Poverty in America: A Global Epidemic

A worldwide Epidemic Ben Sims Sociology 445 Contemporary Social Problems Professor Shannon Sellers August 2, 2014 Of exclusively the complaisant problems that exist within America today, brusqueness Is undoubtedly the around earthyplace . The stigma of indigence Is no longer entirely the plight of ternion world countries, unless or else an epidemic that has vigorously manifested itself in the unite States at an alarming count. Yes, in America, the country teeming with an abundance of natural resources and the patents to the close pioneering technological advances f modern time, Indisputably faces an unprecedented burden of p overty.It is estimated that more(prenominal) than 46 million Americans live in pauperisation in the US (Tighten 157). American families ar increasingly finding themselves struggling to make conclusions meet, and with the go on rate of un enjoyment and the rapid increases to the cost of bread and butter more and more families are left to choose between the very sanctioned necessities of life such(prenominal) as food, shelter and health care. Poverty has also had a profound push on education and crime, predominantly in inner-city communities where the wealth inequality is most apparent.With entirely the carnage caused by penury being distinctly lucid In America why Is nothing being done active It? Does anyone care? Sadly, the most egregious aspect of the epidemic of indigence in America is that it doesnt harbour to exist at all. The US ultimately has the resources and message to eliminate poverty altogether, if only it was placed as a broad(prenominal) enough priority. To truly comprehend the profound touch that poverty has had on America, there must first be an understanding of what poverty basically means and how It was caused.Webster dictionary describes poverty as the state of one who lacks a usual 1 OFF Dictionary). The textbook however, offers a more in-depth military position on the term stating that poverty is a standard of living down the stairs the stripped needed for the maintenance of adequate diet, health and shelter (Tighten 181). This exposition implies that the poverty threshold is based on those who can make the minimum amount of money required to maintain a decent take aim of life and those who cannot. Although these particular descriptions of poverty are not necessarily wrong, they are also not entirely accurate.When most pack think of poverty the assumption may be that the core plowshare of those actually living in poverty are the homeless or unemployed, but sexual congress to popular belief most of the people living in poverty actually work. They are classified as the working poor. consort to US Census data over 2. 6 million full-time workers lived down the stairs the poverty line in 2010 (Tighten 161). How is this executable? First and foremost, the federal minimum wage requirement in the United States is $7. 25. So for an employee who works 40 h ours a workweek t heritor sum of money monthly salary would be $1 , 165. 0 before taxes. Now lets analyze how much it would cost for an modal(a) American earning a minimum wage salary to pay for the 3 most Asia necessities in life food, shelter and health care. The average percentage that Americans pay in housing costs is approximately 28 to 35 percent of their take home pay (Curmudgeon, 2010). 28 percent of $1,160. 00 is $324. 80. According too 2010 survey conducted by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics Americans neglect roughly $1 51. 00 a week on food, equaling a humongous $604. 00 a month (Mended, 2012).If we add the average monthly cost of healthcare under Beams Affordable Care Act, which is $328. 00 (Persuade, 2014), the total monthly expenses for Just the basic necessities alone is a staggering $1 ,256. 0. The basic necessities alone total more than the average worker, earning minimum wage, in America makes in a month and that figure still doesnt account for utility bills , transportation and early(a) miscellaneous expenses. Not to mention the addition of a spouse or children. It is important to understand that poverty is a very complex well-disposed dilemma, with a variety of unfounded stereotypes that persist ab by its causes.One of the most common misconceptions about poverty is that the poor inherently cause their own poverty, alluding to the poor having a lack of drive and ambition infallible to change heir financial status. This perception is often referred to as the person-blame approach . This means that amicable problems such as poverty are the result of the pathologies of individuals (Tighten 163). Although this notion is credible, in this particular instance, it is slightly off kilter due to that situation that stock-still though 2. Million people go to work and log over 40 hours a week they still wont surpass the threshold of as yet half of the nations median(a) salary. And therein lies the problem. The issue is not whether member s of society are willing to work, because not only are a majority f the poor willing and able to work hard, they do so when prone the opportunity. The real root of the problem is the minimum wage requirement in the US and the lack of access to adequate education and schooling necessary to acquire better-paying Jobs.The system-blame approach is more fitting in this instance because there is no shortage of people willing to work but rather a shortage in the amount that is being paid out for said work. There is also no shortage in people willing to procure and utilize the sufficient training and education needed to attain better employment but underprivileged. Although the government has in fact tried to implement weapons platforms to solve the problem of poverty in America, umpteen of these programs contained crucial flaws and in many cases made the predicament worse. Welfare is the most notable of these programs.Welfare was established to assist underprivileged families and indiv iduals get out of poverty (Tighten 165), but have ultimately led to a disturbing rate of dependency. Instead of assisting families welfare had essentially enabled them in many ways, with a enormous majority of recipients not feeling the need to work. Provisions thin the program charge made it easier to stay on welfare than to seek employment and encouraged unmarried woman to have children. Thus, the enactment of the Welfare iron out Act of 1996. This bill was established to reduce the number of families and individuals dependent on government assistance.These institutional changes helped to reduce welfare dependency by mandating that recipients actively seek work time receiving government assistance, increasing the level of duty for those in need of financial aid. The government also developed several(prenominal) other programs in an effort to curve poverty such as the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program (TANK) which declare oneselfs financial assistance to low-inco me families but also requires them to work at least(prenominal) 20 hours a week to receive benefits (Saddler, 2012).Addition services such as Medicaid, Food Stamps and WICK were all established to essentially assist low-income families achieve financial stability eyepatch progressively becoming independent of all government aid. Although these programs and institutional amendments have been extremely valuable in assisting the poor and underprivileged maintain a prolongable level of life, unfortunately they havent been enough to end or even cut the poverty level in Alfa.These programs have ultimately helped sustain the global threshold of poverty in many ways by serving to only assist low-income families get through financial difficulties kinda of helping them get out. The only way for members of the underprivileged society to onward motion above poverty is to provide the means to earn more than the nations median income. This goes back to the need for programs that assist indiv iduals in acquiring the knowledge and training necessary to acquire higher paying Jobs and also for the government to give notice the minimum wage requirement.Perhaps the most compelling explanation for the persistence of poverty is the remarry of private profit. The basic principle of capitalism is who gets what is determined solely by private profit rather than collective need (Tighten 173). By private corporations emphasizing the theory of maximizing profits they ultimately end up endorsing poverty. This is done by companies paying their workers the minimum amount possible including benefits and pocketing the wealth that was created by laborers and distributing it among the owners instead of the working class.Primacy of profit also endorses poverty by employing a bevy of uneducated and desperate laborers who are intense to work for low wages. Many of these laborers are illegal immigrants and dont view having benefits as a necessity. This in turn makes it extremely profitable f or owners of businesses and large corporations to pick out these workers because of the amount of money that they will be able to save while still being able to employ laborers full time.Poverty is supported and retained through my belief that the US government has made attempts to curve the impact of poverty, I believe that the United States has the power to end poverty all together. This can be accomplished by making poverty a top priority. The United States spends roughly 712. Billion dollars of our nations defense each twelvemonth (Tighten 177). A percentage of that figure can be deducted and contributed to combat poverty without Jeopardizing our nations defense at all.This extra money could be used to provide adequate schooling and fund programs that promote academic advancement in inner-city communities. Those funds could also be used to provide training seminars for individuals with particular education who seek higher paying Jobs and wish to be more competitive candidates in todays Job market. Most importantly however, those funds could be used to raise the federal minimum wage requirement to a level that allows ore people to earn above or at least earn wages comparable to the nations median salary.