Poverty Flashcards
American Dream, Former House speaker Paul Ryan
The ‘American Dream’ refers to the idea that poor young Americans should have a chance to escape poverty and become middle-class or even rich adults. To make this dream available for more, former House Speaker Paul Ryan has repeatedly proposed to cut welfare programs by trillions of dollars in the next decade. Ryan believes that work is the surest path out of poverty, and government programs should encourage low-income workers to find jobs, develop skills, and work their way off government support. In essence, he believes that laziness is the cause of poverty.
This attitude is supported by many conservative economists, who argue that government benefits implicitly reward poverty and thus encourage families to remain poor. They believe that some adults might reject certain jobs or longer work hours because doing so would eliminate their eligibility for programs like Medicaid or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Such a belief hence fuels the discourse that the poor are over-dependent on state welfare and are unable to do more for one’s life, such as working hard to get a good job that pays well.
Impact of welfare system on working hours
One of the latest studies on the subject found that Medicaid has “little if any” impact on employment or work hours. In research based in Canada and the U.S., the economist Ioana Marinescu at the University of Pennsylvania has found that even when basic-income programs do reduce working hours, adults do not typically stay home to, say, play video games; instead, they often use the extra cash to go back to school or hold out for a more desirable job. This shows despite state welfare, the poor continue to be hardworking
Study on correlation of poverty and problem gambling
According to a study from the University at Buffalo Research Institute on Addictions (RIA), it was found that in the United States, the poorer the neighbourhood, the higher the risk of problem gambling.
How American healthcare system drains the wages of the poor
In America, healthcare financing is taking a toll on wages. Because most Americans’ health insurance is provided by their employers, workers’ wages are essentially paying for profits and high salaries in the medical industry. Every year, the US wastes a trillion dollars more than any other countries on excessive healthcare costs, and has worse health outcomes than nearly all of them. Any one of several European financing alternatives could recoup these funds, but adopting any one of them would trigger the fierce resistance of those benefiting from the status quo. This results in the poor’s wages being depleted by American healthcare financing.
US minimum wage
US federal minimum wage, which is currently at USD 7.25 per hour, has not increased since July 2009. Despite broad public support, raising the minimum wage is always difficult, owing to the disproportionate influence that wealthy firms and donors have in congress. Hence, the poor, which often work minimum-wage jobs due to their limited educational credentials, are bound to the never-changing minimum wage. This perpetuates the ever-lasting cycle of poverty.
SG govt and its welfare assistance programmes
In Singapore, the government has had a long-standing ideological resistance to social welfarism. Such behaviour probably stems from a history of pragmatism and hard work that has brought Singapore to where it is today. Nevertheless, the government has welfare assistance programmes such as pro-rated conservancy rebates for public housing households and Pioneer Generation healthcare subsidies. However, regrettably, these programmes are often conducted in a minimal and piecemeal manner, and hence they are not able to eradicate poverty completely.
Evid on globalisation pushing for poverty
As the economist Dani Rodrik pointed out 20 years ago, globalisation makes demand for labour more elastic. So, even if globalisation does not reduce wages directly, it makes it harder for workers to get a pay rise.
evid of Excessive levels of stress > inability to think well ( in exp link to alcoholism/gambling)
In a series of experiments run by researchers at Princeton, Harvard, and the University of Warwick, low-income people who were primed to think about financial problems performed poorly on a series of cognition tests, saddled with a mental load that was the equivalent of losing an entire night’s sleep. Put another way, the condition of poverty imposed a mental burden akin to losing 13 IQ points, or comparable to the cognitive difference that’s been observed between chronic alcoholics and normal adults.
How do corporations control the US government?
Today, in the US, the biggest companies have upwards of 100 lobbyists representing them, allowing them to be everywhere, all the time. For every dollar spent on lobbying by labor unions and public-interest groups together, large corporations and their associations now spend $34. Of the 100 organizations that spend the most on lobbying, 95 consistently represent business. These large organizations gather lobbyists to influence politicians to pass laws that are favourable to their interests. This contributes to the stagnant minimum wage as these large firms are unwilling to incur lower profits due to higher minimum wage.
Rohyinga crisis, poverty
Over three years ago, outbreaks of violence in Rakhine State, Myanmar, forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya people to flee their homes. Many are in neighbouring Bangladesh, forming the world’s largest refugee camp. Without recognition as citizens or permanent residents of the country, the Rohingya have limited access to education, jobs, and health services, resulting in chronic poverty and marginalisation.
