Poverty throughout the United States Essays

Poverty throughout the United States Essays Poverty throughout the United States Essay Poverty throughout the United States Essay The culture of poverty thesis maintains that the poor are largely responsible for their own poverty. Others, however, argue that this attitude essentially blames the victim and that poverty is cause by society’s unequal distribution of wealth. This paper takes the stand that poverty is condition brought about by the unequal opportunities and distribution of wealth. There are many measures employed in the United States to prevent, alleviate or cure poverty and to maintain adequate incomes for certain sectors of the population. Being one of the superpower in the world, it is difficult to imagine that extreme poverty still exists in this country. For indeed, how can a nation so wealthy still have citizens who are less fortunate. There comes a time when world do get a glimpse of the real condition of poverty as a fact of life in the United States. Defining Poverty Poverty may be defined in absolute or relative terms. An absolute definition defines a minimal level of well-being in nutrition, shelter, clothing, health and many more and then determines what income is sufficient to maintain this level, taking into account family size and other factors. To start off, one sees that for the huge majority of Americans, the days of high quality jobs with decent wages, security, and full health and retirement benefits are a thing of the past. This is especially true of people who had little or no education and are therefore barred from great companies. As for cashing in on the success of companies like Microsoft, or becoming a venture capitalist, to make money more quickly, as James Fallows in The Invisible Poor notes many Americans to have done, even the smallest business entails ample capital, not to mention financial risk, which people like Tanya could not afford to take. Hence the solution is more suitable for middle class people with money to spare (Fallows). Given that the situation is characterized by the need for jobs with a salary that would cover, at the very least, the basic needs of a family, it seems plausible that the best solution is to promote economic growth. According to Charles Clark in Ending Poverty in America: The First Step, the rationale for â€Å"making the economic pie larger† is so all can have more, that is, to minimize scarcity (not enough to go around) that results in income inequality and poverty. This solution not only prevents a class warfare, but also benefits the business sector, eventually leading to a â€Å"trickle down effect† that benefits the workers. Clark made this solution more specific by advocating what he called a â€Å"basic salary system,† that would provide a decent minimum income floor to ensure â€Å"economic security for the poor so they can seek further education (and to concentrate on education without oppressive work requirements) and training to try different market strategies. † (Clark, 2004). An article entitled Meritocracy in America which appeared in The Economist tackles a similar issue- this time focusing on educational inequalities- and shows evidence that social mobility, i. e. people climbing the income brackets, has declined since the 1970s. Among the cited studies is the one conducted by two economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston who found â€Å"that 40% of families remained stuck in the same income bracket in the 1990s, compared with 37% of families in the 1980s and 36% in the 1970s. (Meritocracy in America, 2004). The article goes on to explain how the educational system has become increasingly stratified by social class, with â€Å"three-quarters of the students at the country’s top 146 colleges [coming] from the richest socio-economic fourth, compared with just 3% from the poorest fourth (the median family income at Harvard, for example, is $150,000). † Elite universities further disadvantage the poor through policies like â€Å"affirmative action† and â€Å"legacy preferences. The first is designed to help members of racial minorities regardless of social status, and the second is a program that makes admittance easier for children of alumni, e. g. in most Ivy League institutions, â€Å"legacies† make up between 10% and 15% of every class (Meritocracy in America, 2004). The persistence of poverty reflects a complex conjunction of factors. First demographic trends swelled the ranks of the elderly, of female-headed households, and of job-seekers. Because these groups tend to be at the low end of employability, poverty rates went up. Thus, the situation results in the poor remaining poor and the rich becoming richer than ever. People who come from poor families have even less chance of being accepted into schools that hold the key to the best jobs. In the end, their options become limited to either attending second-rate schools promising second-rate jobs, or dropping out of school altogether to get blue-collar jobs. Although the main federal program supporting poorer students, the Pell grant, largely go to poor families with incomes below $41,000, Meritocracy in America reveals that â€Å"the federal government has been shifting resources from Pell grants to other forms of aid to higher education,† such as student loans and federal tax breaks that benefit both the rich and the poor. The article further questions the motivation of many colleges for giving student loans, pointing out that financial aid is being increasingly used to attract the best students away from competitors rather than to help the poor as it should (Meritocracy in America, 2004). Policy Evaluation: Economic Realities and Critical Ideological Viewpoints Because of the radical differences in their perspectives on poverty and its causes, critics of various ideological stripes have different evaluations of income support programs. There is little agreement on their impacts and outcomes. Conservatives, given their belief that poverty is the fault of the poor and of misguided welfare spending generally evaluate public programs negatively. They focus on the high cost of programs, on disincentives to work, and on the advantages of private or state programs over federal policies. Conclusions The paper concludes that there are solutions available to eliminate poverty such as a establishing a basic income system and reforming the education system to allow easier access for poor children. However, the government, schools and concerned wealthy people can only do so much. Poor people cannot go on laying the blame for being poor on other people and should start to take responsibility for their own destiny. While it is true that being born into a poor family is often large enough an obstacle to financial freedom, at the same time, having children out of wedlock, taking illegal drugs, being an alcoholic are not the types of choices that pave the way to success. It is not enough to think of the poor as hapless victims of an oppressive class structure, but to analyze their active role in their own oppression. Only through an objective understanding of the reasons why poor people remain poor for the rest of their lives can these people learn how to finally break free from the shackles that bind them. Public assistance programs come in two forms, cash assistance and in-kind assistance. Cash assistance is imply, cash assistance and in-kind assistance. Cash assistance is simply a -transfer of income from a government agency to an individual. The United States has been consistently last in establishing welfare aid income support programs, and its funding of them remains at a level well below that of most other developed nations, in which social insurance and public assistance benefits come close to ensuring current average living standards. References www.usbig.net/papers/080-Clark-EndingPoverty.doc economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3518560