Book Review Of The Unwinding By George Packer

The American Dream is the belief that anyone, regardless of where they were born or the class they were born into can attain their own version of success in a society where there is equal opportunities for everyone. The American dream is not achieved by being lazy or by chance but rather through sacrifice, risk-taking and hard work. Both native-born Americans and American immigrants who work hard can achieve the American dream.
In the book the unwinding by George Packer for example, he tells the story of a young lady from a small town in Ohio by the name Tammy Thomas. According to Packer, Tammy was born, raised and still lives in Youngstown, Ohio. Tammy's African-American. She grew up during a time when Youngstown was a steel town and it was
a union town, but around the time she was a teenager the steel mills just collapsed one after another in rapid succession and Youngstown collapsed with them so quickly that it became a kind of icon of deindustrialization. And I spent a lot of time with Tammy driving around the city, looking at the landmarks of her life and hearing her story, which was an incredible story of a woman who — her mother was a heroin addict, she was not close to her father, she had three children without their fathers really being in their lives. But she got a job in an auto parts factory and that allowed her to raise the kids and to hold herself and them together amid an absolutely disastrous situation in Youngstown.And then, around the time of the financial crisis and the election of Barack Obama, having lost her job because the auto parts factory went bankrupt, she remade herself as a community organizer and that's what she's doing now.
In the book $2.00 A Day by Edin and Shaefer narrated how close to 1.5 million American households survive on cash incomes of $2 per person daily.
Edin and Shaefer,whom are both college professors trace the history of welfare in the United States up to the changes made by President Clinton. The United States our country is well known as the land of the free and home of the brave and in turn opens up its border to accept people who seek refuge here, these people range from individuals who hail from from war torn countries, victims of elder abuse, children of poverty and people who have been persecuted in their homelands. Sometimes, people come here on tourist visas and overstay that because they desire to be a part of our country. Most Republican Politicians argue that we should find ways to include people who have contributed to the American Society and change the laws towards citizenship, rather than contradict their contributions to our country. In $2.00 a Day Edin and Shaefer talked about Jennifer Hernandez who had two children and frequently moved from one homeless shelter to another in Chicago. In the first two and a half months she spent at the shelters, she applied for more than 100 jobs before landing one with a custodial company that cleaned foreclosed houses, many of which had been broken into and trashed by squatters and junkies. While working in filthy, unheated rooms during a Chicago winter, she kept coming down with respiratory problems and viral infections that she took home to her children. She started missing work because she was sick, her hours got cut back and she was left with no option but look for another job. She even had to registered for welfare benefits which she got, when broke she would sell her ‘SNAP’ which is a felonious offense in America but she did so because she felt she needed money with her at times than food. The book also talked about Paul Heckewelder from Cleveland who had lost his house and every bit of his life savings when
his chain of pizza parlors went bust.
Currently, it is indirectly a crime to be poor in America because of the crazy presumption that all people who live under the poverty line use drugs. A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members(Mahatma Ghandi)
$2.00 a Day describes the changes in welfare that did benefit many people and at the same time sent millions more spiraling into extreme poverty. In 1996, Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed the “Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act”, which was promoted as sweeping welfare reform aimed at getting people off cash assistance and into well paying jobs. American voters liked this new law because it promoted hard work and they also approved of rewarding poor hardworking citizens.
The current president of the United states Mr. Donald Trump listed in his manifesto while he was running for president that the middle class is fading away because industrialists are taking the jobs overseas, his reasons included that the labor overseas was cheaper and the tax rate was low for goods that were being imported into the country and he vowed to give manufacturer’s tax breaks reason being because that it will help create jobs for the middle class whom have seem to have fallen close to the poverty line. Also, My Trump who claims he is for the middle class also promised tax cuts for individuals who fall in the middle class and healthcare for all after he would have repealed his predecessor's ‘Affordable Care Act’. Having approached the United States Congress in order to get the Affordable Care Act Repealed with negative result, President Trump is not giving up in getting his own health care plan accepted and passed into law by the Congress because he believes his own is much more better than the latter.
The Predicament the people in the readings faced was as a result of not having job security.
Today, most jobs have Labor unions whose leaders negotiates contracts for their members and ensure that they don’t get laid off or lose their jobs because of unnecessary reasons. In New York City, one of the most popular and strong Labor Unions is the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association which is the Union Labor Union for Police Officers in the city of New York. Homelessness in America is another major issue, people whom tend to fall into the homeless statistics are mainly the mentally challenged citizens who have no access to adequate mental health care.The ratio of homeless people in our country is very high compared to most other developed nations, in our city alone it is a major problem especially that of the mentally challenged who occupy our parks and city subway system late at night.