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The documentary, Poor Us: An Animated History of Poverty, takes viewers through a detailed history of poverty on Earth. From hunter-gatherers to modern times, poverty in the world is demonstrated in the documentary. One can ask many questions while watching the documentary such as, “What is poverty?” and “Why does poverty exist today?” These questions are partially answered and speculated on in the documentary, although it may be hard to completely answer the questions as it can be argued that there is no one single answer. Poverty, according to the documentary, is the struggle to obtain resources in order to continue living. These resources are basic needs such as clean water, food, shelter and health care. The documentary, however, argues …show more content…
In hunter-gatherer societies, people were fairly equal. There was no real system or guidelines that people had to follow. Everything was very basic. One needed to catch food when hungry and find safe shelter when they needed sleep, otherwise they would die (Poor Us). As time went on, people began to settle down. They no longer traveled from place to place in search of resources. Instead, they created their own resources by starting farms and expanding agriculture. The focus shifted from being community oriented to individual oriented. This was demonstrated in the beginning of the documentary. A worker was located in his store where he forced away beggars and people in need. The shop owner was only concerned for himself and his family; no one else. It was this cultural shift, the documentary argues, that caused equality to become inequality. By looking at the geographic, demographic, political and economic evidence presented by the documentary, one can begin to see how this inequality aided in the created of modern day poverty, thereby supporting the thesis of the …show more content…
Poverty can be fund in every nation of the world. Poverty can be found in nearly all geographic locations on the earth. Poverty can be found on the streets of New York City in the United States, the slums of India, or the jungles of Africa and South America (Poor Us). The richest and the poorest nation both have poverty. While there may be huge inequalities between the rich and poor countries of the world, they all face large amounts of poverty. What is defined as poverty in these rich and poor countries? In America, poverty could be a young family struggling to pay rent or homeless men and women on the street. In India, poverty could also be a young family struggling or homeless men and women on the street. Poverty does not
Although poverty has minimized, it is still significant poverty which is characterized by a numerous amount of things. There are two types of poverty case and insular. “Case poverty is the farm family with the junk-filled yard and the dirty children playing in the bare dirt” (Galbraith 236)Case poverty is not irretraceable and usually caused if someone in the household experiences “ mental deficiency, bad health, inability to adapt to the discipline of industrial life, uncontrollable procreation, alcohol, some educational handicap unrelated to community shortcomings” (Galbraith 236).Case poverty is often blamed on the people for their shortcomings but on some levels can be to pinpoint one person's shortcomings that caused this poverty. Most modern poverty is insular and is caused by things people in this community cannot control. “The most important characteristic of insular poverty is forces, common to all members of the community, that restrain or prevent participation in economic life and increase rates of return.
The idea that people of poor communities conform to a living standard and behavior is a concept described by Oscar Lewis as the culture of poverty. It is the belief that poor people consists of their own beliefs and values and behaviors. And more than 45 years later after the term, the culture of poverty paradigm remains the same: there is a consistent and observable culture that is shared by people in poverty. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as the culture of poverty. differences in behaviors and values among those that are poor are just as significant as those between wealthy and poor. The culture of poverty is a construct of smaller stereotypes which seem to have implanted themselves into the collective conscience of mainstream thought as undeniable fact. However, as we will see, nothing could be further from the truth. Based on 6 most common myths of what defines poor from wealthy, I will provide evidence to the contrary.
As stated by Franklin D. Roosevelt, “the test of our progression is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” Many people may agree with this statement considering that the United States is such a wealthy country and in 2012, 46.5 million people were living in poverty in the United States and 15% of all Americans and 21.8% of children under age eighteen were in poverty.The honest truth is that many people do not know the conditions this group of people must live in on a daily basis because of the small number of people who realize the struggle there is not a great amount of service. In the article Too stressed for Success, the author Kevin Clarke asks the question “What is the cost of being poor in America?” and follows the question by explaining the great deals of problems the community of poverty goes through daily by saying, “Researchers have long known that because of a broad reduction in retail and other consumer choices experienced by America's poor, it is often simply more expensive to be poor in the United States.
Everyone knows what the word poverty means. It means poor, unable to buy the necessities to survive in today's world. We do not realize how easy it is for a person to fall into poverty: A lost job, a sudden illness, a death in the family or the endless cycle of being born into poverty and not knowing how to overcome it. There are so many children in poverty and a family's structure can effect the outcome. Most of the people who are at the poverty level need some type of help to overcome the obstacles. There are mane issues that deal with poverty and many things that can be done to stop it.
