Editing Working poor (section)

{{short description|Working people whose incomes fall below the poverty line}}
{{for|the book|The Working Poor}}
{{essay|date=November 2014}}
{{Globalize|article|USA|2name=the United States|date=July 2019}}
[[File:Working women 04.jpg|thumb|Poor women working on a railway track]]
The '''working poor''' are working people whose incomes fall below a given [[poverty line]] due to low-income jobs and low familial household income. These are people who spend at least 27 weeks in a year working or looking for employment, but remain under the poverty threshold.<ref name="Sykes 243–267">{{Cite journal|last1=Sykes|first1=Jennifer|last2=Križ|first2=Katrin|last3=Edin|first3=Kathryn|last4=Halpern-Meekin|first4=Sarah|date=April 2015|title=Dignity and Dreams: What the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) Means to Low-Income Families|journal=American Sociological Review|language=en|volume=80|issue=2|pages=243–267|doi=10.1177/0003122414551552|s2cid=154685898|issn=0003-1224}}</ref>

In the United States, the official measurement of the working poor is controversial. Many social scientists argue that the official measurements used do not provide a comprehensive overview of the number of working poor. One recent study proposed over 100 ways to measure this and came up with a figure that ranged between 2% and 19% of the total United States population.<ref>Thiede, Brian C., et al. "America's Working Poor: Conceptualization, Measurement, and New Estimates." ''Work and Occupations'', vol. 42, no. 3, Aug. 2015, pp. 267–312, {{doi|10.1177/0730888415573635}}</ref>

There is also controversy surrounding ways that the working poor can be helped. Arguments range from increasing welfare to the poor on one end of the spectrum to encouraging the poor to achieve greater self-sufficiency on the other end, with most arguing varying degrees of both.