The novel, The American Way of Poverty: How the Other Half Still Lives by Sasha Abramsky is about how he traveled the United States meeting the poor. The stories he introduces in novel are articles among data-driven studies and critical investigations of government programs. Abramsky has composed an impressive book that both defines and advocates. He reaches across a varied range of concerns, involving education, housing and criminal justice, in a wide-ranging view of poverty 's sections. In considering results, it 's essential to understand how the different problems of poor families intermingle in mutual reinforcement.
Many poor people all around the world and U.S. are mistreated in the form of insufficient infrastructure and services, unequal wealth distribution, and the over criminalization of poverty-stricken people. Ptelua Dvorak shines a light into the lives of the penniless in her article “Mistreatment of homeless is shameful,” exposing Americans to harsh rules and laws that make it nearly illegal to be homeless. For instance, Dvorak speaks of changes that are occurring at her public library where “To enter the library, your bag has to be small enough to fit in [a small] compartment” (Dvorak), seeming more as an inconvenience to the sheltered, but a massive problem for the homeless “who use the library as a daytime shelter and are lugging all their
Many Americans throughout their life might experience at least a one year in poverty. To be considered living in poverty your annual income must be below the official poverty line. In the article “Poverty in America is Mainstream” by Mark R. Rank, he states that there are myths and stereotypes that surround poverty in America, including that poverty only affects a small number of Americans. Rank uses justifying statistics, as well as appeals to the audience’s emotions, and his credibility to get us to truly understand that poverty can/does affect the everyday American.
1. Discuss Poverty in the US as it compares to other countries. Be sure your discussion concisely includes what you consider the most important points and conclusion. When comparing the US to other countries, the poverty rate is higher in the US than other countries. Due to wages and hourly pay many people in the US are living within poverty.
“ We have fought war on poverty and poverty won”, is one of the most famously quotes of Ronald Regan. The meaning behind this quote is that America has been struggling to overcome poverty over years, but as years keeps increasing so do the number of people living poor. The percentage in poverty did decrease in 2000 but today it still affects 15 million people. According to Peter Edelman’s article “ Poverty In America: Why Cant We End It”, there are four reasons why America has not achieved to decrease the number of poverty: Low- wage jobs, households headed by single parent, welfare, and gender/ race. The plan that America has to improve this number of 15 million is by providing food stamps, enacting programs, and social security.
These dejected people long for an education and a fruitful life, but because of the poverty of their country, they are barely healthy enough to finish classes. The best way to start helping is supplying schools with proper teachers. Setting up organizations for graduating college students to go on mission trips to Africa and teach children will influence others to help Africa. Secondly, giving impoverished and desolate people knowledge can extend their opportunities.
The title of “Emerging Scholars” was given to a group of ethnic individuals with varying backgrounds that made them struggle, but ultimately, the students were strong enough to achieve what they had always wanted, a promising future. A required reading for these students enrolled in the University of Massachusetts’ 190R class was titled The Working Poor: Invisible in America by David K. Shipler, a book reminiscing numerous sociological books that are composed of a series of interviews for the sake of proving/disproving a theory. The theory this time was how the poor are not always unemployed and are still struggling in America in numerous different ways, in home life, health, education and more. There were many daunting tales told in Shipler’s
The U.S. government has created a project called “Feed the Future” which helps to provide food for the poor and hungry (Simmons). The program encourages benevolence and fights to eradicate starvation and malnourishment around the globe. Famine is a conflict that exists universally and with America stepping forward to fight it, it is possible to rid of the struggle entirely. The U.S. also contributes money to combat the devastating issue of maternal and child mortality and has saved around 4.6 million children and 200,000 mothers internationally (Simmons). The American government utilizes economic support to improve the quality of life of both mothers and infants after birth.
The association of poverty with Africa goes together like apple pie and America. From the advertisements of malnourished, African children to our education, or rather lack of education, about African countries in the American school system, the concept of Africa as an impoverished continent has been engrained into our minds. This rhetoric of Africa has lasted over decades, with a substantial amount of aid being given to African countries to rectify this problem. And yet, sixteen of the world’s poorest countries were identified as being in sub-Saharan Africa as of 2013. This insinuates that foreign countries and organizations that provide aid, need to reevaluate why aid isn’t making a bigger impact at fixing the problem.
America the land of opportunity where you can live the American dream, but as great as this sounds it is the American “dream” for a reason, because the harsh reality is poverty. In 2010 poverty and welfare was a National Debate topic, what many do not realize is poverty can take many forms, currently 37 million Americans are living in poverty, and this number has been increasing since 2000 (“National Debate Topic”). In America, there several types of poverty, in order to combat poverty the government instituted the welfare system was put in place by temporarily assisting individuals with the hopes of getting these individual back to supporting themselves. Due to there being several different types of poverty, the welfare system is not effective in combating all types because of the varying degrees of severity and longevity of each types of poverty, and the amount and types of programs that are in place are not the most effective for all types. Life does not always go the one would like it to road bumps and unexpected situations always come up, examples of these unexpected situations are unemployment, medical crisis, death, and other unexpected situations.
Two descript concepts are to reduce poverty by fixing the dysfunctional within the government systems according to the functionalist and the other concept is to change the the way poor people become aware of political and organized was to change governmental actions. To me this can be done by voting, attending local city/town hall meetings, and better understanding the right they have as a people in order to help that will improve their lives as well as financial struggles. Yes, I believe poverty is functional in our society because if you look at the breakdown in the welfare system that allows young ladies to continue to get benefits due to having multiple children without having any requirements that will encourage them to get off of welfare to become financially independent.
Poverty in America is a difficult topic to speak on; everyone has their own views and experiences on poverty. Certain social trends have impacted the society such as Family Dynamics; The way families are now are a lot different than families of the 1950’s-1960’s, In many cases both adult members of the family are working instead of the traditional husband working to support the family. Even with both members working full time it is still hard to support an average family due to working class wages not adjusting to inflation. Poverty has been increasing at a dramatic rate and the government is supporting more and more people with perverse incentives.
The cycle of poverty is something discussed in political, medical, education and social circles. The children that are stuck in the cycle often becomes adults that remain in the living conditions and lifestyle of poverty. A few ways that they become trapped is through their poor health and educational opportunities. My thesis statement is, The cycle of poverty continues to plague American children and families, but with some changes focused on health care and education they may be able to escape from the cycle.
Because of these issues, society should develop better strategies to help these people in need to eliminate the growing poverty level through the world. These strategies could include
Would you like to help poor people? Do you wonder why some countries are poor while others are rich? Some countries are considered Less Developed while others are considered More Developed. Most people in Less Developed Countries do not have access to lots of technology, transportation, healthcare, good jobs, good education, etc. It is unfortunate to know that while people in some countries are living a long and happy life, some countries are struggling to keep infants alive.
