AJ
Callaway
Booker
College
Writing 2
2/16/16
War on Poverty Summary
The article I read about the war on
poverty was written by Derek Thompson in The
Atlantic magazine. The reason I chose this article was because I found all
the information very interesting and informative. Thompson, in his article
discusses why we as a nation haven’t been winning the war on poverty. He starts
off by stating how most experts blame lower wages, but then talks about how
that isn’t the big issue. As Derek Thompson explains, “But poverty isn’t
entirely a crisis of McJobs and minimum wage workers. In fact, the vast
majority of people who earn the minimum wage or work cheap jobs on a full time
basis aren’t in poverty.” Thompson goes on to say how the real issue is that the
lack of full time jobs and the growth of single parent house holds are really
what’s to blame. He also goes on to say how the labor participation rate has
been the lowest its been since the 1970s, he finds that the aging of America
and the amount of people dropping out of the workforce and choosing not to work
is to blame for this. Thompson goes on to elaborate more on how the single
parent household is becoming a big problem for the war on poverty by stating, “There
are 62 million single-parent families in America. Forty-one percent of them (26
million households) don’t have any full-time workers. This is something beyond
a wage crisis. It’s a jobs crisis, a participation crisis- and it’s a major
driver of our elevated poverty rate.” Thompson closes by saying how the
government has overlooked the problems in poverty in single parent households and
focuses more on the double parent households, but due to the increase of single
parent households, its hurting the war on poverty.
Works Cited
Thompson,
Derek. “The War on Poverty Turns 50: Why Aren’t We Winning?” The Atlantic. The
Atlantic Monthly Group, 6 Jan. 2014.
Web. 29 Feb. 2016.
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ReplyDeleteMatthews, Dylan. “Everything you need to know about the war on poverty.” The Washington Post. 08 Jan. 2014. Web. 01 Mar. 2016.
ReplyDelete“Everything you need to know about the war on poverty” by Dylan Matthews really caught my attention by the title. By the title saying, “Everything you need to know”, it sounds very informative and I know nothing about this subject so it also sounds like it would help me a lot in being able to understand. The author begins to explain what the term “war on poverty” means and that it refers to a set of initiatives proposed by Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration. There were different programs that were passed to help end this “war on poverty” and those included the Social Security Amendments, The Food Stamp Act, etc. According to the author, these programs actually did reduce poverty. From 1967 the poverty rate before taxes was 26% and in 2012 the rate was 16%. He also goes on to tell why some people don’t believe that it reduced poverty. He thinks that because people rely on the official poverty rate, which adds in income numbers from the programs such as Food Stamps. It also does not add in things like childcare or out of pocket medical expenses. Dylan Matthews feels that we could even improve the programs more and expand on them or he thinks that the government could even cut taxes on the working poor. This article is very useful because it asks questions like, “What more could we be doing now to fight poverty?” and then he begins to answer them. He uses graphs and charts to help convey his answers and that helps me to better believe his data.
Boteach, Melissa, Erik Stegman, Sarah Baron, Tracey Ross, and Katie Wright. "The War on Poverty: Then and Now." Center for American Progress. Center for American Progress, 07 Jan. 2014. Web. 01 Mar. 2016.
DeleteIt has been 50 years since we started the war against poverty. Since the movement started more people have been able to afford going to college, and health care. At one point the rate fell 42 percent, and it's still dropping today. This is largely due to a safety net of sorts that we have. Without the safety net programs the critics would be correct in stating "these programs have failed." Our poverty rates would be double what they are today without these programs.
The brief summary above backs up the idea that, we are not in poverty near as bad as we were 50 years ago. In fact a full time minimum wage job actually does add up to a decent salary. Various things such a food stamps, and charity only make the minimum wage life easier. However, poverty mainly exist because some people won't even try to get a job. Also those that do have jobs spend every penny. The rates are going down, but at the cost of the government going more and more into debt. These safety nets really have our backs. I'm not sure how I would be able to function without some sort of outside help to pay for college.
Thompson, Derek. “The War on Poverty Turns 50: Why Aren’t We Winning?” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media company, 06 Jan. 2014. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.
ReplyDeletei read this article from this website the atlantic, written by Thompson called "The War on Poverty Turns 50: Why Aren’t We Winning". it is about why aren't we winning the war over poverty, he gives lot of reason that why arent we winning."But poverty isn’t entirely a crisis of McJobs and minimum wage workers. In fact, the vast majority of people who earn the minimum wage or work cheap jobs on a full time basis aren’t in poverty.” he says how the real issue is that the lack of full time jobs and the growth of single parent house holds are really what’s to blame. He talks about how the labor participation rate has been the lowest its been since the 1970 he finds that the aging of America and the amount of people dropping out of the workforce and choosing not to work is to blame for this. he talks more on how the single parent household is becoming a big problem for the war on poverty by stating, “There are 62 million single-parent families in America". he gives lot of example and statistics. it is useful to me because it give me reason that why large number of people are still living in poverty. it is authoritative because he talk about stuff with backup he uses statistics. i dont think its biased because it talks both ways towards and against poverty.
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