So Rich By Peter Edelman

The book “The Other America”, written by Michael Harrington, describes poverty in America in the 1950s and 1960s, when America became one of the most affluent and advanced nations in the world. The book was written in 1962, and Harrington states that there were about 50,000,000 (about 25% of the total population) poor in America at that time. The author did extensive research with respect to the family income levels to derive the poverty numbers, and used his own observations and experiences to write this book. This book addresses the reasons for poverty, the nature of poverty, the culture of poverty, the blindness of Middle Class America with respect to poverty, and the responsibility of all Americans in addressing the issue of poverty in America.

According to “Poverty in the U.S. and the Supplemental Poverty Measure” in 2011, the 46.2 million persons in the United States had income below the poverty line. The statistics in the poverty rate did not differ from the prior year. This is evidence that relieving poverty in the United States should be the priority. In addition, differences between government operations in various countries can affect the efforts to reduce poverty on a global level, as Thomas states, “The

The view that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer has been heard repeatedly in reference to America’s income inequality. Though ironic, it comes as no surprise that America, a continent that easily trumps other countries in terms of wealth would be affected by the issue of poverty at such high levels. While much has said regarding the poverty levels, many economists, educators and scholars feel that the income inequality in America may be the reason why it is difficult to live and maintain a middle class lifestyle or to rise out of poverty into the middle class in the current economic state. With this in mind, the only way America, has a chance of lessening or eliminating poverty altogether is by understanding how it exists.

Poverty is present in today’s U.S. social system. For example, as Lesser states in the Clearinghouse Review, “Forty-six million Americans live in poverty” (1). Lesser then goes on to say how forty-six million Americans living in poverty correlates to almost one in every three single-parent families is poor (1). This is a daunting fact as it applies to today’s economic context with “rising unemployment rates and mortgage crises driving more individuals and families to seek the support of a cash-strapped social welfare structure” (Grijalva 1). With this in mind, many legislators are discussing the topic of poverty in the political realm. In order to tally the score of representatives the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law conducted its sixth annual Poverty Scorecard. “The 2012 Poverty Scorecard grades the voting record of every U.S. senator and representative on the most important poverty-related votes in 2012” (Lesser 1). The 2012 votes covered a range of topics such as budget and tax, food and nutrition, health care, housing, and many more (1). The results of the 2012 Poverty

In Edelman’s piece Still Hungry in America, she is discussing poverty in America. The purpose of this piece is to convince readers to take action to support federal programs that could help end the problem of poverty. This piece is intended to communicate that poverty is a real problem and America and needs our help to put a stop to it. Edelman is trying to communicate to those who don’t know anything issue and those who want to know how to help solve this issue.

Many notable wars have begun and ended without people taking time to truly understand them. It is the case that it is harder to understand something one has not experienced yet, and the war on poverty is not exempt from this. However, poverty has existed all throughout the history of mankind’s most notable societies, from the French revolution in 1789 which bloodied the halls of the Palace of Versailles to the Occupy Wall Street Movement in 2011 which reminded Americans that economic inequality is still prevalent. The Invisible Poverty of Other America by Peter Dreier, 7 Lies About Welfare by Danica Johnson, and Where to Sleep When You’re Homeless by an anonymous ex-homeless person, all give insight to the problems we’ve learned to turn a

“Just the way it was”. That was Anne W. viewpoint of poverty when she was growing up and going to school. Anne and I met working for the same school district. She was born fifth of eleven children and started her schooling in the 1960s. Although Book’s writes about poverty in a more modern time a lot of what she writes was still true to Anne’s schooling. Her mother stayed at home and her father was a farm cropper, but never owned his own land. Book’s reminds us that poor people are working people. She reminds us to “Consider the role of the working poor in a market economy. Unable to support their own families, they provide a wealth of services to others.(Chamberlin 1999)” (PG. 29) The GI bill payed for her childhood home. She grew up in rural farm town of 1,600. When Book’s wrote about the demographics of poverty in chapter 5 I was surprised to learn that poverty is higher in rural areas.

In his article Rich and Poor, Peter Singer argues that we have a moral obligation to give assistance to people in absolute poverty. He derived this conclusion from three premises. The first states that if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, then we ought to it. The second premise is that absolute poverty is a bad thing. The third premise is that we are able to alleviate some portion of absolute poverty without giving up anything of comparable moral significance. To illustrate the urgency of our duty to assist the poor, he believes that in a case where we happen to walk pass a child drowning in a shallow pond, the vast majority of people would agree that it would be seriously morally wrong to not rescue the child. Connecting this scenario to Singer’s argument, we can say it is seriously morally wrong to not assist the poor because the lives of these people in need are of greater moral importance than the excess income we would otherwise spend on luxury goods. Thus, Singer is correct in saying that we have a moral obligation to assist the poor, and that failing to do so is equally as morally wrong as failing to rescue the drowning child.

