Domestic Poverty in the United States - Research Paper Example

?Domestic Poverty This research paper relates with domestic poverty in the United s. The main aim of this research paper is to report the research findings on the possible solutions to the problem of domestic poverty in this country. To identify possible solutions to this problem we mainly rely on its causes and influence to American citizens. Another aim of this paper is to discuss whether it is the responsibility of the government or the private organization to assist the poor people and to draw a comparison between domestic poverty and international poverty. I also bring out the various variations in how different countries define poverty. All these are to assist in understanding domestic poverty and how it occurs as well as the possible ways in which it can be resolved. Various scholars have studied the issue of domestic poverty both in the context of the United States and in the context of other countries. One of such scholars are Danziger & Haveman (2001), who studies and tried to understand various parameters of domestic poverty in the United States as well as how it has been growing since the times of the World War II. Collier & Dollar (2002) discovered that strengthening domestic institutions and policies regarding national wealth could be a useful tool in dealing with domestic poverty. Imig (1996) brought out some of the issues that make anti-poverty groups unable to effectively deal with poverty. However, there are very few attempts made to explain possible solutions to the issue of domestic poverty and this is what makes this research very important. In this research paper, I mainly rely on the information from the internet as my major source of information. In this paper, papers written on previous research about domestic poverty are used. To make the information derived from this research more accurate, I have relied mainly on most up-to-date books and research journals written about poverty. This is what we call use of secondary data in a research finding and it is widely used by researchers in their research due to its advantages. One of the major advantages of this kind of research method that has made me to choose it in my research is that it is inexpensive to undertake since it does not require data collection procedures. In my research, I was able to obtain different factors thought to have played a major part in contributing to domestic poverty. According to CQ Researcher (2007), one of the factors, that fuel poverty in the United States is Katrina devastation. Hurricane Katrina coused major destructions in the United States (Brunsma, Overfelt & Picou, 2007). Another factor is coming in of foreigners especially from poor developing countries and the education inconsistencies among the American citizens. Another factor that has played a very great part in causing domestic poverty is the increasing gap between the rich people and the poor people. This has actually made most of the American to continue suffering in poverty despite their hard work in attempt to earn a living. In my research I also found out that, most poor people are women and among these women a greater percentage are single parents. I also found out that majority of the poor people are not educated beyond high school levels. Moreover, according to 2006 national census, majority of people living in poverty are the children and the old people (CQ Research, 2007). We also discovered that majority of the areas are most affect by domestic poverty are the southern regions of the country. In these regions, the cash allocated to antipoverty programs is very little in comparison to the poverty levels in those regions. The possible solutions to the problem of domestic poverty are actually any activity that can eliminate a cause of the domestic poverty or activities that empower the affected people. Since the majority of people affected by poverty are women, we can have gender empowerment of these women as one of the possible solutions to the problem of domestic poverty. The reason why I have identified this as a possible solution is that majority of people affected by poverty are women therefore if we empower them to increase their earning we could have resolved the problem. This empowerment can take different forms the key ones being through education and entrepreneurship. Through this the women who are suffering in poverty can increase their earning hence we could have reduced the levels of domestic poverty. Since the majority of people affected by poverty are those who are not educated up-to college level, a possible solution to this problem is encouraging and motivating parents to educate their children beyond college level. This is possible through introduction of education policies that make college education to be affordable even to the poor people and through introduction of college bursaries. If this happen, we will have a very small number of people without college education and thus we would have reduced the rate of domestic poverty in this country. Another possible solution to this problem is raising the standards and requirement of the immigrants, especially those coming from developing countries. It ensures that the immigrants meet a certain level of education and health criteria before they settle in the United States. These will be making sure that the individuals introduced into our population increase the number of mid-class and rich people instead of increasing the number of poor people. By doing this, we would be reducing poverty levels in this country and thus we would be resolving the problem of domestic poverty. Another discovery we made in our research is that poverty in the United States affects mostly the single parents. Therefore, if we can find a mean of reducing the chances of increasing the number of single parents who would have taken a very big step forward in resolving this problem. There are various possible ways that we can adapt to resolve this matter. According to CQ Research (2007), the conservatives among the Americans suggest that we should emphasize on personal responsibility, higher marriage rates and fewer out-of-wedlock births. According to these people, will be having very few single parents and thus we would have reduced the chances of occurrence of domestic violence. Other