The third section of reading that our class was assigned from The American Way of Poverty took place from pages 235-327. The main focus throughout this section was describing ideas and ways to break the cycle of poverty. Abramsky describes that although improving the welfare system put in place by our government might be relatively easy, it is breaking the routines of the everyday life that puts people who are experiencing poverty right where they are. Such cycles include education, housing, healthcare, criminal-justice systems, drug and mental health treatments, and etc. Abramsky illustrates throughout this section how costly our criminal justice systems really are and how they alone are a major cause of American poverty. It is suggested in this section that finding ways to help individuals with the addictions, mental illnesses, and diseases would help lessen the people who are sentenced to jail time, in turn saving our country money. Another major issue that causes poverty in more ways than one that was discussed thoroughly throughout reading section three is access to a good, fair education. Ensuring that every child, not just children who come from wealthy families, but also children who are from disadvantaged families have their educational needs met was a huge issue depicted in this section. Childhood development accounts (CDA's) were a fantastic idea that Abramsky discussed. Although some states already have some from of a CDA, it would be economically beneficial for our country to put programs such as these in place. This would ensure that every child had access to a higher education or job training of some sort, making sure that the future employees of our economy are well educated and well trained for the careers in which they choose. Higher education and better job training would help to eliminate the threat of poverty due to our future generations having job security as a result of their schooling and training. The cost of housing in our country is also a huge part of poverty. People may have an education and work fifty hours a week, but still struggle to pay their bills at the end of the day. In order to alleviate this problem to some extent, investments of some sort have to be made to render housing more affordable for those disadvantaged families experiencing poverty (Abramksy, pg 266). Ideas discussed in section three to help eliminate the cost of poverty caused by housing cost are micro-lending, tax reforms, or subsidies on low-end wages. In many ways, education played a huge part in ways to decrease poverty in America. Page 275 describes how stable economic environments with good school programs tend to have less gang activity, drug markets, hunger, homelessness and many other issues that tend to put people in poverty, and this can be done by improving our school systems. Having higher educational attainments can help the problem of poverty. The final issue discussed in section three is the most complex part of fixing poverty in America according to Abramsky. The issue that is said to be the most difficult is boosting the economic security of those who have attended school and gotten an education and found employment, but still are living in poverty. The hardest obstacle to overcome to conquer the issue of poverty is ensuring that the working poor have enough opportunities and economic security to stay out of poverty permanently. As you can see, the main idea depicted throughout section three is ideas about how to eliminate the poverty issue in America.
Potential test question: Out of the many ideas that Abramsky gives throughout the last section of reading assigned, which one do you personally believe would be most beneficial for improving the issue of poverty in America?
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