What Does Poverty Mean? - Tutors Avenue Center

Table of Contents

Introduction
Discussion
Conclusion
References

Introduction

Poverty is a lack of money to meet basic needs, including housing, food, and clothing. It deprives people of liberty, physical and mental well-being, and safety (The Economist, 2019). Manifestations of poverty include malnutrition and hunger, inability to obtain education and satisfy other basic needs, social discrimination and exclusion, and insufficient participation in decision-making. Poverty concerns people below the subsistence level and everyone around them.

Discussion

Most crimes against property are often committed in poor areas. Sellers and lenders suffer from loss of business when potential customers do not have enough money to spend or invest (Democracy Now!, 2020). Furthermore, poverty is a vicious circle from which families and individuals seem unable to escape (The Economist, 2019a). It may be because people are no longer producing but consuming (TRT World, 2019). Martin Luther King talked about the importance of equal treatment for everyone, and I agree with him (Curtis, 2020). Indeed, poor people have fewer opportunities for a comfortable life and no options to escape from this vicious circle.

There is a vital need to attract public attention to the question of poverty. I want to emphasize public awareness of the problem of poverty that exists among us and is not an alien entity far removed from our collective space and consciousness. If we can confront the impact of poverty in this discussion, it will make us less desensitized to its devastation (The Economist, 2019b). Part of the reason poverty is so chronic in America is that, for many, it is invisible; thus, there has not been a systemic public policy solution.

There are many manifestations of poverty if society does not refuse to neglect them. If the person goes out at night to any downtown and sees the tent cities or visits the homeless shelters overcrowded with families (Now This News, 2020). The individual goes to a social service agency on a Monday, has to wait half the day for services-emergency food stamps, and remains in an emergency care facility to be treated for mental health issues (The Periphery, 2020). The person intimately learns the face of poverty, how it stretches its tentacles around society in a choke grip, and how the person can barely breathe to get out from the devastating impact.

Conclusion

Therefore, poverty is not a problem for a person but for the whole nation that should be considered. Poverty eradication is vital for the growth of the country and the economy.