Poverty in America free essay sample

Poverty. Poverty has many definitions depending on the type of different people in this society. It can range anywhere from not being able to pay bills to not being able to feed a family and not having a place to live. Although, according to the definition found on dictionary. com, it articulates that poverty means the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor. Two motivated authors, Muhammad Yunus and Lucy Lameck, wrote two different short stories in the book â€Å"Reading the World: Ideas that Matter† that have inspired me to write this essay on the poverty and social class in third world countries. The first story is â€Å"Africans Are Not Poor† by Lucy Lameck. The reason I chose this particular story is because she goes into detail about how these people live and struggle to survive. Lameck chose to write about the Tanzanians because as a young adult she was an activist in the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU). People with a substantial amount of money do not have to apply for government assistance such as food stamps or unemployment benefits. These also have things like insurance and healthcare to help them along as problems arise in life. People living in poverty do not get that luxury in insurance which gives them a sense of depreciated of self-worth. Because of this, it may be difficult to present themselves in a professional manner when searching for employment. America considers people who make less than 10,500 dollars a year, are a large part of why we have arrived at this dilemma due to the recent recession that has occurred. A lot of people go to desperate measures to provide food and other basic need for their families. For example many women become victims of trafficking, the most common form of which is prostitution as a means of survival for this economic desperation. Terrible living conditions can often compel children to abandon school in order to contribute to the family income, putting them at risk of being exploited too. This also causes many people that have lost their jobs and are making a fraction of what they are used to making for the job duties they are doing. People now work late past the time they are required to finish their daily task plus other extra work load because their coworker got let go due to the fact that their employer can not afford to pay both of their salaries. These same people now rely on unemployment checks and other government assistance programs to support their families and basic needs. It is estimated that one out of every seven houses have been taken by the banks in the last ten years alone. Because of this, America is seeing an all new kind of poverty. The middle class is slipping from steady ground and down to the bottom. People that used to make a decent living can no longer compete with this new economy. Poverty in todays society has become a major issue and it affects more people than we think. People are losing jobs and cannot help it. In this economy we live in today it is very hard to make money and provide for our families. These people cannot get all of the help they need because some people are just working the system, so they either get rejected or reject the fact they need because they do not want to categorized with those people. An example, from where Im from I use to be a cashier at Kroger for two years and so many people on food stamps and the WIC program (Women Infants Children) would come in to buy food and have iPhones and Coach Purses or even keys for Mercedes and if you have any of those thing you do not have your properties in order. This is just not fair for those people that are in dire need for food and using these programs the way they are supposed to be used for. And that is why it’s hard for normal people who work so hard for their money and still do not make enough to provide and the need for a helping hand in food programs such as these. With all this being said, people need to look into the Baptist Faith it is taught that all Christians will go through times of suffering and one of these suffering phases we go through is poverty. Many people now a days seem to be faithful to the church until they become unemployed or fall on hard times financially, and instead of looking to God they tend to blame him. God does not make bad things happen, it is not his plans to harm us but protect from the evil that is causing the suffering. I agree with the Baptist Faith on their view towards poverty. Furthermore, I believe if more people just trusted in God more faithfully and I know it is easier said than done but it would help many peoples walk with the Lord on the right path and further it.