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Poverty and its impact on society
Effect of income inequality in us
Poverty and its impact on society
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No one wants to be poor. We do not want to live in a humble house and worry about our daily necessities. However, we were determined to be rich or poor since we were born. Many people work hard to overcome poverty, but it is not easy. That’s why intergenerational poverty is a common issue around the world. Upward mobility means raising from a lower social class to a higher social class. The reasons of small upward mobility —rising from lower class to middle class— are the government’s tax preference and spending are favoring the wealth, managers earning much more than workers and the mainstream culture rarely covers the life of working class. There are generally three classes in the society: upper class, middle class and lower class. The working class usually refers to lower class. These social classes are generally divided according to people’s wages and educational level. It is a normal phenomenon that social classes exist in the society. However, the wealth gap between the rich and poor is getting wider in America. According to Dee Dee Myers’ ‘What class warfare really looks like’, “The top 1 percent …show more content…
In ‘Hidden Rules Among Classes’, the author, Ruby K. Payne, summarized the characteristics of poverty, middle class and wealth. She thought that money in poverty is an expression of personality and is used for entertainment and relationships. Their motivations are survival, relationships and entertainment. They care much on present and make decisions based on feelings or survival. However, it is dogmatic to say that all people who are living under poverty line do not know how to spend their money correctly and love entertainment. Many poor people have low income because they are not highly educated, thus, cannot work in a higher position. Even they know how to manage their money, they cannot overcome poverty because of their limited
Growing up in The United States, people are given this idea of an American Dream. Almost every child is raised to believe they can become and do anything they want to do, if one works hard enough. However, a majority of people believe that there is a separation of class in American society. Gregory Mantsios author of “Class in America-2009” believes that Americans do not exchange thoughts about class division, although most of people are placed in their own set cluster of wealth. Also political officials are trying to get followers by trying to try to appeal to the bulk of the population, or the middle class, in order to get more supporters. An interesting myth that Mantsios makes in his essay is how Americans don’t have equal opportunities.
According to Gregory Mantsios many American people believed that the classes in the United States were irrelevant, that we equally reside(ed) in a middle class nation, that we were all getting richer, and that everyone has an opportunity to succeed in life. But what many believed, was far from the truth. In reality the middle class of the United States receives a very small amount of the nation's wealth, and sixty percent of America's population receives less than 6 percent of the nation's wealth, while the top 1 percent of the American population receives 34 percent of the total national wealth. In the article Class in America ( 2009), written by Gregory Mantsios informs us that there are some huge differences that exist between the classes of America, especially the wealthy and the poor. After
People from lower classes try to achieve success but tend to struggle depending upon their foundation. The problem that people don’t want see is that we all want to become successful, and have the capability to do so but are just restricted by the lack of income.
America is divided into two main groups, rich or poor. There is some grey area among these groups which is referred to as the middle class. The problem with the middle class is that most people think they belong in the middle class because they do not want to associate themselves with neither rich nor poor; there are stigmas attached to each side of the spectrum.
With each class comes a certain level in financial standing, the lower class having the lowest income and the upper class having the highest income. According to Mantsios’ “Class in America” the wealthiest one percent of the American population hold thirty-four percent of the total national wealth and while this is going on nearly thirty-seven million Americans across the nation live in unrelenting poverty (Mantsios 284-6). There is a clear difference in the way that these two groups of people live, one is extreme poverty and the other extremely
The idea that people of poor communities conform to a living standard and behavior is a concept described by Oscar Lewis as the culture of poverty. It is the belief that poor people consists of their own beliefs and values and behaviors. And more than 45 years later after the term, the culture of poverty paradigm remains the same: there is a consistent and observable culture that is shared by people in poverty. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as the culture of poverty. differences in behaviors and values among those that are poor are just as significant as those between wealthy and poor. The culture of poverty is a construct of smaller stereotypes which seem to have implanted themselves into the collective conscience of mainstream thought as undeniable fact. However, as we will see, nothing could be further from the truth. Based on 6 most common myths of what defines poor from wealthy, I will provide evidence to the contrary.
Society has categorized individuals depending on their financial status and their income; also known as social class. There are three original social classes in America, upper, middle, and lower class. The classes may sometimes be further divided into upper- upper, lower-upper, upper-middle and lower middle; with the working and lower classes at the bottom; working poor and underclass.
Paul Krugman, in his article “The Death of Horatio Alger” suggests that social mobility among classes in the United States is becoming more difficult by the day. Krugman explains that the idea of the American Dream and moving from class to class was once semi easily attainable; but is now seemingly impossible. Although America is thought of as a classless society, the country has a whole is moving into a caste society run by the rich.
