Cause of poverty

The first factor causing poverty is the absence of father figures in households. Child poverty results from this because father figures are considered the breadwinner in today’s society. If single mothers married the fathers of their children almost three quarters of them would be lifted out of poverty immediately. This is because single mothers don’t work enough hours to provide a comfortable living for them and their child and with two parents working double the amount of one would be considered more beneficial.  The evidence behind this statement can be considered a fallacy identified as “Red Herring,” because the topic is what causing poverty as a whole and not what’s causing child poverty, kids are poor even though many of them can’t work or contribute to their family income. The irrelevant information provided is used to distract the audience from the bigger picture of poverty and shift their attention to the children and not how the absence of the father generating income for a family is causing poverty.

            Another is the idea of a permanent underclass. Severe poverty is worst by the Mexican border where 6.5 million severely poor residents are struggling to find work.  Factors such as increased fluctuation in family income and illegal immigration have helped pushed severe poverty lower. Also according to Arloc Sherman a senior researcher at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities claims that there isn’t a growing permanent underclass, but there are a growing number of single mothers losing their jobs and not being able to be caught by a safety net anymore. But there is a  failure to show the number of legal citizens that are having a hard time finding low skilled jobs and creates a hasty generalization about illegal immigration causing poverty near the Mexican border. 

            The two factors presented are similar. Not having a father in a household and single mothers losing jobs can directly correlated in the result of poverty. These factors are not serious factors that cause poverty, the economy is causing Dads to walk out because it’s harder to support yourself if your already in poverty let alone two more people such as your wife and a new born. Also the economy having a recent recession is creating job lost and contributes to single mothers losing their jobs.

The last factor causing of poverty is Americans are content with their living situations. The Census Bureau claims there are 37 million American families are considered poor even though they are well off with many amenities they own. Many low-income families own resources like the middle class such as air conditioning, VCR’s, Refrigerators, Cars, Homes, Satellite TV. The article reveals that many poor household consume more food and almost have no problem providing food for the family. Only 2% don’t have enough to eat and 89% have enough to eat. The straw person fallacy presented distorts the person point of view on poverty allowing assumptions to poverty not really being an issue with families owning materials that middle and upper class own. The fallacy in the evidence is an appeal questioning authority; the government is not very specific on the criteria met by lower class families. Many would believe the authority in this situation, but to the definition of poverty proposed by Rector, having amenities and being well nourished doesn’t fit his description of poverty and contradicts his reasoning. Along with the fallacy revealed in the evidence, there’s a lack of expertise and support in the statistics on household consumption and no information to help build his argument.

references:

http://www.globalissues.org/issue/2/causes-of-poverty

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/poverty.html

Is Capitalism Racist?

Capitalism in the inner city is could in fact be racist. Many factors may play a role such as socio-economic status, residential and economic segregation, and alienation. But capitalism may be another way to justify racism in the city and around America. Gender and ethnicity will be the main focus in this section to determine whether capitalism is racist. Racism is one of the biggest controversial topics in our nation today and many people choose to make it apparent and others ignore it. The capitalistic owners controlling most of the means of production in our economy may use race as a way to maintain the social order in our society. The idea of “white privilege” could be a consequence of this practice by the big business owners. White privilege is the idea that because a person is has white skin they automatically own benefits and advantages in their everyday lives that color people don’t. Like slavery, African Americans were a valuable asset to white farmers and like in todays society, minorities willing to do cheap labor to benefit the Capitalistic is essentially the same thing. Exploiting workers to make a profit is equally the same as slaves picking cotton farms to benefit their master to sell for profit. To be clear, “…racism did not derive from capitalism itself but rather from the social, cultural and institutional conditions of post-slavery, pre-civil rights America”(Pitcher 2012: p7).

            Racism came before capitalism, but capitalism reinforces the idea of racism through social and economic structures. Racism can correlate to how Chicago is divided by whites dominating the north side and African American dominating the south side. Other than residential segregation, most of the cheap labor is located in the southern part of Chicago therefore explains why African Americans dominant most of the urban area. With a lack of education, skilled labor, and resources, capitalistic owner may take advantage of these factors for cheap unskilled labor to be done for a profit.

References:

http://capitalism.org/racism/does-capitalism-cause-racism/ 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kirsten-west-savali/you-cant-have-capitalism-_b_5809628.html

Do We Need Something New?

Whether we are aware or not, hundreds of people that are on welfare are not using it for its intended purposes. This abuse is something that actually disgusts me. I recently watched a video (posted as a link below) of a woman who got accepted for welfare. She was more excited about not having to work for two years than most people are when they get accepted for college! this is absolutely ridiculous. Now, I know that not everyone on welfare is abusing it but I do believe that the system we have now is something that can be easily manipulated in order to get benefits.

