Session 5

·         Who you think is poor, both in the United States and globally.

        The U.S. is also the poorest developed nation out of the 11 industrialized countries. Apparently the gap between the rich and the poor for disposable income in the U.S. is almost 40% according to the losing ground article. According to the Gini Index, which measures income inequality, the U.S. falls in the second lowest tier(almost borderline to the last ties) which means the difference of income equality is serious. The only countries after the U.S. would be third world nations. Another interesting and alarming statistic I learned was that half the world's population is poor in some way.

·         Why you believe people are poor in the United States and globally.

       The U.S. trails other industrialized nations on many levels. The U.S. has low incomes, limited public benefits and the poor getting less amount of exposure to education and benefits. Scarce natural resources, politics, foreign policies are factors that lead to poverty all over the world. I do not agree with Jeffrey Sachs on his argument that corruption in countries is NOT a factor towards poverty. He makes an argument that says the U.S. provides aid to the poor nations, but fails to see that the corrupt regimes use that aid for personal gain to and to keep in power by feeding off the people's desperate needs.

·         What you think is being done about poverty (e.g., current policies and programs in the United States and globally).

         I learned about the U.N. millennium project for the first time. The goals of the project, some of which include Eradicating extreme hunger and poverty, achieve universal primary education, reduce child mortality and empowering women all sound promising and it could give a promising result. The 2015 deadline to address the issue definitely does not seem possible in today's economic climate around the world.

 ·         How well you think poverty is being addressed currently in the United States and globally.

        According to Hans Rosling in the video clip "Gapminder", the difference in poverty throughout the world is very vast. The website and the setup of the graph is very interesting as it also predicts future trends for poverty, healthcare, income and a lot more information. According to Rosling, the developing nations will catch up with the U.S. and U.K by 2014 in terms of healthcare and income. Although this is good news on the developing nations side, it should be a major concern for the U.S. as to why it will not progress more and stay in the current place. This definitely raises concern to address poverty and healthcare in the United States.

 ·         What you personally think should be done about poverty in United States and globally (e.g., policies, programs you would suggest).

          The U.N. millennium project is honesty a great idea. The goals and motives seem very promising and straightforward. The problem would be implementing it as it definitely is a challenge to get all world leaders to sacrifice certain aspects of their own countries' resources. Although there are both pros and cons towards Globalization, I personally think it has helped fight poverty a lot. It has helped third world countries to develop and build their infrastructure and economies. It has also redistributed over-inflated incomes from industrialized nations and spread the incomes over more populations. 

Recession and Poverty

Session 3

I noticed an interesting point about the census statistics on poverty. According to the census, the poverty rate has increased contantly overtime after 1999 (when it was at its lowest for a while). If you look at the economy and the job market from year 2000 onwards, it was rising and there were plenty of jobs avaible until the recession of 2008. I have linked a graph of the dow jones ind for the last 10 years to give you a better view. I don't know how accurate the census statistic reporting is and how they determine what an actual poverty level is to count a person or family towards poverty.

http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1285015207392&chddm=997441&chls=IntervalBasedLine&q=INDEXDJX:.DJI&ntsp=0

Who is poor in the United States

Session 3

This session starts out with statistics (from the census) of which age group is more affected by poverty and later compares the races and gender.

Historically over the last 20 years, the children, blacks and black females precisely have the highest percentage of poverty. On the contrary, elderly people over 65 have had the lowest rate of poverty. Also interesting statistic I noted was that "more than 1 in every 3 poor people in 2005 were children". This shows that one third of poor people were born into poverty. Also blacks and hispanics have the highest recorded poverty rates in the United States, especially the females.


Session 4

This sessions further elaborates on the geographic areas of poverty and where concentrated poverty exists more. The southern region of the U.S. historically has had the highest percentage of poverty rate. I had an idea to a certain extent due to factors including higher paying jobs, more skilled jobs and higher standard of living in other parts of the country. The session further proves that blacks and hispanics have the highest percentage of poverty rate and live in the concentrated poverty areas more as compared to whites.

1 in 7 Americans living in poverty, how accurate is the census?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100916/ap_on_bi_ge/us_census_poverty
The article is an interesting read and a follow up to the previous article I posted. According to "Census", 1 in 7 million people are living in poverty...again, no definition given of this poverty, just elaborates on the unemployment rates. Also states GA is #5 on the poverty list.

