Poverty is the state of not having enough materials to be able to care for the basic needs to survive. You can define poverty with how much money citizens make and have, their access to good jobs, healthcare, quality of education, and how easy you can access water and healthy food. Poverty can be associated with everyday problems such as racism, lack of resources, stress & frustration, mental health, violence, and even police violence. According to The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, all humans,no matter which side of Chicago they live in,are entitled to a salary that lets us support their family, food, water, clothing, housing, education, medical care, social security, and the right to own property (our pamphlet). Poverty is a concept that should be examined in social, economic, and political elements. Poverty is a very bad issue that most in Chicago have to face. Even though most people cannot afford basic items, according to the United Nation of Declaration of Human Rights, we all deserve them. Article #25 explains how “We all have the right to enough food,clothing,housing and health care. Mothers and children and people who are old, unemployed or disabled have the right to be cared for. Article #17 also explains how everyone has the right to own property. Article #22 also explains how everyone has the right to social security. Even though poverty seems like a never-ending cycle, everyone has the right to basic needs such as healthcare, food, water, and more.
According to www.heartlandalliance.org, most people in poverty are children, women, and people or color. Most of the neighborhoods in Chicago that are experiencing poverty, are places like, Riverdale, Englewood, and Washington Park. In other words, this means that these neighborhoods are not able to receive the basic needs that every human deserve.This could occur because of economic problems and social problems. Poverty can occur because of unemployment and people not having jobs. If people are not having jobs, then they wouldn’t be able afford to buy the necessities every human should have. According to Investopedia, “The unemployment rate is the share of the labor force that is jobless, expressed as a percentage.” In Riverdale, the unemployment rate is 41%, almost half of their population is not working to support their families and to be able to afford the basic needs,such as water, clothes, and/or shelter. The unemployment rate for Englewood is 18.6% and is 16.2% for Washington Park. The total unemployment rate for Chicago is 3.80%. This is a very good rate for the city and explains how many people in Chicago are working. In other words, most people are able to afford basic needs and execute their basic Human Rights.(Nia) Lack of Resources Article 25 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights states “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”The amount of people living without adequate living conditions is extremely high in communities of color. Immigrants seeking better lives for themselves have to live with conditions that, for some, may be worse than what they are fleeing from. The South and West sides of Chicago are forced to live with limited sources of income, food, etc. People shouldn’t have to live without necessities that are their right to have, and people shouldn’t have to fight for human rights, considering the fact that they are human. Complaints of how more and more children aren’t in school or more and more people are on the streets are consistently being aroused. Yet, people are consistently making it hard for people to receive proper education or receive an income that can help them provide for themselves and for their families. The roughest neighborhoods are often overlooked in regards to who are given human rights. The fact that no one cares enough to help these neighborhoods and give them the resources needed only makes them worse. People are tired of fighting for food and water. People are tired of fighting for safety. People are tired of working 2 or more jobs just so they can pay their water bill. Everyone deserves their rights, regardless of anything they’ve done or haven’t done. People who don’t have jobs still have the right to safety, food, and shelter, but is that the case for many? People in prison or people who have committed crimes are still entitled to every single human right. A violation of human rights should never be a consequence, no matter what the crime is. Ultimately, a crime doesn’t make you less human, so human rights should never be taken from you. Children are dropping out of school. Children are selling drugs. Children are resorting to violence. Why? Why are children, the younger generation, shifting towards harm? Why do children think that there is no other path to go down other than the wrong path? Children are easily influenced by what they see in regards to the fact that the brain of a child is still developing and is taking in the way the world moves around them. If the government isn’t helping to provide education to children, but drugs are being flown into communities, what is the expected outcome? (Joshlyn) |
Classism
The Class Action Organization defines class being “The relative social rank in terms of income, wealth, education, status/position and/or power.” The role that class plays in ourdaily lives can beas mundane as someone looking at you the wrong way to things like mass incarceration, slavery, and segregation to name a few. But if classicism is so bad,why do we have it? Because of how the world is structured,power cannot be distributed equally throughout all humans. This means some have more power than others. In fact,the gap between the rich and the poor is wider than ever before. The Class Action Organization says that, “the differences between the lives of the 20% of the population with comfortable jobs,and the 80% of the population with lower incomes and less stable jobs is becoming stark and painful to behold.” So what do we do about it? Well, education about the class system helps spread awareness. The fastest and most effective way to minimize things like poverty is to invest in the education system and have children learn about these issues in schools and keep kids away from gangs and violence. The Class Action Organization states that “The U.S. incarceration level is the highest in the world, with over 3.2% of the population behind bars, or on probation or parole –wasting away, often for reasons connected to poverty.” Shockingly, according to CNN, the U.S houses 22% of the world's prisoners.CNN wrote“According to a 2018 report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), nearly 2.2 million adults were held in America's prisons and jails at the end of 2016.” By educating our youth,we can make the working class percentage go up tremendously. Classicism mainly occurs because our country is built on competition (Capitalism) instead of collaboration. Classism.org states that some people think “poor people are poor because they don’t work hard.” But that can’t be further from the truth. A lot of poor people work multiple jobs but still cannot get out of debt because of taxes and the costs of housing. And others are unemployed because they can’t get a job anywhere. By lowering these costs,people in poverty could have a fair chance in life and get out of debt. American Progress states that,“...there is also an economic case for reducing child poverty. When children grow up in poverty, they are somewhat more likely than non-poor children to have low earnings as adults, which in turn reflects lower workforce productivity. They are also somewhat more likely to engage in crime (though that’s not the case for the vast majority) and to have poor health later in life. Their reduced productive activity generates a direct loss of goods and services to the U.S. economy.” Lowering poverty has positive economic effects. |
Unemployment
Some reasons for unemployment are just a lack of jobs in the area that people live in. Another reason for unemployment is that a lot of jobs require you to have a degree and many people in America can’t afford one.Underemployment is when you have a job,but you are not making enough money to live off of. For example, a company called Foxconn causes underemployment. Foxconn makes electronic devices such as the iPhone,Xbox, and Playstation, Foxconn basically uses slave labor. They even have netson the side of their factories to prevent their employees from jumping and committing suicide.They do not pay their employees enough money, even though the make 4.706 billion dollars a year. Unemployment and underemployment relates to human rights by the effects it has on people. If you don’t have a job, you can’t earn any money which means you can’t buy things, like property,which you have a human right to have (Article 17, UDHR). If you don’t have a job there is a high risk of poverty which is already a big enough deal. Even though the unemployment rate is relativity “low,” which is 4%,that is about 13.2 million people. (Harihson)
Some reasons for unemployment are just a lack of jobs in the area that people live in. Another reason for unemployment is that a lot of jobs require you to have a degree and many people in America can’t afford one.Underemployment is when you have a job,but you are not making enough money to live off of. For example, a company called Foxconn causes underemployment. Foxconn makes electronic devices such as the iPhone,Xbox, and Playstation, Foxconn basically uses slave labor. They even have netson the side of their factories to prevent their employees from jumping and committing suicide.They do not pay their employees enough money, even though the make 4.706 billion dollars a year. Unemployment and underemployment relates to human rights by the effects it has on people. If you don’t have a job, you can’t earn any money which means you can’t buy things, like property,which you have a human right to have (Article 17, UDHR). If you don’t have a job there is a high risk of poverty which is already a big enough deal. Even though the unemployment rate is relativity “low,” which is 4%,that is about 13.2 million people. (Harihson)
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