blog, leads me to how this is useful to me as a budding math teacher. It all comes down to mathematics, and in the case of our Curriculum Inquiry Project—Social Justice Math. Using social justice math, I can devise lessons that will enlighten students—and not just those from poorer communities—as to the economic difficulties and out-right poverty that exists in New Jersey. But at the same time, being aware of these difficulties also enables me to construct lessons that are strongly mathematics-based and which when coupled with social justice issues will enable me to develop critical thinkers, both in terms of mathematics (and later their careers), and in terms of society. And maybe out that some sort of change is possible.