Extra Credit Reflection: Playspent PDF

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Davita Glasberg...

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This activity was particularly eye-opening; it truly allowed the average person to experience the shame, stress, and daily strife that millions of people in this country are forced to face. The Playspent activity is designed to mirror the day-to-day struggles of somebody who has just lost their job, has nowhere to live, and has to support a child. The activity gives the player a series of decisions: they are given their last remaining $1,000 and immediately plunged into the cruel world of making tough decisions. First, one must pick a job; all three options are low-level, often temporary jobs that pay no more than minimum wage and do not offer the consistency of a career. The next decision is finding a place to live; one may think that going the cheapest route is the best option; however, this means you live 50 miles away from work and the activity quickly reminds you that a large portion of your savings will be dedicated to transportation. Suddenly, after paying the rent, you are left with only a few hundred dollars on only the second day of the month. A series of decisions follow, both personal and financial. Examples include paying for your mother’s medication, your child’s field trip, etc. One quickly realizes that for somebody in these extremely tense circumstances, morality often has to be neglected in order for survival. As the activity goes further, I found myself opting out of healthcare, taking in a roommate, ignoring my student loans and credit card bills and eating fast food over fresh groceries. While all of these options are cheaper, they came with swift financial consequences in many cases, as well as jeopardizing my own health. At the activity’s end I was able to make it through the month with a meager $250 after donating plasma and taking out a work loan, but many of the decisions that I was forced to make would not have made me proud had they occurred in the real world. Although many concepts from this week’s chapter are applicable to the Playspent activity, the most prominent to me was economic inequality amongst the classes, particularly the conflict perspective on economic inequality, and how this inequality has a snowball effect leading to other inequalities. The conflict perspective states that the disproportionate distribution of income and wealth in the U.S. is determined by the institutions that hold the most power. In layman’s terms, because the world largely operates around monetary goods and services, people with more wealth have more power, and are therefore able to find ways to further their wealth and increase their power rather than sharing it and creating a more level playing field for the middle and lower class. One was really reminded of this phenomena during this activity; as a member of the lower class you are faced with a barrage of responsibilities and financial stress, yet you have a complete lack of resources unlike members of the middle or upper classes. Class separation became very defined after just a few decisions; the advantages that wealthier people hold over poverty-stricken people were spelled out clearly on the screen. While a wealthier person are guaranteed three meals a day and often splurge on extravagant meals, this activity

illustrated the struggle that even buying basic groceries became in the midst of financial stress. This economic inequality leads to the cyclical effect that this chapter illustrates; put simply, while the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. Yet this effect does not stop at financial matters; education and health are affected greatly too, and it becomes completely fathomable that one who was born into poverty would never be able to break out of it. Poverty is often passed down through generations because the lack of financial resources deprives one of various opportunities that may provide a way out of poverty. For example, in the activity your child is chosen to be a part of a gifted program in school; do you pay the $50 to allow him in or deny him the opportunity? For a majority of people in this situation, denying the opportunity is the safest route, as that precious $50 can be used for bills, groceries, and other basic staples of survival. A similar decision rises concerning paying for your child to go on a field trip. While the culture of poverty portrays lower class people in the U.S. as lazy, uneducated, and purposefully taking advantage of the government to pay for their needs, this activity immediately dispels this myth. While a mother may want to let her child into the gifted program, an opportunity that will likely put the child on a college-level track throughout their schooling career and give them the encouragement and guidance they need to defy poverty, the price makes this simply not possible. Eventually, this spins out of control until the child grows into the same circumstance as the mother: working a low-level job and scrounging just to survive. A similar effect takes place with health as well; opting for cheaper McDonald’s, as the activity prompts you to do, over pricey healthy foods can quickly turn into obesity, even though the person may have had no choice but to settle for fast food. They also lack the funds to join a gym or seek medical help, so the cycle persists. All in all, the activity portrayed how economic inequality affects the lower class, and how this factor immediately creates further inequality in areas such as education. Playspent is successful in portraying poverty as a vicious cycle....