Poverty has been a ongoing, social issue that throughout the years has changed its meaning. Poverty is defined lacking basic necessities such as water, food, shelter, wealth, etc… About fifty years ago, war was declared on poverty by President Johnson hoping that it would end, but fast forward today, it is one of the biggest social issues America is dealing with. We don’t really know why poverty is still occurring, because the reasons seem to always be changing. The reasons for it still occurring is modern times as of right now are social conflict theory, structural functionalism, and symbolic interaction.
One of the reasons that poverty seems to still continue is because of the social conflict approach that happens to be the structure for the belief that views society as a platform of injustice that generates change and conflict. Unlike structural functionalism which we will talk about in the next paragraph, the conflict theory withholds how social structure advocates how society is composed and conveyed, concentrating on how we and others are benefited and suffering from social patterns. “In the United States, inequalities have steadily increased the past 20 years”(Korgen). The conflict theory is used by sociologist by looking at the lasting dispute between improvement and deficiency of people, for instance the relation between the wealth and the underprivileged, the relations between races, and also the relation between genders.
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The people that are on top try to defend, conserve and maintain their privileges, at the same time the people who are at a disadvantage in society assemble and acquire more for themselves and their families. Education is one of the many examples that displays inequality of schools and classrooms. Children that are born into an underprivileged house and not being a to receive a full education, as if being born into a wealthier household and having them funds to be able to afford higher eduction such as college, which in the long run will be able provide those children with higher paying careers or jobs in comparison to poor children who are not capable of supporting and providing a way to pay for college or the higher education. In results to not being able to afford college, these students are not able to attain a well paying job. Since these students are not able to attend high education and secure a high income job, these students end up mirroring the patterns of their parents.
The study of our society focusing on the inequality and conflict of racial groups. For example it is believed that the Caucasians have more social power over the nationalities of color. For instance, the powers are looked at to be more education, healthier life styles, and higher quality jobs. Gender conflicts as all the others it focuses on the inequality of women and men. Throughout the decades, men have always had the dominant positions in the work field which contributed to a better salary. To summarize the conflict theory symbols the hierarchical division of society as result of poverty considering the low opportunities from injustice and unfairness towards race, ethnics and gender.
Structural functionalism, what is it? Structional Functionalism is defined as the framework for building theory that sees societies as a complex system, whose parts work together to form a stable and solidarity society. Functionalist look at society as a system of interconnected parts that work together in harmony to maintain balance for the whole. According to Hebert Spencer that the human body which needs all its parts to work properly remembers a social functionalism which needs all parts of society to function. Social structure does not always end good, and have happy outcomes, which as an aftermath of dysfunction interfering with how a society is normal ran or functioning. Poverty is thought-out to be functional since several careers like doctors and attorneys call for more schooling and proficiency rather than jobs working in retail or restaurants which don’t require little to no education and skill. These high paying jobs have been narrowed down to those people that are eager to learn and spend time and money in school while having the mind set that all of their hard work will pay off due to the immense salary they will earn.
Lastly, poverty continues in todays society because a thing called symbolic interaction. Symbolic interaction explains social behavior in terms of how people as a society are interacting with one another. A symbolic interactionist believes a society is an outcome of everyday social interactions of individuals. In the world we live in, there are many symbols with connected meaning to everything interpreting our surroundings, assumptions about people and contracting an identity for ourselves. For instance, wealthy and poor people are portrayed in society completely differently. We as people look at a wealthier person and think of that person as hard-working and well educated, while underprivileged and poor people may be portrayed as inattentive and not well educated.
Finally, it may be concluded as property will always be social issue and looked at as lacking necessities like food, water, shelter. The United States is known to be one of the wealthiest countries in the world, however in “2017 they’re are 12.3% of America population still living in poverty, which works out to be 1 in 8 Americans.” (Pressman) Poverty today is not the same as it was 100’s of years ago, the definition is continuously changing and can be looked at in many different ways such as the conflict approaches, structural functionalism and finally symbolic interaction.
