Stereotypes: Poverty In The United States

Brilliant Essays
Question #1 Poverty

Poverty does not discriminate based on race, ethnicity, sex or religion. Poverty is an economic issue that effects 15.1 percent of the U.S. population. (National Poverty Center) Poverty means that a person or a family does not make enough money for basic necessities such as food, clothing, and shelter. People and locations affected by poverty have changed throughout history and will continue to change as society continues to adapt. There is a major misconception that those that live in poverty are of a certain race and live in a certain place, however this is not true. In the 1940’s and 1950’s it did seem that a majority of those that were poor, and lived in poverty, resided in urban area’s such as New York and Chicago.
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The Federal Government, throughout American history, has tried to assist those living in poverty through various programs and legislation. There was the “New Deal” that provided money to states for use to assist the poor. It also created programs that assisted people in getting jobs and even creating jobs for people through public works programs. (Sernau, pg. 263) The public works programs created jobs from building trails in parks to building public buildings in major cities. (Sernau, pg. 263) In the 1960’s there was the “war on poverty” during this time the food stamp program was established, what we currently call WIC (Women, Infant, and Child), and also during this time Medicaid was created to provide health care to the elderly and soon extended to create Medicare for the poor and uninsured. (Sernau, Pg. 263) Later in the 1960’s President Nixon tried to fix the welfare system by experimenting with a negative income tax program in Seattle and Denver known as “SIME and DIME,” these experiments were eventually stopped because they did not have the out come the government was looking for. (Sernau, pg 265) Over the years there have been other changes and reforms to the welfare programs but none quite effective enough to rid our society of …show more content…
In the colonial days women would work as seamstresses or run boarding houses, however, most of the time these women tended just to be waiting to find a husband and once they were married off would just stay home and tend to the house and children. In the 1840’s women started entering into wage labor jobs such as textile mills. (Sernau, pg 145) One of the biggest changes came during World War II (WWII) when women were almost forced to have to take jobs, specifically factory jobs, and to support the men fighting in the war. It was during this time that it seemed as if women realized that they could do the same thing as men and that they were not just there to support their husbands and families. After WWII ended, and the men came back home from war, women lost their place in the workforce to men, and again women would generally only work until they were married because after that they were expected to stay home and care for the family. (Sernau,

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