people suggest that to reduce the number of single parents, the government should introduce policies that improve safety of people as well as promoting research that can lead to discovery of cures to diseases that currently claim lives of many Americans. Another major cause of this problem is the large gap that exists between the poor people and the rich people. This gap is mainly in form of personal and family income of these two categories of people. There are various ways in which these gap can be reduced most of which are controlled by the government. One of these ways is the increase in the government budget for the antipoverty programs in different states as well as introduction of new and more effective antipoverty programs. Another ways is reducing the tax charged to the poor people and raising the tax charged to the rich people. Introduction of programs of empowering poor people to increase their earning can also play a very great role in reducing the gap between the poor and the rich. If the government implements such strategies, then the gap between the poor and the rich would reduce and thus we would have reduced the levels of domestic poverty. Another thing believed to have resulted to increased levels of domestic poverty is the Katrina devastation. These resulted to a lot of destruction in the United States, which caused a negative impact to both the economy of the United States and the economy of the world. This made many United States citizens to lose their jobs that led to a raise in the levels of domestic poverty. Therefore, if we can implement strategies that can revive some of the companies and organizations destroyed by the Katrina destruction, we would have increased the number of employed people in this country. By doing this we will be reducing the domestic poverty levels and thus resolving the problem of domestic poverty. There are various roles be played by the government in its efforts to minimize domestic poverty. It is the role of the state government to stimulate economic development in their states while it is the role of the national government to stimulate economic development in the whole country (Galston & Hoffenberg, 2010). These governments should ensure that they formulate policies as well as strategic plans that would promote economic activities within their jurisdiction. Another role the government should play in its fight against domestic poverty, is promoting a robust society. These can also be achieved through policy formulation and generation of strategic plans. The government should also promote opening of opportunities the can improve the earning capabilities of the poor. By doing these, it would be eradicating domestic poverty and promoting domestic economic growth. It is also the responsibility of the government to ensure that financial assistance, either in terms of grants or in terms of loans, is available to the poor people to increase their chances of improving their earning through establishment of SMEs. The private organizations also have the roles they are required to play in the fight against domestic poverty. According to OECD (2001), one of the major roles of the private organizations is overseeing government-funded programs, policies and strategic plans designed to reduce domestic poverty. In these roles, the organizations should monitor and evaluate these programs, policies and strategic plans to ensure that they work towards domestic poverty reduction. They are also required to provide advice and recommendation on where improvement is required and assist the government in undertaking research concerning the issue of domestic poverty. Another role they should play is providing grants and other financial assistance to the poor people as well as financial advisory that can help these people to establish business thus increasing their earning. From our above discussion, it is clear that the government should bear more responsibility in assisting the poor as compared to the private organizations. We can categorize the responsibility of the government into two categories. One of these categories is the responsibilities of providing direct assistance to the poor people. In these responsibilities, the government should provide financial assistance to its poor people to help them improve their earning. The other category is the responsibilities of providing indirect assistance to the poor people. In these responsibilities, the government should ensure the designed antipoverty programs undergo effectively implementation. It should also make sure the formulated economic policies go through implementation to encourage the poor people to engage in economic activities to increase their earning. In this category of responsibilities, the government should ensure that job opportunities are available to the poor people as well as investment opportunities. Domestic poverty compares with international poverty in several different ways and aspects. The two kinds of poverty share some aspects while differ in others. The differences in domestic poverty and international poverty differ from one country to another. The similarities also like differences are not similar among various countries. This makes it difficult to draw a conclusion on how domestic poverty compares to international poverty internationally. However, we can compare how domestic poverty in the United States compares with international poverty. Both domestic poverty and international poverty are similar in terms of their results. Both of them results to the inability of the affected parties to have sufficient resources to achieve minimum required standards of living. In both of them, their levels vary among the affected parties. The two types of poverty also share causes like the trade policies in a country or internationally and thus, they can share some of the strategic plans used to eradicate or reduce them. Another similarity between the two types of poverty is that human rights violations greatly influence them either directly or indirectly (Pogge, 2003). Therefore, emphasis on observing of human rights can reduce the impact. Despite having several similarities, the two types of poverty are very different from each other. This is because of the several distinguishing characteristic that each of them has. In terms of the policies that influence