Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.
-Barack Obama
Imagine if you could see a whole city from your home; it stretches as far as the eye can see and has just house after house. Some houses are white, some are red, some are blue, and so on. This seems fairly normal and you might think I’m describing a housing development or something like it. The only problem is that those houses are not as they appear, they are actually tents and they are being inhabited by the poverty stricken population of your city. These “tent cities” have popped up all over the United States. Many different people live there, and have all have lost their homes some way or another. If Yakima can break down these barriers of poverty, we will never become one of these “tent cities”. We must figure out ways to help the low-income population to get jobs they need to support their families. If you are in some kind of post-high school education you must have some source of money and ambition to do better than your parents before you. According to the story “Shadowy Lines That Still Divide”, by Janny Scott and David Leonhardt, in the book Class Matters; “the economic advantage once believed to last only two or three generations is now believed to last closer to five.” This means that what you decide to do with your life and well off you are determines what other generations of your family will do.
In the story of Angela Whitiker’s Climb by Isabel Wilkerson, from the book Class Matters, she talks about the bullet riddled “housing building” that is run by drug gangs. If kids or peo...
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...d ways to break down all these barriers in Yakima, I think that the children and the families that are in the low to lower-middle class will have a chance for better education, jobs, and family life. With this they can better their own lives and mold the future of the next generations of their family.
Works Cited
Brooks, David. "The New Normal." Nytimes.com. New York Times, 28 Feb. 2011. Web. 10 Mar. 2012.
Faulk, Mike. "Riding High." Yakimaherald.com. Yakima Herald Republic, 8 Mar. 2011. Web. 10 Mar. 2012.
Scott, Janny. “Shadowy Lines That Still Divide.” Class Matters. New York, New York: Times Books, 2005. 1-26. Print.
"The Low-Income Single Parent." Joe.org. Web. 10 Mar. 2012.
"Prepared by 20." Preparedby20.com. United Way of Benton and Franklin Counties. Web. 10 Mar. 2012.
"Why Teen Pregnancy Is a Poverty Problem." Change.org. 2 Mar. 2010. Web. 10 Mar. 2012.
Renaud and Kyle Balda. USA Today. Gannett Co. Inc, 02 Mar. 2012. Web. 09 Dec. 2013.
John Steinbeck, famous author of The Grapes of Wrath, once said, “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” This quote, while fairly amusing, brings up a vital subject--class mobility. Can people in poverty still be rags to riches stories? The book Class Matters reports that class mobility has most likely decrease and that it takes five generations for a family class status to change. In Yakima this poses a very grim problem because 34% of Yakima residents line under the poverty line. And of those 55.9% are single mothers, just like Angela Whitiker (Citydata). That is why Angela Whitiker’s story is so central to not only the world but to
Gentrification also typically entails providing services (e.g., good-quality schools) and jobs in these neighborhoods. No family needs to be forced out but encouraged to seek a better life not only for them but their children. As much as many families will love to move from their neighborhoods to seek better life in another area, due to lack of money, many choose to stay and endure. An alternative strategy talked about in the paper is to move non-poor families into poor neighborhoods to change the mix and reduce poverty concentration and
Reimer, Susan. "Case Closed: Teen Pregnancy Is Poverty's Offspring." Baltimore Sun. N.p., 16 Apr. 2012. Web. 26 Dec. 2013.
In Thompson’s article, he executes numerous studies and polls to question what homeless people truly need the most, with “help finding a job” (Thompson) coming out with the highest percentage. This poll relates the fact that although loose change might help the destitute for a day or two, providing a way to change the life of that person would have a greater benefit. Correspondingly, Magill explains how the city of Grand Junction is tackling the issue of homelessness. Mayor Teresa Coons is at the head of this plan to help the needy, by “conven[ing] a City Council subcommittee on homelessness soon after she took office” (Magill). This subcommittee focuses its attention on the public face of homelessness, and solutions on how to decrease those affected by it. Giving examples of factual steps taken to deal with this issue creates effective arguments for both authors. The use of logos within each article is proof to each authors’ claim, and adds to the argument itself. Although Thompson proposes the same claim as in the article “Grand Junction comes to terms with homeless”, Magill reports on a solution put forth to help the crisis of homelessness. The subcommittee is the direction both articles argue is needed, yet in Magill’s article, the direction is being done rather than proposed. This evidence provided from both articles is focused on similar goals, yet
The birth rate among teens in the United States has declined 9% from 2009 to 2010, a historic low among all racial and ethnic groups, with the least being born in 2010; and in 2011 the number of babies born to adolescents aged 15-19 years of age was 329,797 (“Birth Rates for U.S.”, 2012). Although the decline in unwanted and unplanned teen births is on the rise the United States continues to be among the highest of industrialized countries facing this problem. This is a prevailing social concern because of the health risks to these young mothers as well as their babies. Teens at higher risk of becoming pregnant are raised at or below the poverty level by single parents; live in environments that cause high levels of stress (i.e., divorce, sexual psychological and physical abuse); are influenced by peers or family members that are sexually active; and lack parental guidance that would direct them to be responsible and self-controlled.
