Giorgi Badridze

09/12/2018

LING 100B – G3

Assignment 3, Final Draft

Poverty and Social Inequality

Issues connected to the poverty and social inequality were always actual and nowadays it

is becoming more and more problematic topic about which everyone in every country speaks,

seeks solutions and tries to make the world better place for everyone and not only for the rich.

There are many different problems connected to the poverty and social inequality but some of

them are more problematic than others. First of all, we should consider the problem connected to

children and their education. Then the big difference between the incomes of the rich and of the

poor should be discussed. Also, we should consider the issue of “American dream”. Poverty and

social inequality are very basic problems and without solving them after several decades world

will become as bad as it never had been.

There are many articles about this topic and they argue about different subtopics and they

claim different things, but in this essay I will use only three of them. They are: “Born Poor and

Smart” by Angela Locke, who is a writer for the feminist news journal off our backs, “A Great

Time to Be Alive?” by Matt Yglesias who is a writer and a blogger, and “Middle of the Class”

by the Economist that is a weekly magazine published in England by the Economist Group.

These three articles include many interesting subtopics and information that are good evidences

and sources for the argument about poverty and inequality.

First of all, there are many differences between children from the rich family and from

the poor family. There social background and unequal opportunities for example, of getting
education is the key problem that should be solved as soon as possible as the social inequality

starts from the childhood and if this problem is solved in the roots of it, it will be the best way of

solution. “Naturally places with big houses paying larger property taxes have schools with more

resources” (The Economist, 14 July 2005, para. 14). That means that the children from the rich

families have more opportunity to get good middle and high school education and the same is for

the university level. For example, “the median income of families with children at Harvard is

150,000 dollars” (The Economist, 14 July 2005, para. 14), and that is when the college degree

became essential and no one can start high paid job without it (The Economist, 14 July 2005,

para. 12). “Class accompanied me all the way” claims Locke in her article and explains how

difficult it was for her to get collage degree as students from wealthy families and their parents

could effort their education while poor student from poor family couldn’t and it took two years

more for her to graduate the collage than for other students, as she paid her own way, doing

many things together (Locke, 2005, para.4). This is a vivid real life example that shows how

privileged the children from the rich families are. But sometimes there is a situation when a

family cannot afford food for their children, and proper education for their kids is just a dream.

Sometimes school helps these families to feed the children, but in summer they may stay hungry.

So, governments should work on a family security agenda that will insure every family to have

enough resources to live on. Also, “high-quality preschool has the potential to appeal to the

streak of cultural conservatism that runs deep in working-class America” (Yglesias, 2010, para.

8). From all of these examples and evidences we can see how social inequality and poverty

effects on the poor children and effective changes are necessary in order to end this injustice.

Secondly, incomes of different families from the different social classes are unequally

spread and this huge difference makes lives and future perspective of the poor even worse. The
rich part of the society gets profit from everything, for example from global economic growth,

when the poor part of the society stays at the same level and can’t develop to the other, as “recent

technological progress and economic globalization has been captured by a tiny, already rich slice

of the population” (Yglesias, 2010, para. 2). If we see official statistics and numbers we will be

surprised how unfairly the incomes of the poor and of the rich are spread: “in 1970, according to

the Census Bureau, the bottom fifth received 5.4% of America’s total national income and the

richest fifth got 40.9%” (The Economist, 14 July 2005, para. 3). These numbers are even worse

in some other countries and exactly these numbers are the best evidences of how socially

unequal the modern world is and also they are the main evidences in order to explain why there

are so many poor. For some people numbers and statistics are just numbers and statistics, so, real

life example would be better evidence to show this inequality vividly. Locke (2005) in her article

gives examples from her own life and this is what she says about her mother: “she worked her

ass off all her life, eventually leaving the E-Z Bargains Center for the hells of the Nestle factory”

and she also mentions that her work was “dead-end” job and besides her mother’s effort they

were still poor (Locke, 2005, para. 3). All information above shows that unequally paid salaries

and huge difference between the incomes of the rich and of the poor makes social environment

unfair and all of these make poor people unhappy.

Finally, the issue connected to the “American Dream” is very popular in the lower social

classes of the US and not only. This “Dream” is about success that is achievable for everyone

who works very hard for it. But in most of the cases this “Dream” stays just the dream, as poor

people face many difficulties and problems on their way to success and many of them cannot

solve them, as they do not have enough social, educational background. This problem is the same

for every poor person and for example, “if you are among the poorest 5% of the population, your
chances of achieving an average income are only one in six. If you are among the poorest 1%,

they become very deem indeed” (The Economist, 14 July 2005, para. 9). However, this problem

is common for every country, in the United States of America everything is more complicated, as

many developing countries have been developing in this field, but in the USA, in the world’s

leading country “things have not been improving in a nearly commensurate manner” (Yglesias,

2010, para. 2). But even if the poor person could manage to make one’s life better, his/her social

class and background always stays with one, as the society is not always fair with the people who

made their dream come true. That’s why they always feel like an outsider and try to fight against

themselves to be successful by using their discovered talents and interest in the real life

situations, making their lives easier and convincing themselves that they are not different from

the rich (Locke, 2005, para. 6, 7, 9).

In conclusion, there are many different subtopics connected to the poverty and social

inequality that we could not discuss, but they are as important as issues considered in this essay.

Civil society and government should do everything in order to solve these problems and make

individuals happy with their lives.

 References:

A. Locke (January-February 2005): “Born Poor and Smart”, off our backs, vol. 35;

M. Yglesias (July 219, 2010): “A Great Time to Be Alive?” The Nation;

The Economist (14 July 2005): “Middle of the Class” The Economist Newspaper Limited,

London, July 14, 2005.