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