Document Type

Thesis

First Faculty Advisor

Enos, Sandra

Keywords

working families; new york city; poverty; survival strategies

Publisher

Bryant University

Abstract

The main focus for this project was to find out how working families survive life in New York City which is known to be one of the most expensive places to live on earth. In effort to find answers to this, I visited the city for a period of two weeks to observe the lives of locals and also to interact with them. After days of interactions and gathering information, it was evident that there is a huge population of working families in New York who struggle to make ends meet. It was also made clear that these families do have several strategies for surviving life in the city. A common theme that run through the different strategies of survival was a communal effort to survive, especially in communities of color. Everyone looked out for each other one way or the other and that is how working families managed to survive living in New York City. I also observed that these families are facing further threats due to gentrification and a lack of public welfare policies that promote moving up the economic ladder to self-sufficiency.

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