Research Paper Example about American Poverty

Despite the United States being the wealthiest country on planet Earth with a GDP of over $20 trillion, they still have one of the highest rates of poverty among developed countries. Sarah Smarsh, author of Poor Teeth, and Barbara Ehrenreich, author of It Is Expensive to Be Poor, both critique America’s handling of the poverty issue. They argue that contributing factors to the high poverty rate in America include things like victim-blaming, shortage of money, and upper-class supremacy. All of these terms may be broad-sounding, but as both authors’ cases are constructed the pieces will all fall into place. The United States should stop normalizing upper-class supremacy and victim-blaming the poor, and start making real reform to the current economic system. 

One key contributor to America’s high poverty rate and its corresponding cycle of poverty according to the authors is victim-blaming. First, Ehrenreich writes about the cycle of poverty being blamed on the poor for their bad habits and lifestyles by politicians in a bipartisan manner. This resulted in legislation focusing on fixing this supposed poverty culture issue, “Welfare “reform” was the answer, and it was intended not only to end financial support for imperiled families but also to cure the self-induced “culture of poverty” that was supposedly at the root of their misery.” (Ehrenreich 2) Ehrenreich’s choice of words here to describe what welfare reform looked like connects to the topic of victim-blaming. By putting “reform” and “culture of poverty” in quotation marks, she is trying to get through to the reader that welfare reform at this time is less about fixing the poverty issue and more about finding someone to blame the issue on. This is an example of how victim-blaming causes issues, in this case poverty, to go unresolved and gives legitimacy to some of the prejudices poor people face. Smarsh complicates Ehrenreich’s idea of victim-blaming the poor by talking about poor people being blamed for their bad dental hygiene. Smarsh is more focused on the poor being blamed for their bad teeth, than on poor people being blamed for their situation in general like Ehrenreich argues. She says in her essay, “Often, bad teeth are blamed solely on the habits and choices of their owners, and for the poor therein lies an undue shaming.” (Smarsh 2) This type of ideology is linked to the type of ideology Ehrenreich writes about in her essay. This connection makes it more clear what both authors mean by victim-blaming. Smarsh argues that the poor are blamed for their bad teeth by being accused of eating too much sugar and taking drugs like meth, which gives the implication that the poor should be blamed for everything else wrong in their lives. In my view, this would translate to less sympathy for the poor. Overall, victim-blaming causes a lack of meaningful legislation to fund welfare systems and also causes the poor to feel ashamed about their circumstances. 

The next important component to the continuation of the cycle of poverty is the shortage of money. This can be linked to victim-blaming, but it is proposed as a separate issue by both Smarsh and Ehrenreich. Smarsh gives her personal experience with lacking money and being poor. When talking about her teeth being cavity-ridden and painful at a young age, she talks about possible causes like what she consumed and the water from her town not being fluoridated. However, she ultimately came to this conclusion, “But richer teeth faced the same challenges. The primary reason my mouth hurt was lack of money.” (Smarsh 3) Despite the context of this quote being the connection between her social status and dental health, there are bigger implications here. If it is true that the poor can not afford care for their teeth, it is also true that they can not afford many other things. This ties perfectly to what Ehrenreich talks about in It is Expensive to be Poor. She expands on Smarsh’s idea about the poor not being able to afford dental care when she talks about the welfare system as a whole. Ehrenreich vehemently rejects the idea of poverty being caused by the poor’s lack of morals or their laziness. She finds this offensive and mentions the Great Recession as a reason why poverty is not caused by laziness or lack of morals since tech workers, managers, lawyers, etcetera also became poor during that time. As Ehrenreich simply puts it, “Poverty is not a character failing or a lack of motivation. Poverty is a shortage of money.” (Ehrenreich 3) Shortage of money ties perfectly with her title about it being expensive to be poor. It also ties to why the cycle of poverty still exists today, over 50 years after President Lyndon Baynes Johnson declared ‘War on Poverty.’ Lack of appropriate funds to welfare, which includes Medicaid, Social Security and unemployment benefits, causes families to live in poverty and not be able to afford a decent education for their children, as well as not being able to afford insurance for their overall health, ultimately setting them up for failure. With all of this information in mind, the idea of more government intervention is necessary. Maybe even reforming America’s entire economic structure can be extremely helpful for the less privileged. To sum up, lack of money helps with the continuation of the cycle of poverty as the children of the poor are not given the same opportunities as those in the middle or upper classes.

Lastly, amid victim-blaming and the shortage of money, there is the apparent upper-class supremacy. Smarsh, as a person who experienced poverty, directly talks about upper-class supremacy in her essay. Simply put, upper-class supremacy is the belief that upper-class people are superior over all other classes. Smarsh argues that this sort of ideology does exist by giving an example of the past (US Eugenics Records Office targeting racial minorities and their belief that most poor rural whites had defective genetics) as well as giving the attitudes of the upper class towards the lower class, “Privileged America, ever striving for organic purity, judges harshly the mouths that chew orange Doritos, drink yellow Mountain Dew, breathe with a sawdust rattle, carry a lower lip's worth of brown chaw, use dirty words and bad grammar.” (Smarsh 4) It is through these stereotypes made by the upper-class that the poor have a hard time getting help from the government. Some of these stereotypes, like the poor using bad words and having bad grammar, are tied to upper-class supremacy since it is a belief that poor people are intellectually inferior. Smarsh says that privileged Americans tend to feel this way about the poor. Ehrenreich expands on this by giving examples of how these beliefs brought up by Smarsh have influenced states’ policies in regards to welfare. Ehrenreich brings up in her article how those in poverty are treated like criminals because of their need to be drug tested for certain types of assistance, getting fined for missing school and getting imprisoned for their debt. To Ehrenreich, this is telling about the morals of America, “this has become the means by which the wealthiest country in the world manages to remain complacent in the face of alarmingly high levels of poverty.” (Ehrenreich 4) Ehrenreich’s use of the word “complacent” to describe America’s response to poverty relates to upper-class supremacy. Being self-satisfied and smug about your achievements while at the same time doing nothing to solve the poverty issue shows how privileged America looks at the poor as the most inferior in society. Furthermore, this is proof that the current economic system in place for America is riddled with systemic problems. This isn’t particularly something brought up by the authors, but it can be inferred. In all, upper-class supremacy causes inaction towards those who need help in our society and keeps the cycle of poverty churning along.

Smarsh’s and Ehrenreich’s both argue the need to fund welfare systems more effectively to break what is known as the ‘Cycle of Poverty.’ However, victim-blaming, shortage of money, and upper-class supremacy are all things that are preventing those in poverty from getting the help they need from the government. Less meaningful legislation from victim-blaming, lack of opportunities for those who do not have enough money to afford one, and inaction due to upper-class supremacy all are devastating blows to a poor person’s morale in America. If this continues, the cycle of poverty will go on and a sizable percentage of the United States will continue to suffer.