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