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.
People in America often suffer from poverty and the treatment that comes with it, throughout their everyday lives. The question raised is why are poor individuals dehumanized by high structures of power? Some people with a higher income feel like they have a choice and a real recourse to justice rather than a lower class individual. They also believe that they are entitled to the world and their opinion matters because of their financial status versus someone who doesn’t have material things. Lessin’s and Deal’s film , Natasha Trethewey’s Memoir, and Bell Hooks’ excerpts, depicts that the poor are often dehumanized and neglected by structures of power, such as the government and media, because of their lack of money and education, however some of structures of power are ignorant to how the lives of poor people really are.
How can there be so much misery and insecurity in the midst of such abundance? One of the first things we see is that poverty doesn’t exist all by itself. It is simply one end of an overall distribution of income and wealth in society as a whole. Poverty is both a structural aspect of the system and consequence of how the system is organized and how people participate in it.
We as Americans are extremely lucky. We live in a big country with many resources and almost all the luxuries we ever wanted. On the flip side, in America there are also many people who do not have these privileges. The lower class is a struggling class. For many years, people have been trying to pull themselves up from the lower class and the majority does not succeed. Childhood poverty is a large problem in the U.S. It is said that the poorest people in the United States are the children of the lower class. Childhood poverty could lead to a number of problems such as hunger, violence, physical and mental disabilities, educational problems, homelessness, family stress, sickness, and too-early parenthood. The sad truth is that living in poverty lowers a child’s chance to grow into a healthy, well-adjusted adult who will contribute to society.
There are many causes of poverty, starting with corruption. Corruption is a deceptive conduct by those in power who try to keep those who are in poverty trapped within their situations. When people think of corruption, they think of politics and rich leaders. Leaders from wealthy countries tell those who are already in poverty about loans and aid that they can offer. The less fortunate, not very aware of what they put themselves in are building a deeper hole with debt. The leaders from those wealthy countries are making more money also by taxing the less fortunate and receiving the money that they loaned to them. Those who are already poor try hard to provide for their families with the money they make from their jobs. Many of them lack education so it is hard to have well-paying jobs. “Poverty is the state for the majority of the world’s people and nations. Why is this? Is it enough to blame poor people for their own predicament?” (“Causes of Poverty” 5) Therefore, corruption is one cause of poverty.
Poverty is not just an issue reserved for third world countries. Instead, poverty is a multifaceted issue that even the most developed nations must battle
America has always been a country known for their great integrity, diversity, financial prosperity and great pop culture. It has been a place many people have flocked to from many different parts of the world in order to escape their very own poverty struck countries in their quest to build a new life in America and hopefully become financially stable. In this article written by M. Harrington he pointed out some key factors discussing how America has not really changed from over a hundred years ago. In specifics he tells how many years have gone by and still yet there is still a very large amount of a poverty class of people. Although our nation takes great pride on its classlessness there is still a one quarter percent of our country’s population that still lives in a poverty level. Some of these areas also included some inner city blacks, farmworkers, Appalachian whites and elderly people. Harrington’s book “The Other America” also tells us how as a country we have managed to hide the poverty level class from being seen while our country screams we are the wealthiest country in the world! America has done just that. Encourage the wealthy to become wealthier and poor to be poorer. It was also pointed out that the poverty class tends to have a poor language, poor mentality and just a poor outlook of the entire world view as a whole. He stated that the poverty people in this country are identified by a unique way of what is called “Culture Of Poverty”. What he was saying was that the mind of a poverty struck person will not ever surmount to doing things that will benefit them or change the course of their direction. In other words you may give a poor man a million dollars but he will not know wha...