them, international poverty is mainly influenced by international policies while domestic policies are influenced by national policies. In terms of the measure of poverty, international poverty is measured by the GDP of a country while the domestic poverty is measured in terms of an individual’s earning. The two types of poverty also differ in terms of the factors that influence them. International trade affects international poverty more that the domestic trade and domestic trade affect domestic poverty more than the international trade. Due to these differences, each of these two kinds of poverty requires unique strategies to address it. Although domestic poverty and international poverty are very different from each other, they are greatly interconnected. Reducing one of them can lead to a reduction in the other or provision of a suitable condition for eradicating the other type of poverty. This makes the international organizations to emphasize that governments should try to eradicate poverty in their countries so that they can make their efforts of eradicating international poverty easier and more fruitful. In addition, when one kind of poverty occurs it increases the chances of occurrence of the other type of poverty therefore directly fighting one type of poverty is indirectly fighting the other type of poverty. According to OACAA (2011, p. 4), “poverty is a state of deprivation in which a person or family lacks sufficient resources to achieve a minimally adequate standard of living”. This general definition can be used universally in different countries. However, the way different nations define poverty is different mainly because of the differing poverty line. A good example of a definition that is mainly suitable for only a specific nation is the definition of poverty in the republic of Kenya. The definition of poverty according to Kenya is the state in which a person or a family is forced to live on less than a dollar a day. The same definition is used in the republic of Uganda (Levine, 2010). However, the republic of Malawi defines poverty as the state in which a person has a very low per capita income that makes him unable to achieve minimum required standards of living (Lofgren, 2001). Although these definitions are, different they compare greatly with each other and with general definition of poverty and therefore we cannot say that poverty differs in meaning in different countries. Like the economy of any other country in the world, the economy of the United States is greatly affected by domestic poverty. This poverty has affected citizens of this country in different levels and has been caused by different factors some of them being economic policies that favour the reach at the expense of the poor and low levels of education of several American citizens. This kind of poverty is mainly experience among the women especially the single mothers and less educated persons. These make us to have various possible solutions to this problem some of them being economic policies modification and gender empowerment. In assisting the poor in the fight against domestic poverty, the government should bear more responsibility compared to the private organizations. These responsibilities should either be direct responsibilities that include providing financial assistance to the poor people or indirectly through formulating policies that favour the poor people as well as designing antipoverty programs to empower the poor to increase their earnings. A very great comparison can be drawn between domestic poverty and international poverty. These two types of poverty share some aspects like both of them lowers the living standards of the affected parties and they share some causes as well as effects to the involved parties. These make them to look similar although they are very different from each other. The differences arise from the ways in which they are measured, the parties they affect and degree of effect that various economic activities has on them. Despite the differences, the two are interconnected and thus fighting one of them can greatly assist in the reduction or eradication of the other. The way in which poverty is defined in different countries differs greatly. This is mainly because of the difference in the poverty line in different countries. However, these definitions compares with each other and with the general definition of poverty and therefore we cannot say that the meaning of poverty vary with countries. Reference Brunsma, D. L., Overfelt, D., & Picou, S. (2007). The Sociology of Katrina: Perspective on a Modern Catastrophe. Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Collier, P., & Dollar, D. (2002). Globalization, Growth, and Poverty: Building an Inclusive World Economy. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications. CQ Research. (2007). Domestic Poverty. Retrieved from: http://www.wiscap.org/pdfs/Domestic%20Poverty%20CQR%20September%207%202007.pdf. On 29 June 2012. Danziger, S., & Haveman, R. H. (2001). Understanding Poverty. New York, NY: Harvard University Press. Galston, W. A., & Hoffenberg, P. H. (2010). Poverty and Morality: Religious and Secular Perspectives. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Imig, D. R. (1996). Poverty and Power: The Political Representation of Poor Americans. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Levine, S. (2010). Exploring Differences in National and International Poverty Estimates: Is Uganda on Track to Halve Poverty by 2015?. Retrieved from: http://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Knowledge/Is%20Uganda%20on%20track%20to%20halve%20poverty%20by%202015%20%28vOct2010%29.pdf. On 30 June 2012. Lofgren, H. (2001). International Shocks and Domestic Poverty Alleviation: Simulations with a CGE Model of Malawi. Retrieved from: http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/pubs/divs/tmd/dp/papers/tmdp71.pdf. On 30 June 2012. OACAA. (2011). The State of Poverty in Ohio: A Path to Recovery. Retrieved from: http://www.oacaa.org/index_337_103526955.pdf. On 29 May 2012. OECD. (2001). The DAC Guideline Poverty Reduction. Paris: OECD Publishing Pogge, T. W. (2003). Severe Poverty as a Human Rights Violation. Retrieved from: http://portal.unesco.org/shs/en/files/4363/10980840881Pogge_29_August.pdf/Pogge+29+August.pdf. On 30 June 2012. Read More