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Evolution Of Poverty In The United States

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The Evolution of Poverty What is poverty? A question most Americans will not have to think twice before answering. Poverty is, of course, simply a lack of money. The views of a specific person will defer when politics or morals are introduced, however, the idea stays the same. Those in poverty are there because they have less money than what has been decided to be livable. Poverty has changed significantly over the last two hundred years in the United States, and yet, the definition has hardly changed. As the United States of America has because a better-established country and therefore a more prosperous country, the type of people that are considered poor has changed quite a bit. Before industrialization and immigration became a bigger …show more content…

There is this idea that the poor are all the same and that they all became poor the same way. This is not true, the amount of information the average person has related to poverty is small, almost a “snapshot” of what is truly happening to the impoverished. Measuring poverty is very difficult because of this, every person’s experience is different which makes it hard to find a way to measure them all the same way. Although some people are born into poverty, many are only impoverished for a small amount of time. Without understanding a person’s past with poverty and their “poverty spells” it is hard to tell how poor they are and what should be done about it. To put a person on a certain spot on the poverty spectrum, not only will their financial value need to be evaluated but also their well-being. If poverty is to be defined correctly, poverty spells must be acknowledged. So that the view America has is not a “snapshot but a movie” …show more content…

For hundreds of years, there have been great dividers between the working class and the upper class, although the system has changed and the identifiers for each class have blended together, there still is a difference. The barriers, however, murky they seem to be are still very much present. These barriers are broken by some, Bill Gates and Benjamin Franklin are two of the most well know to have moved classes. Gates from the upper middle to the top of the system, whereas Franklin went from being unknown and poor to one of the most influential men in the United States. Classes are mixed and broken down into many micro classes such as the lower-middle and upper-middle, not to mention countless others. Mobility in the class system is incredibly difficult but it is not impossible. The lines which have always separated the classes so severely, are now hard to see in American culture. Although there still is mobility there is no instantaneous movement. In many cases, the generation before made sacrifices so that the next generation would not have to hurt in the same way. This can go on for years each generation moving a little higher on the class ladder. However, it is hard to tell if this completely true, because what was a novelty item fifty years ago, is now in every home no matter the income level. The class system is still present and it does still affect how people in every group are seen and judged. If mobility

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