Wednesday, January 29, 2020
The Invisible Poor Essay Example for Free
The Invisible Poor Essay There have been many writers, columnists, politicians, sociologists and economists who have written about the concept of poverty in the United States. Though their views often differ as to the causes, and solutions, the underlying commonality between all of those who have written about this issue remains that the current state of the American public is poorer than it has been in decades. The comparison of the following writers enables a reader to gain perspective on issues such as this. The ways in which different writers address, define, and respond to issues such as poverty, can allow for a reader to find their own understanding of the issue – as well as its possible cure.  The following paper will seek to examine the lives of the invisible poor, the sociology behind such a society and at the end of the paper give a suggestion as to how poverty can be cured.            Margaret Andersen, Eugene Lewit, and James Fallows address the issue in differing ways – however with much the same message. There is a problem with poverty in the United States. The concepts of the â€Å"working poor†the â€Å"disenfranchised†as well as the general â€Å"impoverished†peoples of the United States are growing.            According to Andersen, the main problem is rooted in the residual effects of the pre-Civil Rights era. The accumulation of wealth over time, through inheritance and long term investment is lost on the groups which have been discriminated against since the dawn of the Untied States. Andersen states that â€Å"racial exclusion in lending, housing segregation, and historical patterns of discrimination have created significant differences in the contemporary class standing of blacks and whites†. (Andersen 184) This racial disparity was not limited to black and poor whites; it also included Hispanics and Asian-Americans. (Anderson 185) In the inequality involved in poor women in the workforce there is a sociological view of how this inequality is categorized: Kinglsey Davis and Wilbert Moore gave sociology the theory of functionalism. This theory states that every society separates its products, its money, and its services on the grounds of job difficulty and relevance to a society, or on the function that a specific job provides more for a society. Due to a job and what gender performs that job function being more important to society or more functional, then society is willing to play the stratification game. Since these functional jobs and the difference between the assumed capabilities of men or women performing them there is also stratification in monetary reward.  Society has a top echelon of jobs which they consider able to be filled only by a man or only by a women: The lower rung of this system includes mostly the feminine persuasion. Functionalism fully believes in the rat race of society and exemplifies it through the power elite system and through gender inequality. Functionalism states that there are critical jobs, ones so important to society (like saving a life) that the measurement of that person’s importance has to be reflected monetarily. Functionalist expresses inequality through the bases of the nature of the occupational system. As Davis and Moore state, â€Å"Social inequality is thus an unconsciously evolved device by which societies insure that the most important positions are conscientiously filled by the more qualified persons†(Baldridge, 158).            With this reality it becomes increasingly clear that women are being discriminated against in the workforce, but more so if they are mothers. Just because families, or single mothers are moving from welfare to work does not mean that they are above the poverty line. Although earnings are seemingly increasing mothers who try to live on minimum wage cannot support a family of even one child. In the late 1990s, the study shows, families headed by working single mothers experienced rising earnings due to the strong economy, work supports like the Earned Income Tax Credit and child care, and a reformed welfare system. Yet these increased earnings were fully offset by a decline in the benefits that government safety net programs provide, leaving these families no better off as a group and pushing those who remained poor deeper into poverty (CBPP 2001). The rise in crime, increased rates of teenage pregnancy, drug use and the increased numbers of children and adults on government assistance are all attributed to the decline of the American family – according to Popenoe. However, his assertions lacked any empirical support. This issue was taken up by Sharon Houseknecht and Jaya Sastry in 1996. The study conducted by the research team looked at the state of the family unit, and sought to find whether the â€Å"decline†that Popenoe described was evident or not (Houseknecht 1996). The model that the research team used was based on Popenoe’s assertions that those family unites that are furthest away from the â€Å"traditional†view of family are â€Å"more in decline†. The group took samples from four countries, Sweden, the United Stated, former West Germany, and Italy. Looking at non-marital birthrates, divorce rates, crime rates and child-wellbeing, the group found that, according to Popenoe’s model, Sweden had the greatest decline in the family unit – followed by the United States in second. The problem that Andersen addresses is further exacerbated by the decline in â€Å"real wages over the period from the 1970s to the late 1990s†. (Anderson 185) The fall in the value of the American dollar, coupled with the increased inflation meant that a worker making the median wage in 1989 made $13.22 an hour; however by 1997 that same level wage was only worth $12.63. (Anderson 185) The lower 80% of wage earners suffered more with a loss of 6.7% of their total wage power.            Eugene Lewit addresses the issue of poverty by writing about the number of children living in poverty. Lewit begins his appeal against the growing problem by noting that in 1991 there were 13.7 million children living in poverty in the Untied States – a number that included an increase of nearly one million from the previous year. (Lewit 176) Lewit also noted that the total number of Americans living in poverty in 1991 was over 35 million people – more than 10% of the total population.            