Investigating a social issue Mary Arroyo Professor Sheila Farr Sociology Strayer University April 29, 2012 Poverty: The state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; the condition of being poor [ (Webster's dictionary and thesaurus, 1999) ]. When we see or hear the word poverty we automatically think of places that are fear removed from the United States. The truth is that poverty is right in our own backyard. Poverty is a complicated social phenomenon, and trying to discover the cause of poverty is equally complicated. The stereotypic (and simplistic) explanation persists- that the poor cause their own poverty – based on the notion that America is the land of hope. Some even accuse the poor of having little concern for the future and preferring to “live in the moment”. Some will even go as far as accusing the poor of engaging in self-defeating behaviors such as drug abuse, alcoholism, laziness, personal inadequacy, and many other wrongful acts. To “blame the poor” is stereotypic and not applicable to all of those that have falling on hard times most poor people are able and willing to work hard, and do so when giving the chance. The real problem has to do with the problems of minimum wages and the lack of access to education that is necessary to obtain the better paying jobs. With employers moving from the inner cities to the suburbs and even overseas it has limited the opportunities even farther for the inner-city poor to find adequate jobs. Some believe that the poor would rather be on welfare than work in a demeaning position. It is said that poverty was caused by the imperfect economic, social and political systems, logically; the responsibility should be laid rather on the individual then society. The reason is that it’s [ (frank, 1987) ] laid at society door is because the economic system is unable to provide [ (smith, 1989) ]equal opportunities for employment, and the completive social structure caused problems when the social groups (those living below the poverty level), which is not true. It may be logical to think that poverty creates people with unique traits (over 70% of Americans support this opinion)(smith) (1989) some believe that the poor have an inferiority complex, and low motivation levels, and that they tend to blame other s for their misfortune. A lot of people believe that history repeats it’s self when it comes to those who live in poverty. For example: The family history of poverty is the so called ‘risk-factor’ it is also believed that people who are born to poor families face a higher risk of being poor. This can be easily explained not by the social unequal distribution of welfare, but rather by learned behaviors of the families, some with weak parenting skills, weak literacy skills, along with the low expectations on education, there are many other factors that contribute to poverty. But at the same time society believe that the poor are refusing to try and do anything to change their present situation. With low wages, high rents, and the insufficient employment rates there is not much the poor can do to improve their lives especially if they lack the education that it takes to get the job. There is hope as we find this in the support from the statistics from the charity organization society’s analysis of records for 500 applications for aid, 10 percent of the applicants were found to be professional beggars, and 121 applicants had no real need for aid. While 25.88% of the applicants were reported to have been helped by a private charity, and having secured work independently, and having found to not in need and disappearing all together (Lerner, 1980). Those that are mostly effected by poverty are the children in 2007, 18.0 percent of the people under the age of 18 (13.3 million children) and 17.3 percent of people eighteen-twenty-four (5 million young adults) were poor (pg.288) sociology book. Compared today to the 1950’s and you will see that the poverty rate for Americans was 22.4% in the 1950’s and made a steady decline throughout the 1960’s by reaching a low of 11.1% in 1973. Over time the poverty rate has fluctuated between11.1% and 12.6% . In the 1980’s that rate began to rise again and by 1983the number of people living in poverty had risen to 15.2%. Over the ten years the poverty rate remained above 12.8% and then increasing to 15.1% in 1993. For the rest of the 1990’s that rate began to make a steady fall and by the year 2000 it was down to 11.3% but it didn’t stay down for long from 2000-2004 the rate would began to rise every year and would wind up reaching 12.7% in 2004. (Frank, levy, 1987) Society has changed in ways that we see a big difference in poverty from the 1950’s which was also a time when real wages grew more in a single year than in the entire ten years of the 1980’s a time when the average 30-year old man could buy a median priced home on only 15-18 percent of his salary. In today’s world 15-18 percent of your salary goes just to bills. On today’s wage if you’re making minimum wage you’re lucky if you can support your family even if you’re making more the minimum wage in order to survive in today’s society you have to live in a two income home that way at least the future generation has a chance of making it better.