Argumentative Essay On Poverty

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Poverty sucks.
That poster was the only piece of art I ever remember hanging in my home, prominently displayed in the living room, while growing up. That image, of a well dressed gentleman, holding a cocktail while leaning against a luxury automobile, has always stuck in my mind. To me, the social issue of poverty is especially concerning in a country as wealthy as America, a country that prides itself as "the land of opportunity." But what is it about the condition of poverty that "sucks"? In this week 's course information essay, we learned of three consequences of poverty: making compromises regarding daily necessities, elevated levels of stress, and stunted development and potential. Many middle class families can relate to making compromises, like choosing community college to ease the financial burden of higher education, or cutting the cable movie package to pay for your children 's swimming lessons. But our societies poorest must make compromises, not for incidentals, but for daily necessities like food, or medication. For example, this article from The Independent reports …show more content…

In fact, Ben Bernanke, once chair of the Federal Reserve, considers the great recession to have been worse than the Great Depression, according to this article from CNN. As major financial institutions threatened insolvency and confidence in the American banking system faltered, billions of taxpayer dollars were funneled into so called "bail outs" for corporations considered "too big to fail," as 1.2 million homes were lost to foreclosure, as reported by NBC news. America 's recovery since 2009 has not been much help to ease the financial woes of the poorest Americans. According to the Pew research center, from 2009 to 2011, the richest 7% of Americans saw a 28% increase in net worth, while the poorest 93% actually saw a 4%

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