"2009, the poverty level was $21,954 for a family of four, based on an official government calculation that includes only cash income before tax deductions. It excludes capital gains or accumulated wealth, such as home ownership"

"As a result, the official poverty rate takes into account the effects of some stimulus programs but doesn't factor in noncash government aid such as tax credits and food stamps, which have surged to record levels in recent months."


Interesting how not more is elaborated on the capital gains and excludes things like tax credits and food stamps. Definitely shows how biased media can be towards an issue.

Correlation between Poverty and Standard of living

As I have mentioned before, poverty in the United States and other developed nations is completely different from poverty in third world or developing nations. This is where the correlation between poverty and standard of living come in. 

I have always thought about it from this way. In the US, not being able to afford a T.V., car, a phone etc. is considered being poor. But these same things in other nations is considered a Luxury. I am assuming that most of us here have been brought up with having a T.V. or a car. Imagine yourself not being able to afford these things, you would most likely consider yourself poor. But this is still a way of life in other countries. There are people in remote locations in third world countries who do not even know what the Internet is yet. 

Just food for thought (no pun intended)

Interesting article I came across today

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100911/ap_on_bi_ge/us_poverty_in_america

Its going to be interesting to see what kind of actions the political parties will start taking since its close to the elections.

Effectiveness of measures taken to fight poverty

Trade-off is a keyword when it comes to fighting poverty in United States and globally.

In the United States, programs such as welfare and food stamps definitely provide the basis of living to a certain standard, I don't think it can be regulated enough or at all. There are people always looking to take advantage of the situation and due to that, they ruin it for others.
     -People easily sell food-stamps for cash to buy items for their vice. (Alcohol, drugs etc.)

     -People easily abuse welfare programs such as adoption schemes, having more children, while using the state's money for their own pleasures.

Throughout this process, they do not realize they are hurting the children or the other people using the same programs for good. Due to the selfishness of these people, it creates an opposition towards federally funded programs using tax dollars to support their vices. This is the trade-off we have when it comes to fighting poverty.

In the NPR poverty survey, (http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/poll/poverty/poll.html), one of the questions asked was, "Would you be willing to pay more in taxes to pay for more of such government spending to help the poor?" and if so would I be willing to give $200 annually towards it. My answer was a firm NO on this. The reason I would not pay a single cent on this is because the government already has enough funds to cover the expenses, its just the matter of how the government is allocating these resources today. I will not elaborate on this as it will jump to another subject, but just use your imagination.

While I think there is a certain hope in these programs, the United States government does not do enough to regulate them.

Another example for a trade-off on a global scale is Canada. In Canada where health-care is socialized through public funding which enables low income families to affordable health-care, there are major downsides to it as well.

1) The waiting period to have a surgery is substantial. My aunt who lives in Ottawa, Canada had a surgery recently, but was on the wait list for almost 6 months. This is totally unacceptable when it comes to human health.

2) The doctors take huge pay cuts in their salary due to socialized health care. In a capitalistic society, you should get paid and rewarded on your merit, education and skills, but in Canada, you are getting punished for this. If a country wants to be Capitalistic, they cannot punish a deserving individual to reward a less deserving one.




As for my solution to eradicating poverty, I have none. I do think things can be improved in certain ways as I stated before. Honestly, poverty is a problem which I do not think about much. In my mind there are more serious issues at hand (not saying poverty is not a serious issue, but comparably its a less serious one in which the world stands today from my perspective).

Measures being taken to eliminate poverty.

In the United States the government states there are a lot of programs and measures being taken to eliminate poverty each day. Some of them are:

-The NY times article in which mayor Bloomberg has pledged to put about 150 million dollars in anti-poverty programs for the city of New York through public and private money. (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/nyregion/30poverty.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin)

-There are also many federal programs such as welfare, food stamps, homeless shelters etc. throughout the country.


I also believe countries with higher or similar resources would have similar programs, but countries with lesser resources would have a hard time funding these programs due to a lack of government funding as well as the private sector pumping any resources in.

From my experience in India, I have never heard of programs such as food stamps, state funded shelters as well as medicaid.

