After reading and discussing Barbara Ehrenreich’s book, titled Nickel and Dimed: on Not Getting By In America, I had a new found sympathy for the people going through these types of situations every day. Similarly, I grew up poor, we couldn’t afford name brand shoes and everything I owned was used and from a swap meet, essentially a flea market. Being under the poverty line requires a different mindset, and a different form of surviving. Looking back, I never questioned why our family couldn’t afford certain things. My father was unable to take any days off work, in order to make ends meet. And although we have managed to escape it, I don’t take the privilege I’ve gained for granted. He couldn’t leave work early, it was money we desperately needed to pay the mortgage, and we were lucky enough to afford the one we have. These people who are stuck in the “trap” that is poverty rarely escape. We are stuck without the best that the world has to offer because of financial struggle. I understood the struggle these people went though, and although I was a child during that time, I remember what my parents went through every day to make we ate every day. Like I said, I couldn’t sympathize before, because all I ever thought about was how nice it was to not be them anymore. But I had to sit back and realize that it might as well been. If one decision wasn’t made my family could have stayed in the situation we were in, and that the one we didn’t have it as bad. Because at least we had healthcare, and a stable home environment. Working 40 hours a week won’t get you anywhere, especially out of poverty.