The Relative Poverty Rates Are High in the USA, Essay Example

The relative poverty rates are high in the USA. During last few years, the income one of three Americans is below the line which is considered sufficient “to make both ends meet”. According to current statistics, millions of workers with low socioeconomic status across the nation are deeply immersed in collapse, living “paycheck to paycheck”, ignoring the bills, limiting leisure activities, tightening everyday spending, using or coupons to purchase goods.

There are two crucial ways to identify the poverty reasons in the USA. The first, structural, asserts that they lie in society. The second approach blames the poor in their condition.

The structural approach provides complex survey of economic and social changes taking place in society. According to this theory, increasing unemployment, job cuts, lack of basic education, vanishing of manufacturing work, declining wage rates serve key causes for poverty. The first two deprive working class of the main source of income. The lack of education prevents from getting a profession and decently-paid jobs.

Stratification may also be condemned for unequal distribution of sources. Obviously, low SES impacts the quality of education, health care, wealth and potential chance for better-paying jobs. It is a known fact that incomes of extremely rich and poor differ substantially. This issue is similar to discrimination, because the statistics proves interrelation between ascribed status (racial, ethnic belonging) and low-paid jobs.

The most naive justification of poverty in the country grounds on the assertion of guilt of the poor. This viewpoint suggests the following statements: the poor have no ambitions and desire to work; the poor prefer to receive unemployment compensation than to work service staff; the passive, hopeless self-perception is passed through generations as “the culture of poverty”; the poor possess specific cultural habits, like crimes, educational failures. The origins of the theory root in the stereotype belief that any ambitious and persistent person may become successful. This theory is not supported by facts.

Though each of the theories in discussion of poverty causes had won the share of public support, the structural causes give more valid conclusions.