Milwaukee has been singing its own praises about their low unemployment rate, but upon closer examination, we see that many of these jobs pay very low wages. One of the major causes of this movement from fewer relatively higher paying jobs, to an abundance of lower paying jobs is the de- industrialization of society. Many of the mechanical and other industrial jobs have moved to places where labor is much cheaper and these highly skilled jobs have been replaced by low skill, low paying service jobs. Another key issue is minimum wage. The minimum wage has not increased with inflation as much as it should have.
Families are no longer able to maintain a comfortable living on one minimum wage income.
And since many new jobs only pay minimum wage, we see that large increase in the working class poor. The text, of course illustrates some other views on poverty. The two major views highlighted in the text are the blame the poor view and the blame society view. The blame the poor view essentially says that the poor are responsible for their own poverty. They are poor because they have few skills, little schooling, and no motivation.