Poverty is Real in America

Can you imagine waking up to a half-empty refrigerator knowing that is all the food you will have until your next paycheck? How about holding two full-time jobs but it is still not enough to get ahead in life? What about getting sick but you can't go to the hospital because you don't have any health coverage and can't afford any extra type of payment? Can you imagine living in a life style like that? It is a very poor and depressing one and unfortunately in our American society this lifestyle is present and growing every day. Poverty is a real issue in America that affects approximately 12% of all Americans which is roughly 30 million; 10% are people 65 or older, 26% are females with no husband, and 16% are children under 18 (Reference 1). I see this as a critical social problem when we live in the richest nation and are in the land of "opportunity". How can we be rich when our own people are living in homeless shelters or unfit conditions? I would like to discuss the issue of poverty, its origin, function, influence, and impact.

Poverty can be defined as, "a determination that a household's income in inadequate, judged by a specific standard" (Reference 2). In other words poverty can be seen as a lack of resources (education, health care, etc.), basic needs (food, water, shelter, etc.), and/or inequalities between social statuses. We see poverty in our culture, work force and class structure; it is all around us. Where did it all begin? It began way back in England before America was formed. It is inevitable to have poor people with an economic system; however how we treat and help the poor will either help or hinder them. In my opinion we are only hindering the poor and making things even harder for them. As a society we tried to push the responsibility of taking care of them onto the churches. It worked for a time being until we entered the Industrial period and the churches began to divide. With division among the churches, they could no longer cope with the increasing needs of the poor. As an effect the poor where left to defend for themselves-after all these years has his really changed? The number of poor increased along with the issues and hardships they faced caused by poverty. England developed what is called the Elizabethan Poor Laws in attempts to help the poor. The laws broke the poor into two categories of assistance. The first included the poor that was "worthy"; these where individuals who were impoverished but not viewed as being a fraud. The "worthy" poor where placed in almshouses which had very minimal care. The second type was labeled the "able-bodied" poor; these were people that were assumed time wasters who lacked motivation or ambition to secure beneficial employment. These people were punished in order to discourage this type of behavior. When Europeans settled into our country they brought this policy with them and the trend of looking out for yourself began (Reference 3). From the start we passed judgment on who was worthy enough of helping and those that were not and even with those that we did decide to help they received the bare minimum. Performing such actions sets a trend and makes it harder for those receiving little to no help to better themselves when they are being judged so harshly. We live in a dominant society and the views and values that are widely accepted is what people wall follow; whatever is excepted as the general norm will be our dominate beliefs and values. Maybe if people weren't so concerned about looking out for themselves and being so quick to judges our society might have had a different view on those with lower/no income, but that is not the case today. Our paradigm is set on how we view/treat others that we see as different or less and it has had a ripple effect on our society that can be traced to how we first dealt with situations in England.

We now know a little bit about where poverty began and how it started to become a problem. If it was such a problem one would assume that we would work on fixing it; however everything has a function in our society; even the problems. There are many functions to poverty some of them can be good, but others are also bad. We live in a capitalistic society which will create problems of its own such as inequalities. In this type of system poverty can function as providing workers to work for alienation positions, it keeps a pool of unemployed workers that depress the wages of employed workers, it helps to keep prices of goods and services down supplied by underpaid workers, and it keeps marginal enterprises afloat (Reference 4). Poverty also creates motivation and talent among people. In order to get ahead or to improve your life situation you need to work on your talents and have the motivation to try. If you want to change your life and situation then do something about it right? That type of thinking can be seen as a positive function of poverty. Economic development is another function of poverty. Industrial and postindustrial societies increase together with inequalities. The wealthy have the money to invest in things and buy things with their money, the middle class people are trying to move up on the class ladder, and the poor struggle to escape poverty=all these things contribute to our economic development (Reference 5). These are some functions that are mentioned that I found when researching this topic. Personally I feel this is all a cover up for the real reason. I believe the main function of poverty is to provide justification to the difference and inequalities in our class structure. People need to feel that they are working hard and earning where they are in life. They just assume that the poor are not trying hard enough or are just lazy so people use that assumption to justify where they are in life and how they treat/view the poor; not factoring items like birthright or neighborhoods has significant factors on your life standing. People will come up with any kind of reason to show that they are not the ones at fault, but I cannot understand how you can justify seeing someone sleeping on the street and say they are just too lazy to get ahead. Do you honestly think that person wants to be living like that? I know I wouldn't.

Poverty has a great influence/impact on our society and individuals. There may be good things such as providing low wage jobs for people and helping our economy grow, but I see most as bad things and that is what got me to believe that it is a very serious problem in our society. Can you explain to me how it is right for a movie star to demand millions of dollars to be in a film while the rest of us are struggling to get our bills paid? There are more beneficial things that that money could go towards instead of buying a designer pair of jeans. It is so easy to overlook the person who is in need because we are too focused on helping ourselves and not caring about others. In a sense I guess you could say poverty influences us to act even more as individuals. We refuse to help those in need because we want to take care of ourselves and don't see the others as worthy enough to help-again going back to the Elizabethan Poor Laws. Poverty's influence is our justification to our treatment of the poor. When I think of poverty's modern day influence I am reminded of this quote by John Berger, "The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied...but written off as trash. The twentieth-century consumer economy has produced the first culture for which a beggar is a reminder of nothing." (Reference 6).

