Sociology 10: An Exploration of Global Poverty and Inequality

This essay, written for a Sociology 10 course, delves into the multifaceted issue of global poverty. The student explores the causes of poverty, including income inequality, mechanization, and urbanization, while also highlighting its impact on various demographics, such as children and young adults. The essay references key statistics and reports from sources like globalissues.org to illustrate the severity of the problem. The author further examines the role of inequality in exacerbating poverty, particularly in the United States, and discusses the need for collaborative approaches to address this global challenge. The essay concludes by suggesting potential solutions, including free education, awareness campaigns, welfare programs, and progressive tax policies, to alleviate poverty and improve the living standards of those affected. The student emphasizes the importance of feedback and policy reforms to ensure the effectiveness of these initiatives.

Running head: SOCIOLOGY
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

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Part 1: What I Know, Assume, or Imagine
Poverty is one of the major global issues that is existing in the modern-day scenario,
people living in different parts of the country all over the world are not able to get a good inflow
of income. It is because of this reason that they are not able to get the minimum acceptable
standard of living. As per the report by globalissues.org, there is a huge amount of people around
the world are living on a bare and minimum amount of income of about $2.50 a day. There is
also an alarming rate of illiteracy in different parts of the world. Mechanization and Urbanization
have gone hand to hand and also snatched the job and other employment options from many
people. This must be noted that to work in the modern mechanized world all the people must be
able to get the minimum education but this is lacking among people living in many parts of the
world (globalissues.org). This research has been useful as it deals not only with poverty in
general but also with the total number of children who have to stay on roads and also do not get
proper shelter and access to health services.
Part 2: The Search
As per the opinion of (Florida, Richard, and Charlotta Mellander), inequality is one of the
direct reasons that give rise to a huge amount of poverty. For many years the U.S has been the
topmost country to show the largest gap between the rich and the poor in the society. However, it
was also seen that the case is so much worse 1 in about 7 people in the U.S live in poverty. This
is a very alarming rate that talks about the large scale inequality that is existing in and also is in
the dire need of some attention and measure. In 2009, 43.6 million people — 14.6 percent of the
population — were living in poverty in the U.S., up from 13.2 percent of the population in 2008.

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The problem of the rich getting richer and the poor getting proper is developing at a very fast
pace (Karnani). It was also seen as per the reports of The US Congressional Budget Office
released updated figures for US household income between 1979 and 2007, that only the 1% of
people were able to draw a very high level of income and it is the main cause behind the less or
the poor level of income of the rest 99% of people (globalissues.org). Rich people earning the
majority of income have got about 275% increase or surge in their income which is about 7 times
more than the remaining 99%. As the inequality in rural areas is also increasing day by day
many strategies are being undertaken so that they can empower men in rural areas. The U.S is
one of the many countries seen globally that has a huge inequality rate also based on gender.
This must immediately be stopped because people of all class creed and social status must be
given equal rights and opportunities(globalissues.org).
It is seen that the majority of income growth or expansion is taking place only in the topmost
section of people. Curtis, Benjamin, and Serena Cosgrove have argued in a similar context that
many anti-poverty measures are being taken by the Government. However, these measures are
not able to get any proper results for those people who belong to the bottom lines. This is evident
in the fact that there is an improper allocation of resources and also a large scale inequality
present in the economy. Inequality in the division of wealth is one of the major significant issues
that make poverty Global issues. Not only in the U.S but also in many other places people are
struggling due to poverty (Florida, Richard and Charlotta p.p-80). It must be noted that even in
the developing countries or the OECD countries the result has been mixed and they have not
been able to bring about a significant change in this aspect. This is because the most greatly
affected places are Greece, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and others. The income gaps that are