In talking about poverty, it is very broad. You can talk about poverty in our lives, poverty in spiritual life, and other things that we experienced poverty. Poverty is hunger. Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not being able to go to school, not knowing how to read, and not being able to speak properly. Poverty is not having job, is fear for the future, living one day at a time. Poverty is losing a child to illness brought about by unclean water. Poverty is powerlessness, and lack of freedom.
Several citizens in America may not empathize with many social conflicts which transpire in America. Unfortunately, when poverty is mentioned people of diverse gender, race/ethnic, and age can relate to poverty in America. Although several societies have not experienced the undesirable measures of relative or absolute poverty; several people know poverty exist through many channels, such as the media, social networking, history and charities.
Today’s world is faced with numerous social problems that pose enormous threats to humanity. Many of these problems threaten our very survival. Poverty is an issue that plagues all societies in every part of the world. Not even the most privileged countries can seemingly avoid it. It has a huge presence in the United States which is one of the wealthiest nations in the world.
Poverty is general scarcity, dearth, or the state of one who lacks a certain amount of material possessions or money. It is a multifaceted concept, which includes social, economic, and political elements (Google definition). There are two types of poverty, absolute poverty and relative poverty. Absolute poverty is measured relative to a fixed standard of living that is consistent over time and between countries. Relative poverty on the other hand is measured relative to the living standards in some particular society and varies both over time and between societies as
The 2008 documentary The End of Poverty? is a film that focuses around global poverty and how it became the tragedy that it is today. Poverty was created by acts of military conquest, slavery and colonization that led to the confiscation of individual’s property and forced labor. However, today the problem remains because wealthy countries who take advantage of developing third world countries. The film interviews several activists who discuss how the issues became and several ways in which they could be eliminated, as well as interviews from individuals who are experiencing it firsthand.
Poverty is “the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions” (Merriam-Webster dictionary, 2015); in other words, struggling to provide a comfortable living style. It is the cause of family stress and many other problems, especially for the children. Millions of people around the world are struggling with poverty; families suffering to provide enough food seem to be growing in numbers. According to the United States Census Bureau, the poverty rate was highest in the 1960s and decreased greatly in the 1970s. However, it is now slowly starting to increase again. Recently released census data by the Bureau showed that one in five people are living in poverty (Census Bureau, 2014). Poverty is even
The question is, what is poverty? Poverty is about not having enough money to meet basic needs of life, including food, clothing, and shelter. Nevertheless I believe that poverty is much more that not having enough money. The World Bank Organization describes poverty as, “Poverty is hunger. Poverty is the lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty
Poverty is a major problem in the United States today. Social, economical, political, and cultural factors all contribute to poverty. Education and economic development are two major issues that will help prevent poverty. The United States Census Bureau defines poverty as an "economic condition in which people lack sufficient income to obtain basic needs for food, housing, clothing, health services and education." In other words, poverty is powerlessness, a lack of representation and freedom. Poverty is an issue that the world faces everyday.
What is poverty? Well, according to Webster's Third New International Dictionary, poverty is "lack of money or material possessions; poor." Two-thirds of the world's population fits this definition. I know that many times we think of being poor as not being able to buy the car we want or take the trip we can only dream about. However, being poor, living in poverty, hits a lot lower than that. For example, a resident of the country of Chad will only bring in $100 each year. Since many people can make more than that in one week, some in one day, can you imagine having the feed a family of five or six, or even a family of two, on only $100 a year? These are the conditions that exist in poverty-stricken countries.
In conclusion, sometimes actions take place that changes a person’s outlook on life and as you can see poverty is one that can have a huge effect on not only one person, but also the people around him/ her.
Poverty is an issue dealt with throughout the world, but we are not all aware of its conditions. Poverty is a very serious problem around the world. Poverty is defined as the equality of poorness and impoverishment -- (the state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions). A question to ask ourselves is: “Should poverty be defined strictly in terms of monetary income, as opposed to some qualitative formula which takes into consideration styles of life as well as material possessions?” (Sheppard 13) Because there are so many different ways we can express the term poverty, maybe there should be a certain way we can determine poverty worldwide?