Poverty, Poor, And Poor

During the start of the 1800s major poor citizens of New York City outer the South bears a resemblance to poor of Europe. These people were majorly widows, orphans, seasonal workers out from season, or persons too sick or too old to do work. Local governments provide them “Outdoor relief” comprising of firewood, food, or slightest amount of cash named as alms, initially from an intellect of communal responsibility or paternalism. State poor Laws innate from customs of English, necessitates cities to care for their poor citizens.

The settlement house movement was a social movement that began in the late 19th century in the United States and the United Kingdom. The movement was based on the idea that the best way to help the poor and working class was to provide them with education, healthcare, and other social services. Settlement houses were established in poor neighborhoods, and they provided a variety of services, including childcare, after-school programs, and job training. The settlement house movement was founded on the belief that the best way to help the poor and working class was to provide them with education, healthcare, and other social services. Settlement houses were established in poor neighborhoods, and they provided a variety of services, including childcare, after-school programs, and job training.

Gender roles, societal expectations and gainful employment for women in America were quite limited prior to the early 1800s. By 1850 we can see that doors were opening little by little due to subtle changes in attitudes and the needs of our emerging industrialized nation. Many upper middle class women were concerned with more than domesticity. They were felt that a woman was more than a wife and mother only concerned with her home and family. Between 1850 and 1950 the three most important changes for women were political voice due to the women’s suffrage movement, expanded access to education, and rich, educated women leading the way to social reforms.

Beginning in the Elizabethan Era, unworthy poor was a label placed on able bodied people that appeared to choose to not work. They were often treated harshly and in extreme cases, put to death (Shelly, 2011). In today’s society such treatment would be unheard of. The act of even labeling this group of people or other groups is discouraged and even against the NASW’s The Code of Ethics (2008). When faced with the multi billion dollar price tag of welfare, we need to make a distinction of who is worthy or unworthy to receive government assistance. The question arises on how this can be done without impeding the rights of the

The concept of “worthy poor and unworthy poor” subsists within contemporary Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs today. According to the conditions of the English Poor Laws, certain individuals (e.g., widows, children, ill, disabled, etc.) are considered dependent and thus in need of help, whereas others (e.g., lazy, able-bodied adults, etc.) considered voluntarily poor (Stern & Axinn, 2012). Today, each state has their own eligibility requirements for TANF assistance, however most funds are dispersed according to qualifiable needs. For

The settlement house movement was a social reform that was first established or started in England in 1884 when the first settlement house was opened in Whitechapel and it was called the Toynbee Hall and was staffed with university men . It rose in America around the time that women struggled for suffrage, the development of social work as a profession, and the arrival of millions of new immigrants into the country. The idea of the settlement house was founded or formulated by a man that went to university named Cannon Barnett who wanted other university men to help working class neighborhoods to relive poverty by “settling” into those neighborhoods. He also wanted the university men to learn about the real world and he thought that only way for them to do that was to live day to day in the slums like the people that they were helping .

Worthy poor are the people who have worked, but no longer can because they are “aged or disabled”, the people who “can work if they want to, or can support their families if they work hard enough” (Day & Schiele, 2013, p. 10). Unworthy poor is anyone else who has never worked and will not work. “It is assumed that these people are poor because of some kind of willfulness, laziness, or refusal to be productive and support themselves” (Longmore, 1997).

When the United States of America first began, there were small villages with men and women of varying degrees of wealth. Like any society, there were people who had little money and poor living conditions while others were wealthy. In the colonies of the new world, the church and the neighbors of those in poverty helped provide food and clothing, while also finding ways to improve their daily lives. These acts of kindness were an enormous help to the poor but sadly became less effective to those individuals as the population of the colonies increased along with the number of those in poverty. Soon seeing the streets filled with the poor the government of this new country decided that an improved method of help should be put into effect:

Social workers working at the macro-level identify the needs of the community and help develop changes to both current programs and policies. For example, the settlement house movement and the formed Hull House, led by social worker Jane Addams, had a great influence on national policy, which led to the development of many federal initiatives to surface. Several policies focus on programs aimed at assisting at-risk youth in areas such as workforce development, education, social services, public health, juvenile justice and delinquency prevention and national/community services (Fernandes-Alcantara,

The historical definitions of worthy and unworthy poor come from the early 1600’s for dealing with the poor. Family was expected to take care of other poor family members (Hansan, 2011). The worthy poor are to be considered true victims of poverty. They were pregnant women, people who are truly unwell and unable to work or someone over the age of sixty. These were the people that were allowed to beg on the street since the government deemed them worthy (Martin, 2014, p.21). The unworthy poor were the legally defined drifter, or beggars. If people were able to work but they were without a job, they were whipped, marched through the streets, returned to where they came from, or thrown in jail. Repeat offenders of begging often had ears cut off or were killed (Martin, 2014, p.21).

During the colonial period, the Elizabethan poor laws were adopted to address the social issue of poverty. Residency was a main factor in determining who was eligible for aid. Categories "worthy" and "unworthy" were set to determine who would qualify for assitance. Unfortunately the individuals in the "unworthy" category were the very individuals more in need of assistance.

The Settlement House Movement was a response to the Charity Organization Society who had made little efforts to improve living and working conditions of the poor. Where C.O.S had “friendly visitors” Settlement House workers considered themselves social reformers rather than charity workers (Trattner, 1999). Their approach was to prevent ails that the poor suffered from such as urban living and working conditions. They also attempted to bridge the gaps between classes and races. These workers were not interested in just giving out financial or verbal relief they were trying to reform society and the way the poor were viewed.

Poverty for centuries has been a very severe issue that has troubled many nations while impeding economic developments and progress. Poverty stricken countries are majorly concentrated in the continents of Africa and Asia. Continents like the Americas and Europe have globally been recognized as been wealthier yet still many parts of these ostensible countries face massive cases of poverty. Most at times, countries with high populations owing to high birth rates face the most cases of poverty. The definition of poverty can be boundless in the sense that poverty entails so many subsections as it sometimes gets complicated to group everything under one umbrella. Society tends to focus more on the tangible aspects of poverty because many people associate poverty with lacking money and it makes sense because poverty in terms of lacking money is a major problem affecting almost every country in the world. Even though it is debatable that poverty can be physical, intellectual, spiritual and even emotional, it is best to talk about the lack of money and economic developments in this essay. With reference to the oxford English Dictionary, poverty is state of being extremely poor and the state of being inferior in quality or insufficient in amount. Reflecting on this definition given, I deduced that malnutrition and hunger can define poverty. In the light of this, I think poverty is lacking a comfortable place of shelter, being ill and not having access to a better

Poverty traps are economic anomalies that continually reinforce poverty within a country’s, or multiple countries’, economies. There are many different types of poverty traps such as savings traps, “big push” models, nutritional traps, behavioral traps, geographic traps, etc. that all affect an economy in different ways. Not only can poverty be enforced through these traps, but also through the way an economy is run or the moralities of the government. According to Mark Koyama (2015), poverty traps are important due to more than 3 billion people, nearly half the world’s population, living on less than $2.50 per day, and about 1.3 billion people living in extreme poverty on just $1.25 per day. Among these 3 billion some people living in poverty, one billion of them are children of which thousands are dying daily. It is necessary to study these different poverty traps in order to begin to decrease the distressingly high percentages of people living in poverty.

In a historical context, the social problem was defined differently compared to how it is defined today. During the 1950s, there were specific groups of people who would be regarded as poor, (Polyp, 1992). These included the widows, the chiefly orphans, the too sick and too old to work as well as seasonal workers. This