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existing in some of the countries show that there have been no significant steps taken to solve
these issues and the gap I just increasing day by day-
1. Mexico, where the richest have an income of the rich people is more than 25 times those
of the poorest
2. Turkey, where the ratio is 17 to 1
3. The USA, where the ratio is 16 to 1.
However in other places, like the Nordic countries Sweden, Finland, Denmark the income
gap is less. The income of the rich is about 10% on average that is about five times those of the
poorest. Children and young adults or the millennials are the most affected section of the
population (Andreou, Konstantinos, and Agnieszka Markiewicz). Children are more vulnerable
to health diseases that may attack them due to poor health and sanitation facilities. Many of the
poor children are school dropouts or are not able to take admission to schools due to a lack of a
sufficient amount of money. Millennials or young adults in the U.S.A also suffer from
depression and other mental health disorders. As a result of surely carried out on poverty affected
millennial it has been seen that they suffer mainly from one particular kind of mental disorder
that is mild anxiety and depression (Greenstein p.p-1911). This is because long exposure to
poverty often forces young millennials and also children to go to the paths of drugs and crime.
Part 3: What I Discovered
Therefore it can be said that poverty is one of the Global issues and is having a huge long-
standing impact on people. To solve this issue, people from all over the world have to come

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together and put forward a joint collaborative approach so that they can help in dealing with
these issues. However, on the other hand, there must be proper feedbacks taken so that people
can know about the actual benefits that are being provided to poor people. It is of utmost
importance to take the feedback so that the policymakers and the other officials can know if the
policies are being able to help the poor people by reducing poverty or if there is a need for some
kinds of reforms.
 There must be some free schooling and education services developed so that they can get
people literate and also to spread awareness
 There must also be campaigns and awareness sessions on the harmful impacts of drug
addictions or undertaking the path of some criminal activities and others. This must
immediately be stopped so that the poor people can lead a proper life with the right to
education and also the basic health and medical facilities. Means-Tested welfare benefits
schemes are to be used so that people can get some advantages. The benefit schemes are
like food stamps, income support and housing benefits, unemployment benefits and
others.
 Increasing the progressive taxes and reduction in regressive taxes will also be beneficial.
This will be helpful because this will reduce the taxes like the VAT, Sales tax and others.
The rate of income tax will also be increased from 40% to 50%.
 Benefits to the poor must also be increased so that they can get free education facilities,
free groceries and other such advantages so that they can get at least a minimum
acceptable standard of living.

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 The policies like the Foreign aid, education fund are others must also be generated so that
they can make some improvements to the condition of poor people living in all the
different places.

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References
"globalissues.org". Globalissues.org, 2020. Online. Internet. 10 Apr. 2020. . Available:
https://www.globalissues.org/article/4/poverty-around-the-
world#PovertyinIndustrializedCountries. https://www.globalissues.org/article/4/poverty-
around-the-world#PovertyinIndustrializedCountries
Andreou, Konstantinos, and Agnieszka Markiewicz. "The Effect of Unconventional Monetary
Policy on Income Inequality: The US Case." (2018).
Chang, Shinhye, et al. "Causality between Output and Income Inequality across US States:
Evidence from a Heterogeneous Mixed Panel Approach." Journal of Income
Distribution (2018).
Curtis, Benjamin, and Serena Cosgrove. "Ethics and action–what should you do about global
poverty?." Understanding Global Poverty: Causes, Capabilities and Human
Development (2017).
Florida, Richard, and Charlotta Mellander. "The geography of inequality: Difference and
determinants of wage and income inequality across US metros." Regional Studies 50.1
(2016): 79-92.
Greenstein, Joshua. The Precariat Class Structure and Income Inequality Among US Workers:
1980-2018. No. 1911. 2019.

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Karnani, Aneel. Fighting poverty together: rethinking strategies for business, governments, and
civil society to reduce poverty. Springer, 2016.
Shaffer, Paul, et al. "What to Expect from Toronto's Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS)?: Lessons
from the Global South." Journal of Peasant Studies 46.7 (2019): 1519-1530.

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Appendix

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