So what do we do? The idea that is just kind of floating around in my head involves something like a dorm room. I know you're thinking, "public housing? that doesn't work, we've proved it before" but what if different rules were applied within the public housing. We could incorporate rules that would limit freedoms but not necessarily make a person feel trapped. The first of many rules would be something like a lights-out policy which would signal the residents to go to bed at this time. The next input would be the security around the building. This would open up some job opportunities for cadets who are starting their training and ensure good behavior among the residents. There could also be temporary job opportunities within the building to give the residents job experience that is much needed in the outside world. These jobs would include; floor supervisor, janitor, food staff, computer lab assistants, etc. However long you qualify for welfare is however long you are allowed to stay within this facility. If you don't follow the rules or aren't cooperating with the higher authority, punishment should be based on a three strike rule. On the third strike, I believe that should be enough to surrender your welfare and public housing back to the state. If you don't like the rules or don't like the idea of a clean environment run by security then you don't have to accept the welfare benefits.

I personally believe that if something like this were to be put in place it would solve a lot of the problems with welfare abuse today. It would not only get the individuals used to a scheduled lifestyle that will help them in the real world but it would also give them opportunities within the housing to gain job experience. this would help the individual with the job hunt that they are supposed to be on while on welfare. I may be taking things to the extreme but that video I watched really pinched a nerve of mine.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A5MhgRpda0

This is what people have to deal with?

In Chapter 7 of the book "The Truly Disadvantaged," by William Julius Wilson, Wilson talks about the "self perpetuating pathology," of the urban community. He talks about how studies about racial isolation and class subordination have been shied away from in recent years by scholars in an effort to not come off as racist or biased in their research. We can see other examples of this type of deliberate avoiding of the real problems blacks are facing in our society even today. One of the biggest issues that has come about recently has been the Flint Michigan water crisis. Here is a quick breakdown of what happened if you are unaware: the Republican Governor  of Michigan, Rick Synder,  in an effort to save money, decided to switch the drinking water supply in Flint Michigan from the fresh water source of Lake Huron, that it had originally been using for decades before hand, to the toxic water source of the Flint River. Even after the governors office had been made aware of just how toxic the water was, they decided to keep quiet about the facts and cover up just how bad the water was for the people. To make things even worse, the CEO of General Motors, came to the governor to complain that the Flint River water was eroding their car parts, so the governor paid over $400,000 to get the GM plant back on the fresh water supply of Lake Huron, while knowingly keeping the citizens of Flint Michigan connected to a water source that eroding materials that are used to make car parts. those affected most severely have been children, especially under the age for six, because of the high concentration of lead in the water. The high concentration of lead has led to many people suffering from lead poisoning and on some occasions even dying. This has sparked outrage from a lot of people in our society and has led to calls for everyone involved with this disaster to be brought to justice. While this is tragedy, and people should definitely be held accountable for this disastrous mishandling of peoples lively hood in order to turn a profit, there has been a reluctance by the media and other outlets to flesh out the extent to which people are being affected. In Flint, poverty and crime rates were already high before the water crisis. As we learned in class, Flint was one of the many cities that suffers from a low level of collective efficacy, this is especially true for people living in predominately black areas. Unfortunately, these areas have been hit the hardest by the water crisis, with black families being disproportionately affected by the lead in the water as opposed to white families living in Flint. This alludes to what Wilson talked about in chapter 7 of his book about the  hidden agenda of the media and other outlets to try to downplay the role that race has on affecting socioeconomic status and poverty levels. Unfortunately, this is a horrific event that has taken place in our country and we see how the greedy people in our society who have the power can drastically affect the lives of everyone else in their quest for more money.

http://michaelmoore.com/10FactsOnFlint/

http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/flint-water-crisis/2016/04/28/race-factor-flint-water-crisis/83604236/

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/who-poisoned-flint-michigan-20160122

The Misconception of Blacks on Welfare

In chapter seven of William Julius Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged, he talks about the ghetto underclass which refers to this heterogeneous group of families and individuals who inhabit the cores of the nation's central cities. This essentially means that families who are of same income level, class status, and race are those who have been grouped together in dense areas that have been known as the ghetto. As Professor Weffer mentioned in class, ghetto didn't always mean that it was a slum of particular minority group or groups in certain parts of cities. It was originally linked to Jewish communities in countries. It wasn’t until after World War Two did the word ghetto no longer refer to Jewish communities. It was during this time that the word ghetto began to become associated with poor minorities. In the case of America, it specifically referred to blacks in poverty. This is where Wilson’s term about the ghetto underclass comes in as blacks have been concentrated in specific areas where there is an overwhelming amount of poor families. People say that blacks are the ones who use welfare the most but in actuality it is whites. The reason I believe that even though whites are on welfare the most it is because poor blacks have been roped into the poorest parts of the city. Just as someone mentioned in class, whites may be on welfare the most but they are more distributed throughout the area. Whites live in more mix communities so it does not appear to seem severe. When you look at these ghetto underclass neighborhoods for blacks, you will see a significant increase in concentration of those on welfare which gives the illusion that blacks are on welfare the most.

