Poverty: Who’s to Blame?

Poverty: Who’s to blame?

It’s no secret that poverty has haunted many families and individuals all over the world, these people have insufficient funds to buy the fundamental necessities for living such as food, clothing, and shelter. But if America is suppose to be the ideal place to live in because of its economy and living conditions and has the reputation for being the most dominant diplomatic country; then how is it that families suffer by the millions of ill living conditions and bad education. Who can anyone point the finger at, the poor themselves, the government, or could it be that other countries are drawing big business elsewhere to use cheaper labor and give the American workforce the shaft?

The perspective of the poor individual can be different for different people I would suppose. Many Mexican immigrants cross the American border yearly and raise the poverty ratio with the large families they support. Some people are born into a poor family and live through a poor childhood and grow up to be poor as well. In our economy you need money to feed yourself, you need money to cloth yourself, and basically you need money to live. In 1882 the British philosopher and sociologist Herbert Spencer came to the United States to promote a theory later known as Social Darwinism. He argued that the poor were poor because they were unfit. While Arthur Jensen, professor of educational psychology at the University of California, has argued that there is a strong possibility that African Americans are less well endowed mentally than whites. From his review of the research on IQ, he found that approximately 80 percent of IQ is inherited, while the remaining 20 percent is attributable to environment. His thesis overlooks the important contribution of social class to achievement on IQ tests. This oversight is crucial because the most social scientists feel that these tests are biased in favor of those who have had a middle- and upper-class environment and experience. Those who have a low IQ generally do not receive good education.