Social class needs to become more recognizable as a growing problem. If the masses understood the real reason why people are in the social class they are then more would fight to buy “American made goods” and fix our crippled social system. In “Lies my teacher taught me”, Loewen compares college level history courses to high school level history courses saying, “History professors in college often put routinely put down high school history courses”. Loewen in both essays shows how textbooks skew adolescent’s view of America’s history leaving out key points like working class strikes and real depictions ...
Many studies have shown that teenage mothers and their child have a high risk of living in poverty, due to not completing high school, being a single parent and their lack of knowledge and readiness to raise a child because of unplanned pregnancies. Children born of teenage mothers are at a higher risk maltreatment and poor performance in school. In addition, many studies have also shown that teenage pregnancies and poverty have an effect on their child’s development.
When lots of people walk down the street and a homeless person is sitting there what do they do? They walk on and mumble something like get a job or try harder. Most poor people can’t do much more to fix their social class. It’s like they are stuck there. In Tammy Crabtree’s story, her family suggests this idea, “I growed up poor, my dad worked hard. He worked 27 years..........and it ain’t easy.” (People Like Us: Social Class in America) Tammy and her family have nothing else to do. They have worked all their life and been smart with their money. They do not have anything else to do to make their life better. People that are poor and don’t look the best can not get a good job either. They are stuck in that one job because no other place wants to hire them.
The teen pregnancy rate in the United States is four times higher than the developed European countries, such as France and Germany.3 Latina and black women make up the largest part of teen pregnancy because these groups have highly disproportionate cases of births at the early ages of 13 to 18 years old.3 These groups also face the highest rates of low socioeconomic status and low levels of education which together aggravate the pregnancy problem. An approximated 60% of females live in poverty at the time of childbearing and lack the knowledge or resources to survive economically or prevent yet another pregnancy.2 ...
Teenage pregnancy develops physical anomalies, an abnormal social life for a teen, a decrease in education, and can cause an unstable life financially. Lack of parental care can cause physical problems for both the child and the mother. The mothers social life can also be affected by making them leave their friends behind as she cares for her newborn. Teen mothers are also more likely to drop out of high school due to complications in caring for their child. Stable jobs are typically harder to find with a lack of higher education and cause financial instability for the mother. From its peak in 1990, teen pregnancy rates have declined by 42% by 2008 (Healthyteennetwork.org) yet this is still higher than any first world country. Teen pregnancy is an ongoing battle and should be considered won when it is eradicated.
The authors made some great points about how poverty leads to teen pregnancy or at least it is a risk. Their points were clear and precise. Each argument that was presented had facts, data, and statistics that made them valid. The most interesting argument that the authors presented was the fact that not only was pregnancy an initial risk, repeat pregnancy was also a high risk. According to Michelle Castillo, an associate editor for CBSNews.com, this argument is a huge problem for teen girls in the United States. About one in five teenage women in the United States will get pregnant again (Castillo). When Dr. Garwood brought this argument up, I was surprised. I was surprised because these young women live in poverty, how could they afford to support another child? After reading the article, I became more intrigued by the fact that poverty, CPS history and maltreatment is a significant reason why these teenage girls are getting pregnant early. The
There are several theories about the reasons why so many young women in poverty become pregnant and carry to full term. Faced with an unintended pregnancy, many teens living in poverty are likely to view early childbearing as a positive, desirable choice. These teens feel that becoming pregnant may in fact improve their lives. Economics may also be responsible for the lower percentage of poor teens who terminate their pregnancies, since Medicaid policies in most states do not pay for abortions, but do pay for services related to childbirth. In addition, some re...
. Quoted in Pauline Anderson, “Distress Combined With Poverty Increases Risk for Teen Pregnancy,” Medscape Medical News online, July 31, 2009, www.medscape.com.
A social issue that has been going on in the United States for some time now is teen pregnancy and why it occurs. Although pregnancy is such a beautiful experience and an experience a woman cannot wait to have it should be done at the correct time in a women’s life which does not involve the teenage years. The teenage years are like the golden years in adolescent life where school activities take place, memories with friends and family are made but now a day’s teenage girls decide to throw all that away and become a mom. It has been proven many teenagers come out pregnant because of society or they are raised around poverty. In this term project I will be using two articles which will help prove my point in why many teenager girls become pregnant.