Session 4

Reading this session gave me more insight about the government programs and educational programs offered in the "ghetto" and the poverty stricken areas. The education is something that needs to be very much stressed in these areas. Even the quality of education needs to be up to par and not half-assed. There should be government funded child care programs which create jobs in these areas and also help single parents manage their working schedule. There should be also government run courses to help educate people on birth control and budgeting their finances. Apparently in the session 3 video "Down and out in America", the family towards the end of the video who were poor and got their apartment burnt down, they had 4 kids. There are families who have low income, but still tend to reproduce more kids without thinking twice of the consequences to their budget and expenses. This can all be achievable if the government allocated less resources towards foreign policy and more towards domestic progression.

Poverty: Helplessness vs Self-defeating

From my point of view, poverty can be derived from one of two things. Either helplessness or self defeating, which exists globally and not just in a certain country or culture.

Helplessness occurs from being born into poverty, physically handicapped to an extent in which one would be unable to self-sustain, in total socialist political environments or any similar drastic scenarios (note that being born into poverty can be changed after a certain age with self motivation and willpower).

On the other end, self-defeating poverty occurs when a person pretty much chooses his/her own destiny to be poor after having a decent and a self sustaining background.

I am born and raised in India and there is an abundance of poverty there that I have seen. Although I have never experienced poverty myself, I have definitely seen both kinds of poverty there as well as in the United States. Comparably the poverty in India was more drastic and more in numbers due to the population vs resources factor. I am sure there are other countries in comparison to India which could have more drastic poverty lines since I have not seen the world. Also reading or watching a documentary about poverty of another country does not tell both sides of the story and is going to biased in some way.


As this blog evolves, I will definitely elaborate on the above points and why I think from this perspective.


Session 3


This session briefly summarizes on the whole helplessness vs self-defeating factor of poverty. It talks about the different theories of intergenerational poverties and its aspects.

Economic resources and Non economic resources theories are where the helpless factor of poverty kick in for the dependent or the children. Parents who cannot afford to pay for their children's education, cannot also help towards certain ammenities will hinder the children's chances of getting an education and finding their own success.

As far as the self-defeating purpose, the chapter did mention that majority of the Americans who have been in poverty have gotten out from it within a year. This is where the welfare trap comes in. People dependent on welfare become so used to "getting by" without working, they just want to stay there and be comfortable. This affects their attitude towards education and work later down the road and the children follow in their parent's footsteps.

Also when it talks about structural and evironment theory, the chapter bring in segregation and race factors. I personally do not believe that this would have a big impact on a person's poverty and its more used as an excuse these days. My parents and I are immigrants from another country which is less developed, but yet the "racial discrimination and segregation" factor has not affected our lives in any way. This has all to do with the parents and the individuals view and motivation in life.

Session 4

I actually learned a lot in depth about being born into poverty, the helplessness factor and how the effects of  environment and surroundings factor into it.

I mean, if I picture myself living into a concentrated poverty area where 40% of the people around me are poor, I would definitely lose some hope and motivation to succeed. The one major factor for the children I can imagine would be peer pressure. Also living in an area with no decent educational system and not enough role models due to having a single parent or no one else to guide you is definitely a tough thing. This will again hinder from a child achieving future success.

Defining Poverty

There are many definitions for poverty and some of the ones that I've read about are:

1) The state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions (http://www.merriam-webster.com/).


2) Poverty occurs when income falls markedly below that which the community considers necessary for decency, even if it is adequate for survival (Galbraith's The Affluent Society 1958).


3) Poverty is economic or income deprivation (Iceland Poverty in America: A handbook).


I really do not like to call these official definitions as I do not believe there is a right or wrong definition. I believe each individual depending on their society, country or culture would have a different definition of poverty through experience. 


As for me, I believe poverty is the lack of or shortage of the basic necessities in life such as but not limited to food, clothing and shelter. I believe these three things are definitely required to have a decent life as a human being and to survive within the norms of society.

Session 3

This session gives a little more depth on Critical and Serious poverty level.

For food, a critical level would be not eating a meal or not having enough to eat and a serious level would be surviving without a choice of food and eating low quality/unhealthy meals.

For health care, a critical level would be not receiving medical care at all when needed and serious would be not having any health insurance at all.

For housing, a critical level would be not having your own place to live, not utilities in house and living with friends/family and serious level would be missing rent/mortgage payments, fear of being evicted and losing utilities.

This further concretes my defition of poverty i.e. lack of or shortage of the basic necessities in life such as but not limited to food, clothing and shelter.