How Does Poverty Affect Society

Superior Essays
Poverty is when a person lacks possession of money and materials. Here in America, this applies to about 15% of our population. This means that around 46 million Americans are struggling to make ends meet and survive (Searchusapeople). Poverty effects society in many ways. We see a higher crime rate, a higher dropout rate, and an increased amount of alcohol and/or substance abuse in lower income communities. This mixed with the ineffective government aid programs has led to an increase in poverty rates throughout the years. “To me, the poor are like Bonsai trees. When you plant the best seed of the tallest tree in a six-inch deep flower pot, you get a perfect replica of the tallest tree, but it is only inches tall. There is nothing wrong with …show more content…
Well based off my research I found two basic guaranteed income models: The universal basic income referred to as UBI and the negative income tax referred to as NIT. The less expensive of the two models, the NIT has an income cutoff point where if you made less, your taxes are negative. This means instead of paying the government, the government pays you after you file your taxes. This may pose a problem though. Say everything is going fine and dandy, then right after filing your taxes, you lose your job. Your income is below the cutoff, but the government can’t give you money until you file your taxes next year. One of the solutions is the other model, the UBI. With the UBI, every non-incarcerated adult gets a check once a month regardless of income (Tencer). For sake of simplicity, the UBI is the on I’ll be writing about. More specifically 1000 dollars every month per adult. The government needs to start issuing a UBI because full employment is impossible, there is just not enough capital for everyone to be working. This combined with more and more jobs being automated full employment is impossible. Due to the impossibility of full employment, there will always be people unemployed and thus more likely to be impoverished (Chancey). A UBI would allow those who have lost or are without jobs to still play a role in society by allowing them to go back to school with worrying about how they could feed their …show more content…
Well, let’s do some math, in the US, the total income in 2010 was approximately $8.4 trillion (Rampell). The most inexpensive UBI plan that would still eliminate poverty would be about $12,000 for each adult and $4,000 for each child a year. This would cost around 3 trillion dollars, which is about a 35.7% tax increase for every tax payer. Although, this number is still off due to the 100 plus poverty prevention programs that would no longer require funding if a UBI was enacted. This, according to the article I read would save around 1.5 trillion dollars. This means that the previous estimate of 3 trillion drops down to 1.5 trillion, and the actual tax increase is only 17.8% rather than 35.7% (Santens). This extra 17.8% does not have to apply to all tax brackets (the higher brackets could be taxed more), but for the sake of equality, let’s say it does. Say Joe earns $20,000. He gets taxed this extra 17.8%, meaning his tax burden goes up $3,560; he still receives a basic income of $12,000 a year though, so he actually gets an extra $8,440

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Understanding the Fair Tax Act A lot of Bronx tax payers feel that the tax system applicable here is too complicated. It is thus that the wealthy and other exceptional groups are taking advantage of the same and the other tools to avoid the payment of taxes. It is this that a proposal to introduce Fair Tax Plan has now come up. There are many other reasons to this and it is thus that it has gained a lot of recognition too.…

    • 837 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Essay On Flat Tax

    • 1418 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The middle-class people will have to pay more through a flat tax. But, what many people do not know is that under several flat tax proposals, “individuals and families would receive personal allowances – a set amount of income that is tax-exempt – that would limit their taxable income. This would allow the lowest-income brackets to be completely or nearly exempt from income taxes”…

    • 1418 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Poverty, the one thing that is effecting people all over the world, Poverty isn’t a lifestyle people want to live, but certain circumstances cause people to have to live this way. Poverty, isn’t going without for a couple hours or for a couple days, living in poverty is trying to figure out how those bills are going to get payed next month when you have been working everyday but still don’t get paid enough money to feed everyone you take care of . poverty is when you are always worried about where that next meal is going to come from ,or where you’re going to sleep that night because your landlord finally kicked you out. People all over take the little things they have such as food, shelter, and electricity for granted.…

    • 627 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    If child has a medical condition, bills will start to pile up and without the help of welfare, the family may not survive. Another setback is college, if a person does not start earning the money until 21, and there is not financial aid, then how will a student get through school. There are many different reasons as to why a UBI will work but there are many setbacks, and without first addressing those issues, a UBI will never…

    • 714 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Many will rely on it as a main source of income rather than finding a job and supporting their family with earned income. The unemployement rate is officially at its lowest since 2008, that's nearly 12 million Americans out of work; but does that mean their is no income within the household. If they are working under the table, there is no way to track their finances. Giving handouts creates more beggars, not producers. Welfare misuse and abuse impacts every citizen working.…

