Being in Poverty
Being in poverty means having trouble meeting one’s basic needs, such as those for food, clothing, and shelter (Kritzinger, 2012).
Abject Poverty
Abject poverty, often known as absolute poverty, is the lowest level of poverty in society. When a person cannot fully meet their basic necessities, they are considered to be in absolute poverty.
Relative Poverty
The severity of poverty can also vary. When a person’s resources are significantly less than those of the rest of the community, relative poverty might arise.
Causes of Poverty
The causes of poverty vary. These problems include things like a lack of knowledge, physical impairments, poor governance, poor health, and many others (Mbaku, 2014).
Child Poverty and Social Justice
This essay will base its arguments on child poverty, where child poverty is the conditions of children raised in impoverished backgrounds. This paper will first provide an overview a journal article, Social Justice, and Inequality in The UK: Eradicating Child Poverty, then, poverty issue will be looked into using the social perspective of Conflict Theory, and finally, suggestions to solutions and elimination of poverty will be discussed.
Journal Overview
The journal article, Social Justice, and Inequality in The UK: Eradicating Child Poverty was written by Peter Kenway to argue the issue of child poverty and the theory of social justice in Britain. The article looks into the methods applied by the newly formed Labor party in eliminating child poverty by latest 2020. Some of the strategies by the Labor party discussed in the article are; use of tax credit scheme to raise household income, the establishment of National Minimum Wage (NMW), and the creation of childcare laws. The paper also discusses the differences between the strategies employed by the New Labor Party and the British Conservative party. In overall, the article tries to create a plan for identifying likely programs of elevating child poverty. Some of the programs identified in the paper are, change of poverty level objectives, the state welfares for adult members of society, and application of tax cuts.
Systematic Overview of the Journal
The systematic overview of the paper is as follows. First, the article defines why child poverty is worth looking into and the current state of the poverty in the country. Second, the paper then explains the origins of the new approach to child poverty and proceeds to tell methods of approach. Third, the article looks into the levels of success the previous approach against child poverty had attained. Fourth, the paper provides statistics on the extent of support of the operating strategy against poverty. The article then proceeds to outline possible courses of action in the future upon which it outlines the four main options namely; cutting taxes at lowest point possible, a revisit of the principle of contributing income back through incentives, increase of free unrestricted childcare services to influence the parents to work more, and finally, changing the methods of measuring or identifying poverty.
View of Poverty Using the Conflict Theory
Conflict theory is the brainchild concept from Karl Marx’s scripts of social class struggles. The conflict in the social setting is brought about by the tussles of attaining the limited resources available in our environments (Bystrova & Gottschalk, 2014). These conflicts eventually lead to capitalism where a few members of the society privately control a vast amount of the funds while the many members of the society fight for the little resources that remain. This state of the economic system eventually leads to the existence of the wealthy individuals and the working class folks. The working class is prompted to offer their services in the form of labor to the wealthy few people, to survive as most of the resource is then in the hands of the wealthy persons. The wealthy people then make obscene profits by also selling back the processed goods and services to the laborers.
In such a capitalist society, everybody is dependent on the wealthy capitalists. A significant problem arises when an individual in the community lacks the necessary skill set that enables them to work for the wealthy folk. Without the skills, the mentioned individual will not be able to meet his/her primary needs and so poverty rise. Such an individual will not be able to provide basic needs for his/her children, and now, child poverty comes into existence.
Methods of Eradicating Child Poverty
According to the journal, the strategies proposed of fighting against child poverty include tax cuts for the low salary families (Kenway, 2008). By lowering the taxes for parents earning a low income, the parents gain the ability to provide a better living for their families hence child poverty is curbed. The second strategy was to increase the benefits of the retired adults or those without work to a level that allows a sufficient living standard. With the improved living, standard poverty reduces. The third method was establishing a free universal childcare system. Childcare strategy as explained by (Kenway, 2008), introduced a provision for tax credits. Tax credits were deductions on taxes for the working adults. The more the people worked, the more the tax deductions hence encouraging hard work in the society thus poverty levels are reduced eventually. The final approach was to change the perception measures of poverty in the community. By carefully studying and identifying what states of living are considered inferior, appropriate help can be much easily provided to help alleviate the poor from the determined state if living.
Conclusion
Most of the suggestions posited in the article on how to eradicate child poverty are quite reasonable and in fact feasible. For instance, the tax cuts are reasonable because the government can adjust its budget to counter the revenue lost through the cuts and still provide sufficient salaries to the low-income parents. The issue of increasing the benefits is also reasonable in that, the little increases in benefits cant impact much negatively on the economy and even the benefits help the families that are out-of-work provide much better for their children. The childcare program also is feasible because by delivering uncharged care in education and health, families’ responsibility to pay for health and learning gathered for and so more funds are left in the family to help with other needs. The changing of measures of poverty is not as reasonable as the rest of the strategies because such an undertaking involves the determination of the absolute and relative level of poverty (Kritzinger, 2012). The two levels are difficult to determine in the ever dynamic society and have no immediate help in solving child poverty.
References
Bystrova, E. G., & Gottschalk, P. (2014). Social Conflict Theory and White-Collar Criminals: Why Does the Ruling Class Punish Their Own? Pakistan Journal of Criminology, 64-102.
Kenway, P. (2008). Social Justice and Inequality in The UK: Eradicating Child Poverty. Political Quarterly, 41-56.
Kritzinger, D. (2012). Poverty Relief or Poverty Eradication? Acta Theologia, 17-34.
Mbaku, J. M. (2014). The Rule of Law and Poverty Eradication in Africa. Arfican and Asian Studies, 530-557.
