John Boston Sociology 101 October 31, 1996
If I had the power to abolish poverty in the United States I would do it in a second. Abolishing poverty would be almost impossible because there are just to many poor people for one person to help to abolish poverty we must all work to help those who are poor get out of this condition.
There are two types of poor, there are people who are relatively poor and there are people who are absolutely poor. People who are relatively poor are poor compared to the people around them. These people usually only have the bare necessities to survive like food, clothing or shelter. They might even have a steady job but they just don't have any real wealth. In fact people who are relatively poor are usually in the lower 5% of the population in terms of wealth. People who live the state of absolute poverty can not sustain a certain level of living . These people have a hard time getting money for food , clothing, or shelter. People who are absolutely poor have a rough time getting money to put food on the table one day and the next day they might not have any money to put food on the table. Not all people who are relatively poor are absolutely poor, but, all people who are absolutely poor are relatively poor.
These types of poor are found all throughout the world especially in underdeveloped countries. In the United States a advanced well-developed country both absolute and relative poverty are present throughout the country.
I think that absolute poverty has no beneficial purposes to society.
However, relative poverty does have beneficial functions. I think that relative poverty can make people competitive. It would do this because people always try to do better then the people around them. This competitiveness might force people to work overtime or even two jobs in order to make more than the people around them. There are some major costs that both