Out Of This Furnace By Thomas Bell: The Culture Of Poverty

There are many explanations on why people are in poverty today. Sociologists have broken it down into three explanations culture of poverty, the cycle of poverty, and the economic structure of society. Each explanation puts the responsibility of poverty on different people. The culture of poverty is all about people who grow up in areas of poverty not being able to get ahead in life because of their location and family values. The cycle of poverty blames the government, big business, as well as living conditions in poor areas. The economic structure of society looks at the lack of jobs and blames corporate heads for not keeping or increasing the amount of jobs as well as the government for not encouraging the creation of new jobs.

I remember reading a book is highschool called “Out of This Furnace” by Thomas Bell, the book included stories of people moving to America to better their lives. People would come from all over the world to the land of opportunities just to find that they would be working in steel mills or on the rail road. If there were no jobs people would start walking in land asking around for jobs. There was no government funding for lazyness. People who blame the economic structure for poverty blame large corporations for taking away jobs and pay minimum wage. These people thing that corporate heads should keep and create more jobs at all skill levels and increase the pay to a living wage. These people also look at the government to encourage job creation as well as subsidise people who do not have living

This is because I feel the culture of poverty blames the people who decide to live through poverty instead of trying to improve their economic standing. I guess that you could say I do not think that the government should aid people in poverty. My parents were reluctant at first to sign up for food stamps, they did not believe that they needed the help. My neighbour was actually the one to show to my parents that they could qualify for some government aid, eventually they agreed and the extra $300 a month for food really helped my parent’s stress. I believe government aid, especially welfare, is being taken advantage of more that it is helping. I also believe that children, who have parents that rely completely on welfare to survive, grow up with a sense that they can follow in their parents footsteps and not have to gain skills, education, or look for jobs after high school. At the moment I believe that welfare is a large contributing factor in the reason people grow up in poverty and stay in