The Invisible Poor Essay Example for Free

The Invisible Poor Essay at that short letter have been many writers, columnists, politicians, sociologists and economists who have written about the concept of pauperism in the unify 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 underway state of the American public is lamentableer than it has been in decades. The comparison of the hobby 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 volition seek to examine the lives of the invisible poor, the sociology behind such a society and at the end of the paper bequeath a suggestion as to how poverty can be cured. Margargont 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 working poor the disenfranchised as well as the general impoverished peoples of the United States be growing. According to Andersen, the main problem is rooted in the residual exploits of the pre-Civil Rights era. The accumulation of wealth over time, through inheritance and long term enthronisation is lost on the groups which have been discriminated against since the dawn of the Untied States. Andersen states that racial exclusion in lending, admit segregation, and historical patterns of discrimination have created significant differences in the coeval class standing of blacks and whites. (Andersen 184) This racial disparity was not limited to black and poor whites it excessively 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 inequalit y is categorized Kinglsey Davis and Wilbert Moore gave sociology the theory of running(a)ism. This theory states that every society separates its products, its money, and its services on the intellect of traffic 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 giveing 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 engage able to be filled only by a man or only by a women The lower rung of this musical arrangement includes for the most part the feminine persuasion. Functionalism fully believes in the rat race of society and exemplifies it through the power elite system and through gender inequality. Functional ism states that there are particular jobs, ones so important to society ( analogous saving a life) that the measurement of that persons importance has to be reflected monetarily. Functionalist expresses inequality through the bases of the nature of the occupational system. As Davis and Moore state, Social inequality is thus an unconsciously evolved device by which societies insure that the most important positions are conscientiously filled by the more certified 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 despicable 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 stripped 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 out-of-pocket 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 spark by a decline in the benefits that government safety net programs provide, leaving these families no better off as a group and energy those who remained poor deeper into poverty (CBPP 2001).The rise in crime, increased rates of teenage pregnancy, drug use and the increased routines 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 police squad looked at the state of the family unit, and sought to find whether the decline that Popenoe described was evident or not (Houseknecht 1996).The model that the research team used was based on Popenoes assertions that those family unites that are furthest away from the traditional view of family are more in decline. The group took samples from four countries, Sweden, the United Stated, former westmost Germany, and Italy. Looking at non-marital birthrates, divorce rates, crime rates and child-wellbeing, the group found that, according to Popenoes model, Sweden had the greatest decline in the family unit followed by the United States in second.The problem that Andersen addresses is tho exacerbated by the decline in 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. Lew it 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 go about by the impoverished children in comparison to their affluent counterparts. According to Lewit, 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 financial aid to the problems in the def inition of poverty. The federal thresholds which define poverty according to income, family size and location, suffer from, according to Lewit, inadequate adjustments for changing consumption patterns, inflation, and differing family sizes and structures. (Lewit 177) Lewit also states that the poverty guidelines bewray to account for the substantial geographic variation in the cost of living. (Lewit 177) Like Andersen, Lewit addresses the 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 stint 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 techn ology boom of the early 1990s as 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 outsized 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 get 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 State s. Fallows ended his article with the realization that problems, like poverty, are one thing when considered abstractly 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 assemblage 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 getti ng 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 theyve advanced, if theyve 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. whole kit CITEDAndersen, Margaret. 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. Sociology A Critical Approach to Power, Conflict, and Change. John Wiley Sons, Inc. 1975.Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). Poverty Rate Among on the job(p) Single Mother Families Remained Stag nant in Late 1990s Despite Strong Economy. (Online). Available http//www.cbpp.org/8-16-01wel-pr.htm.Fallows, James. The Invisible Poor. The New York Times Magazine. expose 20, 2000. Date of Access March 3, 2008. URL http//www.courses.psu.edu/hd_fs/hd_fs597_rxj9/invisible_po or.htmHouseknecht, Sharon Sastry, Jaya. Family Decline and Child Well-Being A Comparative Assessment. Journal of Marriage and the Family. 58 (3) (1996). Pp.726739.Lewit, Eugene M. Children in Poverty. The hereafter of Children. Vol. 3, No. 1. Spring 1993. p. 176-182.