Poverty in American Society Continues To Increase in the 21st Century
The allocation of wealth, fiscal inequality, and the increasing numbers of people living at or below the poverty level are still a major crisis that must be dealt within the United States. Eitzen (2000:178) describes poverty as a standard of living below the minimum needed for the maintenance of an adequate diet, health, and shelter. Eitzen’s description of poverty seem too nice and political correct for me. Poverty is living out our car because you cannot afford rent to even the most fleabags of homes, rummaging through dumpster to feed your family at night, telling your child that everything will be all right, while trying to believe and keeping your faith. Poverty to me is the Mother who parks her car at the back of her job and leaves your ailing child there in the car where she can watch over her, because she cannot afford a nursery. By and large, poverty is blamed on either the individual or the system. Intelligence has been labeled as one of the factors of poverty in the U. ... ” All the same, it is apparent that the United States has a continues to see an increasing problem of more and more citizens becoming homeless, and more people living it poverty. ... , Nicholas Eberstadt argues that the withering away of the family as a central social institution has led to the increase in poverty and that the breakup of the family results in both financial and economic hardship, particularly in the fatherless household. His argument continues that this has led to an increasing long-term dependence upon government assistance programs. ... Eitzen believes that the reassertion of individual and familial responsibilities is central to dealing with the dysfunctions in society. Although he does not use the phrase, he seems to be subscribing to the theory of the culture of poverty. David Gordon, on the other hand, argues that the sharp decline of job opportunities in low-skill jobs, reserving good jobs for those with a college education, and the substitution of short-term jobs for steady jobs has been a major factor in the growing poverty rate in this country.