The next issue that Lewit addresses is the number of problems faced by the impoverished children in comparison to their affluent counterparts. According to Lewit, â€Å"poor children face increased risk of death, infectious and chronic illness, and injury from accidents and violence†. (Lewit 176) These children also tend to live in conditions which are filled with violence, deteriorating housing, and disrupted living conditions – which increase the likelihood of depression, low self-confidence, and conflict with peers and authority figures. (Lewit 176)            Lewit also bring attention to the problems in the definition of poverty. The federal thresholds which define poverty according to income, family size and location, suffer from, according to Lewit, â€Å"inadequate adjustments for changing consumption patterns, inflation, and differing family sizes and structures†. (Lewit 177) Lewit also states that the poverty guidelines fail to â€Å"account for the substantial geographic variation in the cost of living†. (Lewit 177)            Like Andersen, Lewit addresses the â€Å"poverty gap†. According to Lewit, the amount by which the total poverty gap resided upon in 1991 was $37.2 billion. This meant that the lowest portions of the population of the United States were making nearly forty billion dollars less than the federal poverty level. This gap has long reaching repercussions, as these members of society also, as Lewit stated before, are more likely to become ill, injured or involved in violence – which amounts to a further burden on the overall economy and social standing of any given area.            Fallows describes the technology boom of the early 1990s as â€Å"the same disproportionate, commanding-heights effect on todays culture as Wall Streets takeover-and-junk-bond complex had 15 years ago, and as the biotech-financial complex presumably will 15 years from now†– and it grants large fortunes to small groups of people, many of whom began in lower or middle class families. The boom took people who were living as, or at least identifying with the impoverished members of American society and catapulted them into the ultra-elite – amassing fortunes which often topped 100 million dollars.            Between these three writers, there is a common thread of though – the poor are getting poorer. This fact is made worse by the disconnection of the wealthy and the poor. This disconnection is caused by the growing gap between the haves, and the have-nots. This gap increases the burden on the poor, mentally, as well as increases the difficulty in finding ways to remedy the causes of the vast amounts of poverty in the Untied States.            Fallows ended his article with the realization that problems, like poverty, â€Å"are one thing when considered abstractly – â€Å"poverty, inequality, racism, problems stated as if they were debate topics. They can be altogether different when connected with human beings real or fictional†. This is true in the fact that all too often the only time poverty is truly addressed in a forum which can eliminate it is during election campaigns – and then only until that election is won. Experiment            In order to better provide housing, jobs, healthcare, etc. to the invisible poor the following experiment should be considered. Take two groups of poor families; one as control, the other as a variable. The control family will continue working the system for government aid, or living according to how they have always been living. The second family, the variable family, will be given three items: a new housing unit (in a different part of the city or in the suburb), $2,500 for beginning expenses and getting out of debt expenses (with a one time meeting with a financial advisor), and a job interview for a qualifying job for each capable working member of the family.            The experiment will take place over a two year period, with updates on the family the first month, the third month, the sixth month, one year, one year and six months, and two years. The elements of the experiment which will arise are amount of debt, if any family member has gone to college, where family members are in their schooling (i.e. grades, extra curricular activities, etc), how the jobs are going, if they’ve advanced, if they’ve maintained their job or gotten hired at a different place for a higher payer job, and finally their finances will be looked at.            The differences between these two families will be the backdrop to how, with a little bit of help, a family can overcome poverty. The control group will give a recognition to how a family will continue to struggle without any help, or with the same maintenance from the government which they are already receiving. The contrast of these two families, will hopefully, allow for a way in which other government programs can better assist getting rid of the invisible poor, and to strike a balance of wealth and financial freedom for families.            This experiment will seek to prove that the invisible poor is a great problem that needs to have an immediate solution. The poor across the world is only increasing and it is with this experiment that a way in which to curtail poverty and give families and individuals hope to an economically fruitful future is found. WORKS CITED Andersen, Margaret. â€Å"Restructuring for Whom? Race, Class, Gender, and the Ideology of        Invisibility†. Sociological Forum. Vol. 16, No. 2. June 2001. p. 181-201. Baldridge, J. Victor. â€Å"Sociology: A Critical Approach to Power, Conflict, and Change.†          John   Wiley Sons, Inc. 1975. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). â€Å"Poverty Rate Among Working Single Mother            Families Remained Stagnant in Late 1990’s Despite Strong Economy†. (Online).            Available: http://www.cbpp.org/8-16-01wel-pr.htm. Fallows, James. â€Å"The Invisible Poor†. The New York Times          Magazine. March 20, 2000. Date of           Access: March 3, 2008.        URL:  http://www.courses.psu.edu/hd_fs/hd_fs597_rxj9/invisible_po           or.htm Houseknecht, Sharon; Sastry, Jaya. â€Å"Family â€Å"Decline†and Child Well-Being: A Comparative  Assessment. Journal of Marriage and the Family. 58 (3) (1996). Pp.726â€â€739. Lewit, Eugene M. â€Å"Children in Poverty†. The Future of Children.            Vol. 3, No. 1. Spring 1993.  p. 176-182.
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