Category: The Progressive Era

After reading all this information about housing being involved with poverty, what is the solution in order to reform housing and therefore reforming poverty?

The Progressive Era

Settlement houses were a way for helping people in poverty, by providing education and
other facilities. A very prominent settlement house was the Hull House founded by Jane Addams and Emma Gates Starr established (National Women’s History Museum). As settlement houses began to gain recognition, reformers started to listen to issues their residents had, such as housing. This led to reformers bringing these issues to state officials, which meant there was more awareness towards these issues (Hansan).

Today In America

The YMCA today helps people by providing facilities as well. They provide education, childcare, sport activities, and ways for people to achieve their goals. YMCA is also very community focused and have an intent of helping people. People have a lot of experience

Our Solution

The solution is to simply help people. More specifically, providing resources and places for people to thrive in order to help people is the solution. The problem is that things are easier said than done. That’s why we need lawmakers to cooperate and help us bring this problem to light. One solution we could implement is that transportation is too costly. The cost of an average car is around $30,000. People with shaky jobs will find the cost an issue and be unable to afford a car. But for people that take the bus and subway to work, it is also an issue. The cost of a fare to two rides is $2.50 which may not seem like a lot, but as the trips start to add up, so do the prices.

 Instead of supporting the rich, create more stability for the poor. Our government should create “safety-nets” protecting the poor instead of creating a society that separates them. Since 133 billion pounds of food are gone to waste, donate that to notorious orphanages and homeless shelters. Take a more direct way to encourage donations and volunteers at the shelters, and spread the pain and malnutrition these families go through. Take responsibility for the harm you have done, and do your job to fix your mistakes. Especially true in America, only regulated laws can change the fate of America. From ending racial discrimination and providing equality between genders, laws have prevented theoretical conflict. According to Beverly Gage, American Is Safer Than It Used to Be, So Why Do We Still Have Calls for Law and Order, “Cities, in particular, have become markedly less dangerous. Less than half as many police officers are killed in the line of duty today as in the mid-1970s.” This shows instances where governance interference has restores unity in our country.

To lower the percentage, the government should be creating more food stamps, more homeless shelters, investments in student loans and education center, etc. Although its great that the 21 wealthy percent is even more successful, are we willing to deprive the other 79%? Although this 21 percent may be successful and heroes by donating large sums of money to organizations, can they pay for the $19.5 trillion that our country is in debt of? Any logical person would admit otherwise. According to Trump and other political candidates, we should follow this order of action. Take away from the poor, give it to the rich in hopes that they invest in our country.This would be following Social Darwinism, a belief that was used in the Nazi Holocaust. Should the government trust in these celebrities because of their wealth? 79% of America should starve and wait patiently for this small population to feed them? Instead of taking away from the poor, give them more. An estimated 93.8 million are unemployed, which means they are forced to rely on the government’s support. The government is necessity in the working class. The government have given them rights to live on the minimal; therefore, the working class is only left to believe that the government keeps this relationship stays stable. Instead of entering this thoughtless and pitiful plan, there are other solutions. America may be on the brink of desperation, but there is still time to take the proper actions. Creating more jobs and investing into the future (youth) may be a more wise way of lowering debts. According to The Real Numbers, “58.7 percent of American adults are working if the actual employment-population ratio is taken into consideration, leaving about 82 million, or almost 41 percent of people unemployed.” This percentage is too high, and for practical reasons as well. For one, there is clear inequality between women and men. Although the Workplace Gender Equality Act of 2012 was imposed to improve gender equality, women are still found to make 78 cents to every dollar men make.

 American tends to strip a lot of money from its people, yet it never provides any to its favor. For example, work hours are often long and uncomfortable, and workers rarely get breaks. Many workers work on holidays like Labor Day or even Christmas Eve. These workers are forced and sometimes given less than minimum wage, which is even considered illegal. A solution to raise income and the government’s budget is to for the people, instead of against. Create laws that are in favor of the middle class, instead of isolating them. Then, the income of the much bigger middle class would help raise the government’s budget as well.

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Works Cited

National Women’s History Museum. “Women in the Progressive Era.” Women in the Progressive Era. NWHM, n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2016.

Hansan, John E. “Settlement Houses: An Introduction – Social Welfare History Project.” Social Welfare History Project. The Social Welfare History Project, 01 Dec. 2016. Web. 12 Dec. 2016.

“About Us.” The Y: About Us. YMCA of the USA, n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2016.

 

During the Progressive Era, citizens were praising the government for creating more jobs and fixing flaws that the muckrakers have addressed. However, there was a huge flaw in this success. The praises were only addressed towards the more financially stable. However, with all of the urbanization and industrialization, there were many people who got the short end of the stick. There were almost no laws regulating their job rights. They often worked in unsafe and poor conditions in places such as sweatshops and factories. These workers had to deal with this because there were limited things they could do to move up in opportunities because of their low wages.

The Problem With Poverty Today

Frankly, the government does take action to care for its inhabitants. But, there’s a twist– they are biased towards the upper class. In the Progressive Era, the causes of poverty mostly lead to the government. Almost a century later, that has not changed. According to Causes of Poverty, the government’s policies are most directly to help the wealthier. “By contrast, the wealthier you are, the more likely you are to benefit from economic or political policies. The amount the world spends on military, financial bailouts and other areas that benefit the wealthy, compared to the amount spent to address the daily crisis of poverty and related problems are often staggering.” To name a few of these laws that leave the middle and lower class isolated: the wealthy are acquitted from paying payroll taxes, sales taxes on everything but bonds. and mortgage on a house. There are actual cases where wealthy companies got benefits from the government, benefits that are not given to everyone. According to Studies Show, Congress Favors the Rich, “Jetblue Airways made $615 million in U.S. profits last year, but paid just 0.4 percent of that amount (less than half of 1 percent) in federal income taxes. The toy maker Mattel made $268 million in profits last year, but received a tax rebate of $46 million from the IRS, and Pacific Gas and Electric not only paid nothing in federal income taxes last year, it received a tax rebate of $84 million from the IRS, even though it made $1.8 billion last year.” In general, poorer countries are looking for ways to stabilize their debt and climb their way out of poverty. The most common way for this is to export resources to decrease their debt. However, as more countries start to use this method, a fight rises for the cheapest resources. Resources become cheaper, meaning workers get paid much less. In most cases, the debt costs only increase. The results of this– almost half of the world lives on less than $2.50 a day.Most of these citizens in poverty are illiterate and were never given an education, giving them little opportunity to depart from poverty. The government can pretend to offer solutions and projects to help the lower class, but these projects are often a fail because the money is usually embezzled (by the government).