Abolishing Poverty In The U.S Essay, Research Paper

Abolishing Poverty in The U.S

John Boston

Sociology 101

October 31, 1996

If I had the power to abolish poverty in the United States I would do

it in a second. Abolishing poverty would be almost impossible because there are

just to many poor people for one person to help to abolish poverty we must all

work to help those who are poor get out of this condition.

There are two types of poor, there are people who are relatively poor

and there are people who are absolutely poor. People who are relatively poor

are poor compared to the people around them. These people usually only have

the bare necessities to survive like food, clothing or shelter. They might even

have a steady job but they just don’t have any real wealth. In fact people who

are relatively poor are usually in the lower 5% of the population in terms of

wealth. People who live the state of absolute poverty can not sustain a

certain level of living . These people have a hard time getting money for food ,

clothing, or shelter. People who are absolutely poor have a rough time getting

money to put food on the table one day and the next day they might not have any

money to put food on the table. Not all people who are relatively poor are

absolutely poor, but, all people who are absolutely poor are relatively poor.

These types of poor are found all throughout the world especially in

underdeveloped countries. In the United States a advanced well-developed

country both absolute and relative poverty are present throughout the country.

I think that absolute poverty has no beneficial purposes to society.

However, relative poverty does have beneficial functions. I think that relative

poverty can make people competitive. It would do this because people always try

to do better then the people around them. This competitiveness might force

people to work overtime or even two jobs in order to make more than the people

around them. There are some major costs that both poverty’s have on society.

These costs include: In areas of high poverty there are usually the same areas

of high violence. A second cost to society might be that some people in

poverty might become welfare dependent, this means that they rely solely on

welfare to pay for everything and they don’t even try to find a job of there

own. These negative costs definitely outweigh the benefits.

If I had control of the poverty situation in the United States I would

only try to eliminate absolute poverty. I first would raise the taxes of the

rich and the upper middle class. Then I would raise the tax on alcohol and

tobacco. Then I would do some refinancing of governments spending. With all

the money that this creates I would setup cheep but nice government housing,

government grocery stores and government clothing stores. Then I would setup a

job training program that gives poor people government jobs. I would also send

the best teachers to the ghetto schools. These programs will not work unless

the poor work to get out of there citations.

I can invasion a society without absolute poverty and without relative

poverty. In a society without absolute poverty everyone that could work would

have a job, there would be little crime just a great place to live. In a

society without relative poverty people would all have the same wealth there

would be no competition to be better then anyone. This type of society is only

possible in the imagination.