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The Never Ending Cycle

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The Never Ending Cycle
The Never Ending Cycle

Everyone has heard someone comment on poverty in the United States. Some people say, "the poor have only themselves to blame for their situation." Or, "why don't they get a job?" This is the problem with society today; the different levels of the class structure have grown so far apart from one another they cannot even relate to one another. People look down on the poor as unmotivated and lazy when, in fact, it is not their fault, but the fault of a society that does not value people of wage labor. In our society today poverty is a never-ending cycle that feeds off itself, making the rich richer and the poor poorer. There are three main factors that can be brought up when talking about the cycle of poverty; education, nutrition, and redistribution of wealth. Without a strong foundation in all of these categories, a society will never have a class system without large gaps, and with gaps in a society come class antagonisms. Society needs to work together in order to strengthen the three factors so the working class can escape the cycle of poverty and have economic growth. Health is one of the most important factors in the cycle of poverty. Without a clean bill of health a laborer is no good. The health problems of wage-laborers stem from the environments they live and work in. If a low wage worker cannot afford to keep the electricity on in his or her own house, he or she may catch a cold from not having heat or from not having a stove in which to cook a hot meal. A cold could put the worker out of work for a few days, crippling their financial situation. But the common cold is not the only health issue that stands in the way of wage-laborers. Most wage-based jobs value the hands of the workers more than their minds, so if a worker was to lose the ability of an arm he or she would be at a serious disadvantage. This setback could cost the laborer and their family a lot. It may mean that the children do not get gifts this



Cited: Day and Newburger. The Big Payoff: Educational Attainment and Synthetic Estimates of Work-Life Earnings. 2002 Collegeboard.com. Trends in College Pricing. 2003 http://www.collegeboard.com/press/article/0,3183,29541,00.html Income and Poverty. Average Annual Income. 1997 http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Stats_incpov.html About Child Hunger. The Reality of Hunger. 2004 http://www.feedingchildrenbetter.org/pages/abouthunger/facts/index.jsp Global Health Council. Leading Cause of Death for Children Under Five. 2004 http://www.globalhealth.org/view_top.php3?id=226 Bush Tax Cut Plan. Effects of Bush Tax Plan. 2001 http://www.ctj.org/html/gwbfinal.htm War Resisters League. Where Your Income Tax Money Really Goes. 2005 http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm ANU. The Australian National University. The Struggle for Socialism. 2001 http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/contemp/pamsetc/women/ws_2.htm

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