Many reforms in the UnitedStates have been passed to help fight against the “War on Poverty”; but it has not been effective in eradicating poverty in the U.S. There are about 46 million people who are living in impoverished conditions and poverty continues to be a social issue in this country (Heritage Foundation, 2011) In the beginning, our country was formed under the belief that “this land is the land of opportunity and if we worked hard enough the American Dream can be gained” (Schwarz, 1997). People immigrate to this country today in hopes of becoming rich so they could gain a better life. In spite of coming to this country for a better life, many are faced with the lack of skills and money to succeed. In the end, most will end up in unskilled labor jobs that can barely support their families. Poverty continues to be a growing social issue because people have the “ inability to provide necessities like clothes, healthcare, and shelter” (Heritage Foundation, 2011) to help themselves and their family; therefore, many sacrifices have to be made to insure their survival. Yet many reforms made to help people living in poverty are based “off of outdated statistics” (Henslin, 2014, p.276) and are not enough to help the lower class maintain a sufficient standard of living. Poverty relates to conflict theory since the poor are struggling just to get by. Government programs such as Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), housing assistance, and food stamps provided by the government are not enough to help the poor gain social mobility.
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.
According to the National Poverty Center, 15.1% of Americans were living in poverty in 2010. Although the poverty rates were slowly in decline from 1993 to 2000, instances of poverty reached a record high in 2010. Recent figures show that the poverty rate has remained unchanged in 2014, and still affects 15% of Americans (Clyne, 2014). To put poverty in a different perspective, let's compare it to the number one cause of death in America: Coronary Artery Disease. CAD is the most prevalent health condition that affects men and women, and is the leading cause of death for Americans, effecting 16.8 million people (Daniels & Nicoll, 2012). Currently, 50 million people are living in poverty. That means that Americans are two-thirds more likely to be impoverished than have CAD. Similar to CAD, there are various causes contributing to the occurrence of poverty.
The topic of who needs to take responsibility for the “near poor” is an extremely complicated one. Individuals with higher incomes and more financial freedom usually decide to blame the poor on an individual level for the reasons why they are stuck in poverty. However, the poor are more likely to blame the repressive system that they live in for the reasons why they are poor through a system based approach. Each of these
There are many factors of poverty but before getting into that I would like to state that being rich is not just about having money. You can be rich in health, you can be rich in character, and you can even be rich in the love you receive or provide. Many, take for granted of the small things that can’t be purchased. When all of the materialistic things are gone, all you’ll have left is the person you have become and the soul you keep. Poverty has been around for quite some time, back when agriculture was as rich as technology is now. Let’s face it technology has consumed America. I say America because if you go to a third world country many don't have the luxury of ever coming close to owning an iPhone, you’ll mention iPhone and they’ll stare at you in awe. IPhone is a great example of how profound poverty in America continues to be. The sales for the iPhone 4 devices sold were 1.5 Million! There were people purchasing this new device when they knew they could not afford it. What drove them to buying? The needs to have the newest technology, there’s a difference from the wants you buy and the things you need. 9 out of 10 of the things you want are to feed your satisfaction, who am I to judge who buys what, but when you can’t pay rent or buy diapers for your child and use your welfare money or child support money then who is morally wrong? In the following pages I will be covering the causes of poverty, along with various topics from childhood poverty to spouse divorcing poverty that David Cheal has outlined for us in his notable book New Poverty: Families in Postmodern society and the changes from old poverty into new poverty.
American society is not only familiar with poverty, it’s become accustomed to it. One effect that poverty has on American society is its ability to increase health problems. It’s more common in poverty social classes for people, especially children, to become ill and stay ill for a longer period of time. This sets off a chain of reactions such as missing school or work, which in the end results in lower grades and lesser pay. Some even argue that those in poverty have higher crimes rates than those were are better off. Anyone can make...
Firstly, poverty due to misfortune is probably the most common type of poverty in the world. One example of poverty due to misfortune is a poverty that a person is born into. This type of poverty is often exemplified through people born into families that lack the resources required to easily escape poverty. For many families, this may lead to a perpetual cycle of poverty, with poor parents giving birth to poor children. One major contributing factor to the perpetual cycle of poverty is education. Very often, but not always, poor neighborhoods have a lower quality of primary and secondary education, which leads to many students in these low-quality schools to either not graduate high school or not attend college. Now, as competition in the job market rises, a college degree is quickly becoming essential for those who wish to have a well-paying job. However, since the poor tend to have a lower quality of education up until college, many of them never attend college. Another example of poverty due to misfortune is poverty due to illness. This type of poverty is not discussed often, but it is extremely important. Hospital bills and insurance are extremely expensive,