I watched an interview with Ocean Vuong, for his latest book. The Emperor of Gladness. He talks a lot about “the working poor”, a socioeconomic class label I have *never* heard mentioned, except by Ocean. The class labels I was aware of started with ‘the working class, or blue collar workers’ at the lowest level, then the middle class, which is divided into lower and upper middle class. And the latter is what I tend to hear mentioned the most - the middle class, the upper middle class, the … upper class (multi-millionaires) / billionaires.
When I hear the term “working poor”, it’s immediately understandable. My parents were that when they first immigrated to the United States. We were poor, and they were working various types of low paying jobs.
I felt this way, the first few years after graduating with a Psychology major. I felt poor, though I had a job and was working. In my case, I suspected this was more of a personal failing, maybe. I had selective mutism for 6 years as a kid, which affected my grades in middle school, and in high school, my grades were just normal / okay. I felt that the things I really liked (drawing, reading, journaling, listening to music, watching TV) had nothing to do with making money.
There’s fear and insecurity from that time that stayed with me while I was getting my second bachelors degree (more student loans), then graduate school (more student loans), then after graduate school, getting a job with my new Master’s degree. Around that time is when my dad was laid off from his job, after the 2008 financial crisis, and was out of work for several years due to his older age. My mom worked at the post office, doing a very physical job, and I worried about her as she was also getting older. My parents owned a house, but it seemed more like a financial burden than an asset. They might not be able to afford the mortgage payments? What if nobody wants to buy the house because it’s so run-down looking?
At many points in my life, I felt like my family and I were … poor. Or like we were in a precarious situation. This viewpoint was partially based on fact at times, and partially based on relative context (what I was seeing around me), and partially on my own ignorance of the topic and of the bigger picture and how things are connected, in the financial / economic areas. It’s fair to say I knew literally next-to-nothing about it.
When Ocean talks about his family and their town, and the people they lived and worked with, as the working poor, I feel a quietness in my mind, because this is something of a scale and type I never saw or considered. I never knew about it.
A different kind of value system emerges when he talks about the working poor.
It’s different from the values that you think are present when the public dialogue, coming from news media, starts with “the working class” and more often dwells on and focuses on “the middle class”. With these latter two groups, the discussions make you think it’s more an issue of individual attitude and motivations - are the adults being responsible, are they applying themselves, are the kids doing well in school? If so, they can save up money and have the goal of buying a house and saving for retirement.
When Ocean talks about “the working poor”, the question becomes, why is nobody helping them? How can they be stuck like this, and nobody in America is giving them the basic, fundamental help that they need? Why are these work systems violent and cruel? His mom and co-workers worked from 8am to 8pm. If a customer came in at 7:55, she would be there till 9. His uncle worked from 3pm to 12am, and never saw his family members. If “everything is connected”, and America is so rich, and “life is good”, why isn’t the money flowing down to the working poor?