Causes Of Poverty
Some causes of poverty in the United States are: unemployment, inflation, poor management of resources, government policies, debt, corruption, extreme weather, lack of control in local food, lack of access to education, mental illness ( lack of proper psychiatric care), diseases, automation, and overpopulation. Poverty is a pervasive human condition of being unable to obtain or provide a standard level of food, water and/or shelter. It exists in every country in varying degrees, and it is unlikely to disappear anytime soon. The United States is considered the richest country in the world, and yet millions of its residents live in poverty.
Poverty is measured in two ways – absolute poverty and relative poverty. Absolute poverty looks at the goods and services someone (or a family) cannot obtain. Relative poverty looks at the context of the need, how one social group compares to others. The official method of calculating America’s poverty levels was developed in the 1960s and has not been refined substantially since then, although critics maintain that the government overstates the U.S. poverty level because it counts as impoverished people who in generations past would be considered as not living in poverty.
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Numerous explanations are suggested for recent poverty trends. An example is many studies focus on the causes of the decline in the low-skilled wage rate. The demand-side explanations include the loss of manufacturing jobs. Another study emphasise demographic components of poverty. For example, an increased number of families headed by females is associated with increased poverty. Poverty among blacks in central cities has worsened. Reasons are suggested for poverty among inner-city blacks include discrimination, spatial mismatches between residence and job location , and negative neighbood effects.
When poverty rates across geographic areas increase it’s because in both person-specific and place-specific characteristics. An example would be an area having a higher rate of poverty. It contains disproportionately higher population that shares demographic groups with greater poverty. Area poverty may relate to place-specific factors, such economic performance. Area economy sufficiently reduce the poverty rate among all groups, that overall poverty rate is lower. Relative poverty rate particular demographic groups may be interrelated with area economic conditions.
Regrading person-specific characteristics, poverty rates relatively higher nationally most minority groups. A factor suggested to underlie higher minority poverty is discrimination or racial preferences. It is argued that the key to reducing poverty among minorities is to improve their quality of education and to increase their education completion rates. Focusing on supply side, argues that reservation wages of blacks lead them to not accept jobs. Relatively means that higher rates of blacks return to crime is a reason for this. Poverty rates also are higher for female-headed families across an racial groups. Besides being sole wage earner for the family, female family heads are disproportionately younger, less educated, and less skilled. Child-care constraints can adversely affect their job performance. Female heads receive lower wage rates. A families household income with both parents are 75,062 , but with a single family household would be around 35,761. When it comes to the difference in earning men and women make are; men is around 74.8% and women around 62.2%.
Low-skilled workers in general are more likely to experience poverty. One suggested primary cause for the relative decline of low-skilled wages is a relative demand shirt, that has favored high-skilled occupations . Labor force participation fell for those whose wages dropped. An example would be interrelationship between demographic performance. Structural changes and demand shifts particularly hurt blacks who are relatively lesser skilled and educated. Relative growth in the supply of college graduates relative to high school dropouts. Increased immigration of disproportionately low-skilled workers, also has been increased male wage inequality. Poverty has been done at the metropolitan level.
15.3 million children are living in poverty in the united states. A state-level data found that 2.5 children are homeless in a year. This data was found by the National Center of Family homelessness. Around 9.3% of seniors are rising in poverty. Reasons being that there is a increase in health care, which increases poverty level to 14.5%. Some of the highest races in poverty are Native American(27.6%) , Blacks(26.2%), and Hispanics(23.4%). With the lowest levels are poverty are Whites (12.4%) and Asians (12.3%). Reasons are that the races with high poverty are less educated.
Roughly 12.3% of US households are food insecure. Around 15.6 million households have a difficulty providing food for all their family members. Reasons being that they have lack of resources. Rates of food insecurity were sadly higher than the national average for households with incomes near or below the Federal poverty line. 61% of food-insecure households in the USDA survey reported that in the previous month, they had participated in one or more of the three largest Federal food and nutrition assistance programs. One of these programs is known as SNAP, or the Supplemental Nutrition Program.
