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Race, Gender, And Social Class

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Race, gender, and social class has several implications in the United States and how it shapes policy and perceptions of those who live in poverty. Current welfare systems are not perfect, and capitalistic policies do not work as intended to solve income inequalities. Given this, we will discuss social inequalities and capitalism, the welfare system, and propose two policies that solves welfare, and social and income inequalities. The first key idea from the materials is that social inequities and capitalism are intertwined. In the TEDTalks, while the upper class, or plutocrats, are typically living large, the lower classes are struggling to live. Additionally, due to the unfair system, the lower-income people are more likely to drop out…show more content…
The welfare reform law in 1996 mostly tried to solve marital evils rather than efficiently dealing with welfare. It encouraged marriage and attempted to lower single parenthood. However, when one looks at this issue, this is mostly a gender status issue rather than an income issue. Also, many policymakers impose conditions to families receiving governmental benefits. Although I acknowledge that these policies attempt to solve problems with poverty, I disagree with how the policymakers approach these issues. Instead of focusing on incomes of each family, they mainly focused solving social issues. Would you say that poverty is caused by single mothers? What if I told you that marriage rates have fallen since the 1960s? Our policies are indifferent to these questions. The policies mainly focused on the shortcomings of the poor rather than trying to save them from poverty. J.D. Vance mentioned that low-income children face childhood trauma that affects them, and the despair and low social capital these families are going through. Focusing on the crimes parents do mainly out of desperation rather than malicious intent to pass welfare bills would be even more traumatizing to kids. We probably are not doing much to help the impoverished if we are focused attacking the moral shortcomings of poor families rather than implementing policies to help families in general. Given these key ideas, I would propose both a guaranteed basic income and
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