Spring Break
Students face economic problems in simulation
BRIANA GERDEMAN
Issue date: 4/8/09 Section: News
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Jessica Moroney, a senior from Augusta, played the part of a pregnant teenager during a poverty simulation Monday.
Her character attended high school, cared for her younger siblings and shopped for the family's groceries.
"Just trying to get the bills paid, we didn't have enough money for groceries the first week," Moroney said. "The only way we had enough at the end was an error at the bank. They gave us $200 extra … and my dad never found a job. He looked every day."
Students gathered in the Tate Student Center Monday and simulated poverty by facing unemployment, teen pregnancy, language barriers and single parenthood - all in the span of two hours.
The event was the University's fifth poverty simulation, held as a demonstration for students in a family resource management class and a freshman seminar.
"The things that we talk about in class are broad things that influence family resources," said Sharon Nickols, a professor in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences who organized the event.
Participants are assigned a family and a particular character. Some families had a father who was laid off from a well-paying job, a mom who worked full time, a pregnant teenage daughter and two younger children. Some had an older sibling who took care of three younger siblings because their father was in jail. Others included single parents, grandparents raising their grandchildren, elderly people on a fixed income or "sandwich families," in which adults were responsible for their parents as well as their children.
Whatever the situation, simulators must find a way to pay for food, housing, utilities and transportation while juggling child care, employment and other family obligations. The simulation covers a month of time in 15 minute intervals. Each interval represents one week.
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