Poverty: America's Poor Concentrated in Rural Areas - Essay Sample

Introduction

Poverty has remained to be a topic of interest to many people who have an interest in evaluating America's poverty levels. Poverty is defined as the economic or financial state in which one is not able to meet the basic human needs such as food and shelter. Poverty in America is more concentrated in rural areas in comparison with urban centers. Most poor people live in groups where the resulting scenes are slams characterized by poor housing facilities, lack of social amenities such as schools and hospitals and many more. In slams, people lead low standard lives and experience problems like high theft rates, problems accessing social amenities and lack of clean water. Even though both governmental and non-governmental organizations have always had initiatives to solve the problem of extreme poverty in America, the problem still exists. The following part is going to discuss this in detail (Duncan, 97).

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Initially, people used to find jobs in factories and farms where they could be employed to do manual work. For instance, in a factory, people could be employed to move by-products or materials from one processing point to the other. This used to happen before advancements in technology had taken the current path. During this time people used to get their salary from these sorts of jobs. Advancement in technology resulted to process automation in farming and in industries. Almost all the processes were automated where many people lost their jobs and were left jobless. This resulted in the termination of their source of income. Process automation meant that few peoples were required to operate the machines (Maume, 205).

Another factor that has resulted in joblessness in America is the replacement of casual uneducated workers with educated workers. Initially, companies and firms used to employ people who had the energy to offer services and who were willing to work in their respective fields irrespective of their academic qualifications. Nowadays, more than just offering manual work is required of workers. Machine operation and deeper understanding of the various processes require a more skilled and educated workforce. This could only be made possible by replacing those employees with no such qualifications with qualified ones. As a result, many people ended up jobless and having no source of income to cater for their needs (Iceland, 72).

Also, most people in the affected areas used to work in coffee and tea plantations as casual workers doing various activities such as cultivation, spraying chemicals, and harvesting. Large plantations usually required a large number of employees to do the job and hence many found their source of employment from these farms. They could finance their needs and feed their families from what they were paid. Introduction of tractors and advanced machines such as combine harvesters which were more effective than people resulted in many people losing their job. This made many people desperate and many ended up in substandard lifestyles (Tickamyer, 240).

Most of the affected people are those who do not have any academic qualification in any relevant field. This group of people does not find opportunities that they can fit in in the modern job market. Mostly these are the people who never attended tertiary level studies or those who failed at their tertiary level school and failed to get good certificates. Unlike the old days, nowadays, employers need proof of qualification in the specified job position. One has to provide academic certificates in the relevant field. As a result, a majority of people have remained jobless as there is less manual work nowadays which does not require any academic qualifications as most of that work is being done by machines (Iceland, 75).

There are various ways of solving unemployment problems in the United States since unemployment is one of the main causes of poverty. Many people have the desire to acquire working skills from tertiary institutions just that they do not have the capacity to fund their studies. Government and non-governmental organizations can venture in and sponsor people who are willing and qualified to study in these institutions, this would prepare them for the job market in the future where they will have a stable source of income and hence help raise their living standards (Maume, 210). This program can even be stretched to cover even the young students at lower academic levels. The government can offer to sponsor poor kids or students at lower academic levels and help them achieve their academic dreams. Another solution to end or reduce poverty would be to educate people on how to use the available resources like land to employ themselves. There are people who own land but they don't have the necessary skills to help them use these resources to earn their living. Seminars can be held in to help enlighten people to see opportunities at their disposal and help them utilize them to earn their living (Edwards, 45).

Conclusion

To conclude, poverty can be eradicated if relevant authorities can be involved in creating a lasting solution to the problem. Principles of microeconomics can be used as a guide in allocating the scarce resources in the various affected regions. This would ensure that the investments will be resourceful to the locals. For instance, the government needs to invest more on projects such as sponsoring children from areas affected by poverty and investing in projects such as the construction of Dams and boreholes in dry areas for the locals to use the water for irrigation purposes. Before such a project is implemented, there will need to consider its business viability in the area and whether it will be what the locals need and what impact will it have on their lives. Every area will have different needs from each other and therefore economist will be needed to help make professional decisions concerning which project will be viable for each area. This would help make the locals more independent as they can earn their living from selling farm produce. Educating people on how to employ themselves would help them create jobs for themselves and others too.

Works Cited

Duncan, Cynthia M. Worlds Apart: Why Poverty Persists in Rural America. Yale UP, 2013.

Edwards, John, et al. Ending Poverty in America: How to Restore the American Dream. The New P, 2018.

Iceland, John. Poverty in America: A Handbook. U of California P, 2016.

Maume, David J. Child Poverty in America Today: The promise of education. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2017.

Tickamyer, Ann R., et al. Rural Poverty in the United States. 2017.