Definition Essay: What Does Poverty Look Like Locally?

Poverty, people are born into it. People can sink into its grasp, or people can escape. But it’s a hard journey. As for Kevin Powells mother growing up in the south she never saw money, for “at the age of eight in a field picking someone else’s cotton”. (p. 86) Being in poverty is based out financial needs, being poor is one thing. Poverty is just below that, for you barley have enough to get by and sometimes you are places in a setting that could risk health or safety.

Poverty, the state of being extremely poor, exists all over America! There are several different types of poverty, and the causes of poverty. Most people think of poverty as just somebody who is homeless and has no job, somebody who has no money to support the basic needs of life, and wears ragged clothing and lives under a bridge. What people don’t know is there are people living in poverty that have jobs and make money but live so poorly that they are categorized with people that live in absolute poverty.

A Framework for Understanding Poverty is a book, written by Ruby K. Payne for the purpose of helping educators impact their students in poverty through opportunities. This book examines experiences from all economic classes in order to evaluate the differences in education among each class. Payne talks about the different types of poverty and the resources needed to be a stable and educated person. Poverty is “the extent to which an individual does without resources”.

Poverty, the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor (Webster Dictionary). Poverty is a constant issue for not only the America, but all over the world. This theme runs the course of the books narrative, and is clearly shown in the

Pockets of extreme poverty are also scattered in U.S. cities. According to a recent study by the Brookings Institution, the city with the most concentrated poor population is Fresno, California; followed by New Orleans, even before hurricane Katrina hit; Miami, and Atlanta.

There are many myths behind the word and status called “Poverty”, this is a highly controversial issue that has affected millions of people worldwide. In society, there is a hierarchy in society and people’s perception of poverty ranges in thought processes such as in our social imagination. There are various reasons people are living in poverty and how it should be addressed. There is a large divide in between socioeconomic classes and this class system has changed people in many different aspects of their life. Some American people living in poverty lack of opportunities and resources to excel in society. People living in poverty can cause no sense of aspiration and not feeling included in society so usually do not become greater than their present circumstances. In this western society we live in, there is a consistent divide in a western society, the upper class will always regulate

Poverty within neighborhoods throughout the United States has increased immensely throughout the past 50 years. In 2011, nearly 46.2 million Americans were living in poverty compared to the 353,000 Americans who lived in poverty in 1959. (Dosomething 1) Poverty is hardly just defined as a lack of financial resources, it is defined as a condition that results in an absence of the freedom to choose arising from a lack of the capability to function effectively in society. (Poverty and Education 1)  For a person to be impoverished or to be living in a state of poverty is to live where they do not have the economic means to provide a healthy lifestyle for themselves and their family.  A majority of public school students across the country are considered “low-income”, according to a new study by the Southern Education Foundation.  Areas of concentrated impoverishment are often characterised by crime, unemployment, and lack of resources.  Children represent 24 percent of the population, but they comprise 34 percent of all people in poverty.  The shift to a majority-poor student population implies that a growing range of students who attend public schools are less likely to possess support at home, are less often exposed to enriching activities outside of school, and are more likely to drop out and never attend higher education.  Children living in poverty have a higher number of absenteeism or leave school altogether because they are likely to have to work or care for family

Poverty can change how people act and the way that they live in society. Poverty can also stand for the experience someone may lose by living the same way as everyone else around them. Poverty can mean different things such as lack money and experience, but all types of poverty can limit what a person can do such as in the short stories “The Gulf Coast,” “The Louisiana Live Oak Society,” and “The Man Who Was Almost a Man.”

The book demonstrates that poverty may not be a government issue but everyone is impacting towards this issue. People must work with what they got, and give respect to their close ones

Personally, in a way poverty is an unavoidable and inescapable reality that strikes when we least expect it but one way or another we all deal with some form of poverty in our lives at one some point no matter how insignificant or profound. There was a point in my life when my Dad was working as a contractor for Coors Brewing Company in Golden, Colorado for a couple years leading up to the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Shortly after the Towers came down in what we can call the worst terrorist attacks to ever occur in the Western hemisphere or United States the economy suffered a heavy blow and to some extent has still not recovered, however Coors elected not to renew my Dads contract a year after the attack so he was out of a job and regrettable we had to sell our home and eventually settled with renting because we could not afford to buy another home at that point.

When it comes to poverty, there is the magnitude of definitions explaining the term. The definition of poverty has important implications from point of view of policy making, politics and academic debates. Each view has its own value judgments and explanations. Over the times, new definitions have surfaced the debates and yet, there is not a single universally acceptable definition of poverty. Definitions usually set the perimeters of the terminology and often subject to limitations and criticism. According to the definition of the World Bank, the term lack refers to the scarcity of economic resources while the term inability refers to the failure of competence to take part in a community (Bellu & Liberati, 2005). It is now widely

Poverty and inequality exist in every developed culture and often are only patched in order for society to continue upwardly. Poverty and inequality in the United States exists for many reasons; reasons that very from the prospective lens. Interpretive theories in particular ask us to question our reality and its constructs. Interpretive theories require us to looks at the world as a social realm, one that we created and constantly change. Interpretive theories study the relationship between power and the construction of social roles as well as the invisible collection of patterns and habits that make up domination, (Delgado & Stefanic, 2001). Susan Kemp argues that the view of the world is dominated by the experiences of white western

A social problem, is “a general factor that effects and damages society”. It can be used to describe an issue or a problem within a certain group of people or an area in the world. Examples of contemporary social problems today include anti-social behaviour, drug abuse, and sexual abuse. Poverty is an example of a social problem that exists all over the world, and to different extents. In the UK, poverty has effected at least a third of the population, as shown by the Office of National Statistics, providing evidence that it is a massive social problem in the country. Tameside has a big poverty problem. 1 in 4 children in Tameside are born into poverty, and workers in Tameside earn significantly less than other workers in the rest of the North-West area. In addition, Tameside has the largest proportion of people claiming unemployment benefits compared to the rest of the North West of England.

People are dying every minute because of this terrible disease. No antidotes have been found to eliminate it. Poverty is like an epidemic with no antidote affecting the entire world. It has already killed billions of people, and will continue killing unless we do something to stop it. Have you ever thought what living in poverty is like? Seeing a shocking picture in which people were trying to survive gave me a whole different perspective. That image showed me one of the poorest areas of the planet where people were living under despicable conditions. They were working in sweatshops, collecting garbage and living in broken down huts in order to survive. A polluted river passes across from their humble homes, causing incomparable complication to their lives. I could observe the terrible conditions in which this people are working, fishing and collecting garbage. Not only pollution is shown in this photo, above of the photograph a bridge could be observed. I imagine the noise, and the dust that this little detail brings to their lives. That photograph made me feel angry at politicians because they could do a better job helping the needy. Since they were almost dying, I felt sad for the circumstances they live in. A sense of admiration for the way they are able to survive, gave me the strength to fight against this global scourge. The author of this picture is trying to convey a message, showing us poverty in all its faces and inviting us to be part of his fight against

After reading Booth’s work on The Life and Labour of the People of London led me to construct my own investigation on poverty but in a provincial town so I can then find an applicable general conclusion for a smaller populated area.