La Porbreza
Páginas: 2 (332 palabras)
Publicado: 10 de agosto de 2012
POVERTY IN THE WORLD
Some figures…
* Almost half the world — over 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day.
* The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the 41 Heavily Indebted PoorCountries (567 million people) is less than the wealth of the world’s 7 richest people combined.
* Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.
*Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen.
* 1 billion children live in poverty (1 in2 children in the world). 640 million live without adequate shelter, 400 million have no access to safe water, 270 million have no access to health services. 10.6 million died in 2003 before theyreached the age of 5 (or roughly 29,000 children per day).
CAUSES OF POVERTY
* Poverty is an exceptionally complicated social phenomenon, and trying to discover its causes is equallycomplicated. The stereotypic (and simplistic) explanation persists—that the poor cause their own poverty—based on the notion that anything is possible in America. Some theorists have accused the poor ofhaving little concern for the future and preferring to “live for the moment”; others have accused them of engaging in self-defeating behavior. Still other theorists have characterized the poor asfatalists, resigning themselves to a culture of poverty in which nothing can be done to change their economic outcomes. In this culture of poverty—which passes from generation to generation—the poorfeel negative, inferior, passive, hopeless, and powerless.
* The “blame the poor” perspective is stereotypic and not applicable to all of the underclass. Not only are most poor people able andwilling to work hard, they do so when given the chance. The real trouble has to do with such problems as minimum wages and lack of access to the education necessary for obtaining a better-paying job.
Some figures…
* Almost half the world — over 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day.
* The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the 41 Heavily Indebted PoorCountries (567 million people) is less than the wealth of the world’s 7 richest people combined.
* Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.
*Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen.
* 1 billion children live in poverty (1 in2 children in the world). 640 million live without adequate shelter, 400 million have no access to safe water, 270 million have no access to health services. 10.6 million died in 2003 before theyreached the age of 5 (or roughly 29,000 children per day).
CAUSES OF POVERTY
* Poverty is an exceptionally complicated social phenomenon, and trying to discover its causes is equallycomplicated. The stereotypic (and simplistic) explanation persists—that the poor cause their own poverty—based on the notion that anything is possible in America. Some theorists have accused the poor ofhaving little concern for the future and preferring to “live for the moment”; others have accused them of engaging in self-defeating behavior. Still other theorists have characterized the poor asfatalists, resigning themselves to a culture of poverty in which nothing can be done to change their economic outcomes. In this culture of poverty—which passes from generation to generation—the poorfeel negative, inferior, passive, hopeless, and powerless.
* The “blame the poor” perspective is stereotypic and not applicable to all of the underclass. Not only are most poor people able andwilling to work hard, they do so when given the chance. The real trouble has to do with such problems as minimum wages and lack of access to the education necessary for obtaining a better-paying job.
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