Michael Tucker
August 3, 2012
ENG 215
Assignment #3 Persuasive Paper: Part 1
Strayer University
Professor Meadows
Imagine that your sister or brother calls you one day to tell you that their family is homeless and have no place to stay. This means that your nieces/nephews are out in the shivering cold or blistering heat with no food to eat and no place to lay their head. This is the daily grind of what some poverty stricken families go through on a reoccurring basis. This is not the reality of some unknown third world country (although this is the case with many known third world countries); this is the reality of the United States of America. The unquestioned #1 super power of the world and the leader of the free world democracy. The land of the free, and the place where freedom of speech or freedom to practice whatever religion you wish will not sanction you in any way. Poverty affects us all one way or another. For some of us, we have relatives that live in poverty and have the deal with the fact of knowing that you can only give so much before it starts to eat into your own finances and start to affect how you life. For others they must see the poverty face to face and be able to offer very little help to the situation. I am referring to workers at support shelters and free health care clinics. For the last group of people that do not live anywhere close to poverty line they are affected by poverty through the taxes they must pay that goes to help to decrease poverty.
Poverty can be defined as a state of living where the person is devoid of socially acceptable amount of money and material possessions. We have all felt a shortage of cash at times. Society recognizes poverty as the lack of those materials and goods whose possession can be taken for granted for other individuals who are above poverty line. I feel that if we all do our part, we can shake this monster called poverty from our society. But it will take a massive effort from all politicians, local and state officials, and every community member to rid ourselves of this unfortunate issue. In order to truly understand poverty, one needs to understand how the United States determines the official poverty rate and a few historical facts that surround poverty. This methodology was established in the mid-1960s and has not changed since then. A family is counted as poor if its pretax money income is below its poverty threshold. Money income does not include noncash benefits such as public housing, Medicaid, employer-provided health insurance and food stamps. African-Americans and Hispanics share the highest rate of poverty among all the races. African-Americans have 27.4 percent of the share and Hispanics hold 26.6. It also important to note that poverty rates are the highest for families that are headed by a single woman. More so if that single woman is of African-American or Hispanics race.
Systematically speaking, poverty can be explained by individual circumstances and/or characteristics of poor people (Srinivas, unknown year). There are several reasons as to why poverty is still ongoing. Until these reasons are addressed directly and individually, poverty will always be an issue. Natural disaster is a main reason for poverty’s rise. Many times, third world countries often cannot overcome natural disaster because of the limited resources that they face on a daily basis. Droughts and over flooding brings about long periods of agricultural recession by destroying crops and animals. Warfare, unbeknown to many people causes poverty. There is material destruction due to warfare, just infrastructure and services that many people do not take into effect when warfare is upon a country.
One of the biggest problems that can be directly related to poverty is the shortage of food and the preservation of it. Despite rapid economic growth in Asia-Pacific, millions of people from the region still experience hunger because food insecurity and inequality remain (Mayvelin, 2005). Because of this the local government must be creative about ways to decrease food waste, and promote more housing within the rural community. Due to the rapid growth population in this region, they could easily account for half of the global poverty rates if nothing is done to decrease poverty. Another reason for the food shortage is because farmers have to throw away hundreds and thousands of damaged crops each year with zero return on investment (the crops).
Another major problem for poverty is our economic inability to help and sustain jobs for the lower and middle class. Formal employment opportunities are shrinking in both North and South. In much of South Asia, Africa, and in poorer Latin American countries such as Mexico and Peru, only a fraction of the workforce ever attained formal employment. But today, even in countries such as Argentina and Chile with modern-style labor markets, jobs are vanishing fast. In Latin America over the 1990s, the proportion of jobs in the informal sector rose from 52 per cent to 58 percent. Such livelihoods are shadowy and undependable (3 Economic development, 2009).
The third problem that makes poverty so detrimental is the environmental factor. Many times food shelter does only have enough food to feed a small number of families. These same food shelters are receiving no official continuous support from its local government. The same can be said for the health facilities that provide service to the poverty-stricken. These facilities have professionally educated staff that make very close to the minimal wage. To put it in prospect, there are doctors in these facilities that bring home a take home pay of what a typical school teacher makes. This should not be allowed. This all goes back to being federal funded and community supported. The community can only support so much. It is the local and state government’s responsibility to provide funding so that better equipment can be purchased. Healthier food can be given out at the food shelters and homeless shelters.
In conclusion, I would like to state that poverty affects us all. Poverty is a problem that has been around since the 1500s. Poverty has to be considered a more serious problem in order for things to become better. Local and state governments do have the means to decrease this problem. It is just a matter of getting enough support for this issue and having the right leaders get together and try to come up with a solution. Also, building and replacing aging infrastructure and providing support to local shelters and healthcare will go a very long way. Lastly, giving farmers so type of incentives for farming, even if they crops are destroyed will help out the cause as well.
References
Srinivas, H. http://www.gdrc.org/icm/poverty-causes.htm Causes of Poverty
Mayvelin, Philippines "ADB: Millions hungry because of inequality." McClatchy - Tribune Business News. 2012, May 05
(2009). 3 Economic development - who benefits? New Internationalist Publications LTD. Retrieved from http://elibrary.bigchalk.com