Moffitt R. (2015). The Deserving Poor, the Family, and the U.S. Welfare System. Population Assistance of America

So many people in the American society live paycheck to paycheck and are one financial catastrophe away from financial ruin. In my own experience, after my husband’s employer continually embezzled from employees and clients, we found ourselves in a terrifying position. Jobless, penniless, and entrenched in mountains of subsequent debt, we were acquainted with the terror many American’s face while struggling to keep food on the table and a roof over our family. Just as the chapter 9 in our textbook describes, Aaron and his wife quickly realized that their income was “no longer sufficient to meet their needs,” (Openstax Intro to Sociology, 2015), we found ourselves in the same position. During my husband’s search for a new job, he began doing all he could to keep food on the table. He participated in tree removal, a laughable wage for hard physical labor. In desperation, I took a full time babysitting job looking after two very difficult little girls for a measly $250 a week. Looking back, although the situation was terrible and trying, we cannot wish it away. The situation taught us what mattered. There were so many things my family took for granted. The situation opened our eyes to the trials and suffering of many people in our society and allowed us to develop compassion, love, and understanding. Now, as we think back to our own struggles, it is much easier to reach out

The Working Poor: Invisible in America gives an accurate depiction of the social problems and social policies that are designed to keep the poor, poorer. Shipler uses a variety of stories to depict social welfare programs like the minimum wage act, immigration, Social Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability (SSD), healthcare act, Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), drug addiction, sexual abuse, Individual Education Plans (IEP), and the gender pay gap along with many others. The overarching theme throughout the book was that the working poor never make enough money to cover their expenses and the wage never goes up enough over the span of their lifetime.

Imagine having a 200% percent in a class with a few weeks left. Would you continue to put in the effort or stop because you know you are guaranteed the A+? Most humans would stop because the effort was no longer needed. Rich and powerful people have this mindset when it comes to empathy and compassion to others. They don’t see the need to connect to the feelings of others because it seems irrelevant to their life. Agreeing with the article “Rich people just care less” by Daniel Goleman, I too believe that high salaried and statused people do not have as good interpersonal relationships as low-class workers because they lack interest in understanding others situations.

Growing up as a kid many probably heard a phrase similar to this, “there are starving children in Africa, you better eat all your dinner!” However what many people fail to realize is there are plenty of those starving children right here in the United States, not just off in faraway lands. It may be because America doesn’t like to look at society as having a real distinction between its classes or socioeconomic status (SES). America is just one big middle class in our misguided, hopeful eyes. Unfortunately nothing could be further from the truth. What classifies an individual as being in poverty is when their basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter are not being met. The US Government states the poverty line in 2016 for an individual is an annual income of $11,770 and $24,250 for a family of four. According to a recent study released performed by the US Census between 60 and 75 percent of all Americans live below or near the poverty line. The 2010 US Census reports “the number of people in poverty in 2009 climbed to 46.3 million—one in seven Americans...36 percent of all people who live in poverty are children.” With that being said, “childhood poverty rates are higher in the United States than in any other industrialized country, and this rate is on the rise” (Parrett & Budge, p. 37). That fact is startling to most, as Americans don’t view America

“Poverty was a word to describe the poor people. Our government is helping them through different funding programs such as EITC, SNAP, and SSI.” These were my thoughts on poverty and the government before reading this book. Growing up in such an isolated rich and “good” side of the town, I was uneducated about poverty. Our only source of knowing about poverty is through news, which is a secondary resource not a primary resource. This book written by Stevenson, who grew up poor in a racially segregated community in Delaware sheds light on injustice the poor are suffering through other than lacking money.

There is a question of whether human progress tends to reduce world poverty, tends to increase world poverty, or tends to leave world poverty unchanged; different economists have reached different conclusions. And their different conclusions have impacted strongly on how governments and others approach poverty, and on how poverty is dealt with or not dealt with. Even after Hurricane Katrina and the devastation left in its wake exposed to public eye the shocking levels of poverty in the mostly African-American neighborhoods of New Orleans, there was a lot of talk about America's hidden shame and about the need to pay more attention to the plight of the poor when there isn't a natural disaster to put them in the headlines.