What impact does poverty have on our society? I think that it brings down our economy and our culture. Instead of motivation people to get ahead in life these people who are in such hostile situations get frustrated with their situation. They have to focus and give everything they can to just get by with the day to day problems of survival. They are often overcome with frustration, depression, hopelessness, and bitterness=all of these things lead to unpleasant ways of life (Reference 7). These people are unable to get ahead in life. We tell them to get an education and make something out of themselves. How do they get an education when they live in a poor neighborhood that has little education to offer? The schools are in terrible condition and often the schools don't have the resources to effectively educate their students. The students don't see the reason in coming to school anymore. Because most of them don't have an education they either can't get jobs or get low paying jobs that have no benefits such as health care. The ones lucky enough to have a job are just living pay check to pay check praying that an emergency doesn't happen. "The U.S. Conference of Mayors (2006) survey of 24 major U.S. cities found that 20% of the urban homeless population was employed. About 15% of homeless people have jobs, yet they are unable to escape homelessness because those with limited skills or experience have difficulty finding jobs that pay a living wage." (Reference 8). With an increase of cost of living and the decreased value of wages it puts housing out reach for a number of people in society, including people who are homeless (Reference 8). With such conditions against them how else are they going to get what they need? Steal it; they feel they have to commit crimes to be able to get what they need. How do they escape their emotions? Drugs, alcohol, or suicide' they have to have some way to cope with such overwhelming emotions. It is like Benjamin Franklin once said, "Poverty often deprives a man of all spirit and virtue; it is hard for an empty bag to stand upright." (Reference 9). It is a vicious cycle and it is very real. The impact is great because people can't even live a fulfilled life. Poverty causes a lot of stress which can lead to an individual committing theft, robbery, or other violent acts. Poverty can lead to an inferior education which causes youth to count on less access to quality schools, jobs, and role models. This leads to youth spending time on the streets and association with gangs and the cycle starts all over (Reference 10). Isn't America the land of hope, happiness, and opportunity? Not for these people. Most of them cannot escape this cycle that they were born into. After trying so many times and being judged harshly and turned down it is no wonder so many of them give up and just accept that this is the life that they must live. Our class structure, our ideals, our judgments, and our economic impact the poor greatly and it is not in a positive way. The negative situation of the poor hinders our growth as a society because rather we recognize them or not the poor are still part of our society.

Unless we can find a way to break this cycle I do not foresee things improving in the future. The impact will be the same, if not worse. With the way our economy is now more of the middle-class people are even beginning to experience these hardships. Our economy will fail, our neighborhoods will decline, crime will increase-this is not an American that I look forward too. I wonder if all the millionaire's can even see it. Would it be so hard for them to donate a small percentage of what they make to some of these lower income neighborhoods? Help them to rebuild their schools, help them to be able to provide resources, help them to give people hope. It is amazing what hope can do to a person and how much it can change them. If people have hope and resources provided for them they can succeed. It is true that not everyone will grab and take that chance. Some people will continue to be lazy and change to live in like that, but most people given the resources will improve themselves. Just think about how much our society would benefit if we helped to improved all our poor neighborhoods. Crime would go down and education would go up. Maybe one of those people would be able to find the cure for a disease or another would be able to discover a cost effective resource to replace gas in our vehicles...the possibilities are endless.

In conclusion I hope I have helped you see how poverty is a serious problem in America and one everyone would benefit in solving. I hope I showed everyone the origin, function, influence, and impact poverty has on our society. We can break the cycle, but first we need to change our paradigms and our system-something I don't think the majority will want to do because people don't like change and they don't like things being taken away from them even if it will help someone else. I will leave you with a quote to think about and challenge you to see that as a society we allow things like this to happen and in that sense we allow poverty to exists. Society is made up of dominate values, but it is we as the people that make up that society. "It is a tragic mix-up when the United States spends $500,000 for every enemy solider killed, and only $53 annually on the victims of poverty," once said by Martin Luther King Jr. (Reference 11). Now do you see the problem?

References

1. Rosalie Ambrosino, Robert Ambrosino, Joseph Heffernan, and Guy Shuttlesworth. Social Work and Social Welfare 6^th Edition. 2008. Pg. 173, Chp. 7 Poverty, Income Assistance, and Homelessness.

2. Rosalie Ambrosino, Robert Ambrosino, Joseph Heffernan, and Guy Shuttlesworth. Social Work and Social Welfare 6^th Edition. 2008. Pg. 171, Chp. 7 Poverty, Income Assistance, and Homelessness.

3. Rosalie Ambrosino, Robert Ambrosino, Joseph Heffernan, and Guy Shuttlesworth. Social Work and Social Welfare 6^th Edition. 2008. Pg. 8, Chp. 1 Social Welfare, Past and Present.

4. Jenny Blain and Lorne Tepperman. Think Twice! Sociology Looks at Current Social Issues. 2006. Pg.69, Chp. 4 Class and Stratification.

5. Jenny Blain and Lorne Tepperman. Think Twice! Sociology Looks at Current Social Issues. 2006. Pg.70, Chp. 4 Class and Stratification.

6. Terri Guillemets. The Quote Garden. March 18, 1998; updated October 14, 2007. URL: http://www.quotegarden.com

7. Jenny Blain and Lorne Tepperman. Think Twice! Sociology Looks at Current Social Issues. 2006. Pg.71, Chp. 4 Class and Stratification

8. Website Search Engine (group of authors). Think Exist. 1999-2006. URL: http://www.thinkexist.com/quotations/poverty pg 1.

9. Website Search Engine (group of authors). Think Exist. 1999-2006. URL: http://www.thinkexist.com/quotations/poverty pg 2.

10. Rosalie Ambrosino, Robert Ambrosino, Joseph Heffernan, and Guy Shuttlesworth. Social Work and Social Welfare 6^th Edition. 2008. Pg. 197, Chp. 7 Poverty, Income Assistance, and Homelessness.

11. Unknown. Poverty and Crime. Unknown. URL: http://economics.fundamentalfinance.com/povertycrime.php