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Causes of Poverty

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Causes of Poverty
Jiasi Liu
04/25/2012
Kelly Ruble
Ling 100
Causes of Poverty Poverty usually means one lacks the necessary for basic lives such as clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. Nowadays, it is not only a challenge for poor countries. American, the world 's richest country, also has poverty problems. It is a huge issue for the whole world. To solve this problem, people should figure out the reasons behind poverty first. Poverty is very complex social problem. Causes of poverty can be multifarious, because it can be affected by the variety of factors, for instance, poor people themselves, the policies from the government and the state of the economy. Three authors talk about this problem and explain their opinions about the causes of poverty in their articles. Angela Locke is a writer, poet and creative writing tutor. She writes for the feminist news journal "Off Our Backs". She argues about causes for poverty in her article "Born Poor and Smart". As a member of the lower class, Locke tells us her mother 's story and her own experience in college. Her mother did what the poor usually would not do. She read and asked her children read, so two of her children could go to college. However, Locke 's experience in college was not that great. She felt that people put class tag on her all the time. Everything is about class. In her opinion, success is not a personal feeling; instead, it has to be recognized by society.

Also, Herbert J. Gans, an American sociologist talks about poverty in his article, "The War Against the Poor Instead of Programs to End Poverty". Gans is a professor of sociology at Columbia University. Many of his books and articles are related to poverty such as "The Urban Villagers", "The Levittowners, People and Plans", "More Equality" and "Middle American Individualism". In his article, Gans talks about the attitudes from American society especially the higher level class and government toward



Cited: Angela Locke. (2008) Narcissus cloned. In Kennedy, M. & Kennedy, W. (Eds.), Writing in the Pisciplines (6thed., pp. 502-503). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Herbert J. Gans. (2008) Narcissus cloned. In Kennedy, M. & Kennedy, W. (Eds.), Writing in the Pisciplines (6thed., pp. 504-510). Upper Saddle River. NJ: Pearson The Economist. (2008) The Moral Imperative for Human Cloning. In Kennedy, M. & Kennedy, W. (Eds.), Writing in the Pisciplines (6thed., pp. 525-529). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson

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