Social and economic class is something we as Americans like to push into the back of our minds. Sometimes recognizing our class either socially or economically can almost be crippling. When individuals recognize class, limitations and judgment confront us. Instead, we should know it is important to recognize our class, but not let it define and limit us. In the essay, “Class in America”, Gregory Mantsios, founder and director of the Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Worker Education at the School of Professional Studies, brings to light the fact that Americans don’t talk about class and class mobility. He describes the classes in extremes, mainly focusing on the very sharp divide between the extremely wealthy and extremely poor. In contrast, George
According to Schwartz-Nobel, America will lose as much as 130 billion in future productive capacity for every year that 14.5 American children continue to live in poverty (Koppelman and Goodhart, 2007). Sadly the seriousness of poverty is still often clouded by myths and misunderstandings by society at large. This essay studies the issue of poverty and classism in today's society.
Divisions within the social stratum is a characteristic of societies in various cultures and has been present throughout history. During the middle ages, the medieval feudal system prevailed, characterized by kings and queens reigning over the peasantry. Similarly, in today’s society, corporate feudalism, otherwise known as Capitalism, consists of wealthy elites dominating over the working poor. Class divisions became most evident during America’s Gilded Age and Progressive era, a period in time in which the rich became richer via exploitation of the fruits of labor that the poor persistently toiled to earn. As a result, many Americans grew compelled to ask the question on everyone’s mind: what do the rich owe the poor? According to wealthy
Intergenerational poverty is a word used for people that have been poor and remain poor for a long period of time. Poverty can travel from one generation to the next, poor parents having children and then their children having children and so on. Intergenerational poverty not only means poor people but it can also mean long term effects of poor nutrition, education, health care and a lack of opportunities for these people. Families that struggle with poverty are more or less going to pass on the same to their next generation as poverty affects children a lot and they face many challenges such as moving often from house to house and the changing of schools and the schools that they attend are not funded very well therefore they don’t get the
Do the poor in this country have a choice not to be poor? Do the less fortunate have the same access to opportunities as the middle and upper classes? Do government programs designed to help the impoverished actually keep them in the lower ranks? These are all difficult and controversial questions. Conservatives and Liberals constantly battle over these issues in our state and federal governments. Local and national news media provide limited insight to the root causes and effects of the nation’s poor. There is obviously no simple solution to resolve the plight of these often forgotten citizens. Most of us associate poor as being in a class below the poverty line. In fact there are many levels of poverty ranging from those with nothing, to those with enough to survive but too little to move up. I believe many of our nation’s poor are so by their own doing. I will share observations and personal experiences to support the argument that being poor often is a result of individual choice. One needs merely inspiration and perspiration to move up the socio-economic ladder in the United States. We live in the land of opportunity where anyone with the drive and determination to succeed often can.
Money is an essential part of life where every people can satisfy whatever they need and every person in America has a chance to find a job. However, some of the people in the country wanted to go on with their life freely by being a part of a welfare. Furthermore, distribution of wealth is a huge demand of every citizen. Everyone today is trying to look down for every people in the lower class, as they did not give any benefit to the country, waiting for the benefits that they will receive from the government. For instance, when most lower class people have gone through a financial crisis due to overspending, insufficient fund or pay for their work to support themselves and/or their family. The example shows that lower class people made the economy of the country unstable, however, the middle class and the higher class is at fault as well. Furthermore, even though the benefit of that the lower class received is from the middle class, the middle class as well benefits from the higher class. To sum up, every class is at fault towards giving the country’s economy a positive
The rich, the middle class, and the poor; are described by the way we live and the amount of money one has. There are many different ways of describing what poverty is, whether it is by how you live or how much money you have. What is poverty and what does it mean to be poor? Not many of us know the true meaning of these terms. Poverty is an issue dealt with throughout the world, but we are not all aware if its conditions. Poverty is a very serious problem around the world. Poverty is defined as the equality to poorness and impoverishment -- (the state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions). A question to ask ourselves is: “Should poverty be defined strictly in terms of monetary income, as opposed to some qualitative formula which takes into consideration styles of life as well as material possessions?” (Sheppard 13) Because there are so many different ways we can express the term poverty, maybe there should be a certain way we can determine poverty world wide? A person might look like they are poor or think that they are, but by definition they really are not even close. Every country has poverty levels that decide if they are poor or not. The Philippines is a country that deals with this issue on a daily basis.