    • 573 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Income tax has become a controversial issue in reference to how much is taken off a paycheck with absolutely no consideration of that person’s average income. The subtraction of tax is solely based on how much he/she earned in the days leading up to the paycheck. Many families struggle because, although they got a raise at their job and are getting paid more, the amount of tax reduction taken is incredibly high and they end up making the same as if they didn’t get a raise. Every tax reduction should be made based off of the average income of the entire family combined. This way, families would be able to support their households much easier and individuals would gain more interest in day to day tasks without worrying about how much tax they’re going to get taken and if they can pay their bills this time.…

    • 830 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Under Income Inequality

    • 235 Words
    • 1 Pages

    The efforts of government to aid Middle class Americans under income inequality hasn’t been effective. According to Victor S. Thomas professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard’s faculty of Arts and Science allege “government really responds much more to the privileged than to even middle- income people who vote.” Perhaps this ties into the political supporters that are wealthy; by supporting the candidates they can somehow manipulate to “shape” his or her agenda. Government programs like Medicare and Earned income tax were aimed to combat the financial struggle among the middle-class Americans unfortunately, isn’t a rewarding solution to many (US News). However, State’s fiscal policy of cash assistance and unemployed compensation was…

    • 235 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The main goal of the universal healthcare was to provide everyone in the United States with basic health insurance despite the fact that they may not be able to afford it. According to the National Coalition on Health Care 2014 annual report, over 45 million people did not have health insurance before The Affordable Care Act (Mcgue, 2015). With universal healthcare, those people…

    • 613 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This system is the most fair way of doing taxes. This system allows for someone who makes $300,000 a year to pay the same percentage of tax as someone who makes $10,000 a year. The taxpayer making $300,000 a year will pay more in tax but it is still the same percentage. This system does not discriminate taxpayers based on their income level and everyone pays the same…

    • 605 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Universal healthcare could benefit the United States in several different ways since the affordable care act is still a financial burden to some of the American people. The need for it is growing substantially in the United States due to how many people are still uninsured. Universal healthcare is beneficial because it provides everyone coverage without financial hardship; promotes preventive care, which would contribute to less costly treatments; and improves quality of healthcare, leading to fewer deaths per year. Through universal healthcare everyone will receive coverage without a financial hardship.…

    • 1316 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The Flat Tax System

    • 1170 Words
    • 5 Pages

    And in flat tax, charitable expense will not be deductible any more, people will lose the willingness to make charity contributions. This is another failure to ease the income gap. Tax is a tool for the redistribution; rich people should contribute more to the society, because the system is already good to them and they should help the poor. The decreased total tax revenue will reduce the social welfare, which would burden low-income people more.…

    • 1170 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    I experience a maddening frustration when I review my pay stub and observe in detail the amount of money taken out for taxes. The fact that there has been a growing complaint from the taxpayers in this nation without a serious effort to change it is infuriating. It is a common concern of the middle class that the wealthy are privy to large deductions, corporations are avoiding taxes, and that there is a growing number of individuals paying nothing at all. It is time for our political leaders to get off their butts and fix the tax code, in order for everybody to pay their fair share, rather than shifting the cost of higher taxes to the middle class. Political leaders often appeal to the middle class during the campaign season.…

    • 1151 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    Not only this but the Social Security tax and the medicare tax do not affect capital income. Not only have the wealthy made false claims , they have found ways to avoid paying taxes which should be a strong indicator that the backfire effect is present. I find this very hypocritical, it should be the poor who should be complaining about how much they are paying because this disparity is very large. In 1950 the federal retirement made up 10.9% of federal revenues. 57 years later it comprised 33.9% of federal revenues.…

    • 1260 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Social welfare benefits would decrease as the earning bracket of low income earners is eliminated. For example countries with discrepancies in their distribution of income thence the budget is proportionally strained as more people require financial aid. If everyone is on uniform wages, this could eliminate the need to provide welfare…

    • 1430 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Countless amounts of individuals will state that poverty is terrible, but never provide any aid towards the cause; so, there needs to be this actual sense that the citizens of the world want poverty to be completely eradicated. The millions of people that live-in poverty cannot help that they’re in this horrible situation, it’s something to do with the greater forces that are beyond their control. All in all, those in powerful positions of government need to understand that these individuals require extra assistance, then those who are wealthy and run huge corporations, otherwise…

    • 1730 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays