Picture below taken from zerohedge.com, listed url: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-12/american-war-poverty-summarized-one-cartoon
Main Points
What causes Poverty? -Single Parent Homes -Economic recession -Health Issues/Disabilities -Substance Abuse/ Legal Trouble Cycle of Poverty Set of events by which poverty, once started is likely to continue unless there is outside intervention. Housing Low income forces people to live in cheap often inner city housing. The public school schooling in many poor urban school districts are notorious for their poor quality of education. Education In poor school districts where the quality of education lags behind richer ones, students who do go on to higher education may have difficulty with the curriculum because they were not taught some topic in high school. Occupation Lack of higher education makes it more difficult to find decent paying jobs Social Discrimination Not having an adequate income from their job causes people to stay in poverty. This makes some people think of those in poverty as "lazy" or "incompetent". Figure 1.1
Picture taken from U.S. News, listed url;http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2015/01/28/us-education-still-separate-and-unequal Figure 1,2
Picture taken from daily mail.com, listed url:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2423834/One-seven-Americans-living-poverty.html |
History of the Poor. From the time people have started forming civilizations, societies have been for the most part, plutocracies. A plutocracy is a country or society ruled by the wealthy. The reason for this "rule by the rich" is the power people derive from their wealth. Ancient societies like the Roman Empire, Greece, and the pre-WWII Empire of Japan were all considered plutocracies. In these types of societies peoples rank or "worth" as a citizen was determined by their wealth. The poor were consequently seen as second class citizens.
This classification as second class citizens caused all kinds of abuse and torment for the poor. In medieval times when nations were at war the poor were often put on the front lines, to be essentially human shields for the mercenaries and soldiers. In colonial times many people immigrated over to the united states as indentured servants, meaning they were supposed to be a servant for seven years in exchange for the boat ride across the Atlantic and citizenship. Many of these indentured servants were treated as slaves by their bosses and when their seven years was up many were forced to stay even longer due to "additional fees" such as the food they were provided, many ended up being servants for as much as one and a half times the origonal agreed amount of years. The poor have always gotten treated poorly because they basically don't have the power to stand up for themselves and demand fair treatment. The poverty stricken have gone by man names throughout history peasants, Proletariats, the "have-nots, lower class, and many more. Until the twentieth century the poor largely consisted of farmers. Not all farmers were poor, but the majority were. This can be attributed to the fact the farming takes a lot of initial capital to start and grow. Most farmers didn't make enough many to buy more land in large amounts. The trade of farming was handed down from generation to generation along with the land families used, leaving little room for personal economic growth. During the 1900's the emergence of large cities created a need for jobs other than farming. The industrial revolution created opportunities for advancement that farming could not offer. Before the industrial revolution 90% of the American population were farmers. today it is as small as 2%, and as were there used to be many small family run farms, Now the majority of agriculture consists of large business run farms. As discussed previously plutocracy still plays a major role in global politics. Even today in the United States we are in a sense a plutocracy. Technically speaking we are a democratic- republic, yet nearly all of politicians are in the upper- class or upper middle class. Also business tycoons and the extremely wealthy as a whole have immensely more political and social power compared to the average citizen. . Demographics There are many different subcategories that the majority of poor people fit into. Ethnically speaking African- Americans are the poorest race as a whole; closely followed by Hispanics. Asians and whites make up the smallest demographic in poverty, (seen in figure 1.1). Children make up the biggest percentage of the poor age-wise. Over 40% of those in poverty are children, largely because poverty stricken parents often have several children. The older people get the more time they have had to save money and find steady employment, making people less likely to be poor as they get older. Women also make up a good amount more of the poor than men do; For reasons such as making less money in the same job, less opportunities for advancement at jobs, and child rearing responsibilities.(all represented in figure 1.2) |