If black communities were to become more mix income, I believe that the idea of blacks being the main users of welfare would lessen greatly. The problem with that is that we have learned throughout the semester that there is a reoccurring cycle in cities in which whites move out of neighborhoods when blacks begin to move in. White flight is of course not the only reason to the public’s perceptions of these black communities. Policies that the government has made in the past have in subtle ways set the stage for these communities to essential become a heterogeneous group of minorities that are poor. That is not to say that policies being past today are specifically trying to keep individuals in these communities, but I feel that the lack of funding towards these policies are the main problem as they attempt to help but fail to fully follow through. If blacks were able to break the ghetto underclass and live in mixed income neighborhoods similar to other poor whites, this misconception of blacks being the highest user of welfare.

http://www.cbpp.org/blog/tight-spending-caps-force-cuts-in-low-income-housing-assistance

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/04/27/306829915/segregated-from-its-history-how-ghetto-lost-its-meaning

The Perennial Problem of Violence

One of society's most historic and pervasive ills has been that of violence. It seems as though no matter what society, empire, time, or place in history you would like to examine, you will inevitably run into some instances and accounts of violence therein. It is sad to say that in today’s day and age we see instances and accounts of violence occurring at an exponential and alarming rate all across the globe.

Sampson’s argument about violence in “Great American City” is that though issues such as violence and their relationship to our local neighborhoods are effected by global realities in many ways, they are still ultimately local issues with local causes and solutions. No matter how far and wide we look for causes of violence at the local community level, we will find no better answer than within the communities in and of themselves. Sampson himself examined possible other larger context causes for violence at the local community level such as the dissipating level of control and stewardship the Chicago Housing Authority had on its housing projects, the effects of collective efficacy and perceived disorder, and organized leadership in violence-stricken neighborhoods. The most common outcome of Sampson’s many studies seemed to be that these larger contextual realities had little to no effect on local communities and the rates of violence seen therein; though it should be noted that Sampson did believe that many of these factors were generally accurate predictors of future violence, in particular collective efficacy. Overall, Sampson concludes “no matter how much our fate is determined by global or “big” forces, it is experienced locally and shaped by contexts of shared meanings, collective efficacy, and organizational responses.” Again we see collective efficacy as the most reliable source for founding one’s predictions about communal violence in Chicago and abroad.

My own reaction to this is that this portion of the chapter was very enlightening. I can agree with the conclusion that Sampson comes, in that local communities have their own level of agency when it comes to the level of violence committed within. I do, however, believe that some global realities and circumstances that transcend any one local community will inevitable play a role in the social dynamics and instances that are witnessed within a local community. For example, the prevalence of violence in the media and the video games undoubtedly has an incredibly strong effect on the minds of adolescents across the globe and within our own local neighborhoods. Therefore, I believe this prevalence of easily accessible and consumable violence will inevitably effect the actions of this adolescents once they grow and become accountable adult members of society; we will see increases in local violence due to this global reality. 

http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/Pages/PDF/Guerra-DierkhisingANGxp1.pdf

http://www.ojjdp.gov/jjbulletin/9804/community.html

The Great Urban Renewal and Affordable Housing

www.clipartpanda.com

As we learned earlier in this chapter, the 1950s meant a big boom for the suburbs and a decline for the city. We see how this happened with Detroit where it is now more or less a ghost town, which is far from the big, bustling city it was in the 1920s and 1930s. As discussed in the book, this made way for the “urban renewal” projects that followed.

Urban renewal was programs that were aimed at creating affordable housing and income earning civic projects. Of course this did not end up working out as planned, out of the about 126,000 houses that were torn down for the project, about 28,000 were built leaving multiple people without the homes they were promised.  The HUD project came into effect in the 1960s and it was increasingly clear that the project did more to segregate blacks and keep them out of the suburbs where the middle class whites were than to really build good affordable housing.

When looking at the HUD website one of the main things they promote is safe and sanitary affordable housing, but how many of the Section 8 houses are actually like that? Even if they are actually clean houses, the wait list can be a mile long, leaving some people homeless until their voucher comes in. The fact that there is so little affordable housing is a result of the urban renewal projects of the late 1940s. It also says on the website that they have had an increase in the amount of funds available, but they are only for people who are renewing their contract, so what happens to the people who are still waiting to get in? 

I personally do not really know the perfect answer to making more affordable housing for people of low income. We can make it easy by just saying that we should just build more housing, but in a city like Chicago where almost every inch is filled, our only option is to rebuild the housing we have now. Now this only solves part of the problem because it does not solve what happens to the housing when the landlords do not keep it up or where to put the people that live in those housing areas while it is being rebuilt. So what do you think is the best way to solve this problem?

Here is the website for HUD:

http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/programdescription/cert8