Social Problem: Poverty

Poverty is a state or condition in which a person or community lacks the financial resources and essentials for a minimum standard of living. Poverty means that the income level from employment is so low that basic human needs can not be met. Poverty stricken people and families might go without proper housing, clean water, healthy food, and medical attention. Each nation may have its own threshold that determines how many of its people are living in poverty. (Chen 2020)

The functionalism persepective says that society is more than the sum of its parts, rather, each aspect of it works for the stability of the whole (Crossman, 2020).  Poverty is also inevitable in society if there is stratification. Functionalists imply that poor people do not acquire the skill and knowledge for high paying jobs. A few years after the functionalist theory was published,other sociologists pointed out some serious problems in their argument (Tumin, 1953;Wrong,1959).The functionalist explanation states that the most important jobs get higher pay than the least important jobs: there are many arguments that can counter this view. For example, schoolteachers do an especially important job in our society, but their salaries are much lower than those of sports agents, advertising executives, and many other people  whose j obs are far less essential. The conflict theory’s rationalization of stratification attracts on Karl Marx’s view of sophistication societies and incl...

    1. Sustained economic growth     The argument is that promoting economic growth increases total income in society, creating  more jobs and income which could be redistributed. In the past years, economic growth has been a major factor in reducing the levels of poverty. However, it is not necessarily the case that income and wealth will trickle down to the poorest. There is a concern that economic growth could widen relative poverty because it benefits the highly skilled and wealthy classes more than those at the bottom.                2. Reduce Unemployment   U nemployment is a major cause of poverty because the unemployed have little income, relying on state benefits. Unemployment can be reduced through both supply-side policies, such as free training schemes for those who are   structurally unemployed.  

According to, Vallas and Boteach ( 2014) ¨the good news is that different policy choices can bring different outcome¨. When the government invests in jobs and policies to increase workers' wages and families' economic security, children and families see improved outcomes in both the short and long term. 1.Means-tested welfare benefits -   to the poorest in society for example unemployment benefit, food stamps, income support and housing benefit. 2.Minimum wages  - Regulation of labour markets, for example, statutory minimum wages. 3. Free market policies to promote economic growth - hoping that rising living standards will filter down to the poorest in society. 4. Direct provision of goods/services - subsided housing, free education and healthcare.

A  successful strategy of poverty reduction must have at its core measures to promote rapid and sustained economic growth. The challenge for policies that allow the poor to participate fully in the opportunities unleashed and so contribute to that growth, this includes policies to make labour markets work better, remove gender inequalities and increase financial inclusion. Asian countries ar e increasingly tackling this agenda of ´inclusive growth´. India´s most recent development plan has two main objectives: raising economic growth and making growth more inclusive, policy mirrored elsewhere in South Asia and Africa. Research that compares the experiences of a wide range of developing countries finds consistently strong evidence that rapid and sustained growth is is the single most important way to reduce poverty. A typical estimate from these cross-country studies is that a 10 percent increase in a country´s average income will reduce the poverty rate by between 20 and 30 percen...

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