Social Work/Welfare Journal, Article Review Example

Abstract

Poverty is a major issue that has affected most people in the world. Poverty can be defined as lack of basic life commodities and other amenities. According to this article, there are several causes of the poverty with most people in the world being in abject poverty with no relevant measures being put on the way to reduce it. According to this review, there are a significant large number of people who are in poverty as compared to the rich. Poverty can be categorized into several levels according to this article; there is absolute and relative poverty. Poverty level has also been measured with the amount of dollars a person or family uses per day according to this review.

Introduction

Social work is a social science profession which is committed to pursuit of social justice to put quality in life as well as developing the full potential of group of people, an individual and the community. They are several social problems in the society. Is poverty a social problem and what measures are there to alleviate this as a social problem in society?  Majority of people in many nations are poor. Why is this so? The author looks at poverty as an issue that is affecting most people in the world. The author tries to address the reasons why the poverty is not likely to end soon. The author also tries to look at the strategies being put across that are never effective in fighting poverty as a social problem (Anup, 2009).

Poverty in society has resulted to be a social problem that is affecting very many people in the current society. Poverty can be defined as unacceptable hardship. According to author, around 3 billion people which are half the world population live on less than $2.50 per day. He continues to say that at least 80 percent of humanity in the world lives on less than $10 per day. Poverty may also be referred to as economic position which refers to low income, inequality or low social class and limited resources. The author also notes that the poorest 40 percent of the world population account for only 5 percent of all the world income. There are several factors that causes poverty which include lack of employment, lack of skills or training to people, and some poor governments where few people get majority wealth while majority struggle with poverty. Poverty has really been a problem that does most of the time generates hot debate on how to alleviate it but up to now poverty as a social issue is still affecting a lot of people. It should also be noted that out of 2 billion children around the world, 121 million are not in school due to poverty Freeman, 2008).

In order to know various levels of poverty in the society, the author categorized it in various categories. These included two main models; absolute poverty which the author says that it is based on the subsistence; it is a minimum standard of living. According to the author, it is the condition that is characterized by severe deprivation of the basic needs that a human being uses or survives in which include food, sanitation facilities, health, clean water, safe drinking water, education and information and shelter. The author goes on to say that poverty does not only depend on the income but access to the social services. The other model of poverty is relative poverty that is based on the comparison between the poor people with others in the society Susan, 2009). The author looks at the poor people as those who have adequacy of some basic commodities in the society when compared to others in the same society who can afford those commodities. It would have been better if the author went ahead to know exactly the specific levels of poverty that are there in the society rather than generalizing it at two levels only. This is because if poverty can be looked at in another perspective, then it is possible to find that they are different forms of poverty which differ from one person or family to another (Maria & Alfred, 2007).

Conclusion

According to the author, poverty as a social problem is not likely to end and in fact it might even worsen and move to very severe cases that are not even controllable. Poverty will continue to affect many people if quick measures and strategies that are real and possible are put in place. This is an issue that all the stakeholders, nongovernmental organizations and government of nations should take so as to address this issue and assist those people in poverty to help them and get the required services and commodities in life. This was a convincing study by the author on this poverty issue that has affected most people.

Article Citations:

Anup, S. (2009). Poverty Facts and Stats. Journey of Global Issues, Vol 2. 12-16.

Freeman, M. (2008). Global poverty.  Journeys into poverty kingdom, 452 (52). pp. 99-121.

Maria,V. & Alfred. (2007). Innovations on social, political & Economic Inequalities. Journal of Poverty, 1 (56). 2-12.

Susan E. (2009). The threat of global poverty. Journey of Brookings. Vol. 5. 6-11.