Poverty In The United States: A Summary

Alleviating poverty is in the interest of most governments, but thriving financially seems out of reach or next to impossible to achieve by some countries. Countries that are considered first world countries today, like The U.S and China, have faced times where poverty was a major issue and economies were not creating either money or jobs, however they were able to stop the declining of their country. Why? Sachs suggests that every country has the ability to compete and become successful in the global economy, but there is no definite common method all countries can use to thrive. Sachs makes it apparent to the reader that solutions to the success of a country have to be used at the right time and, most of all, in the right country. Different …show more content…
Sachs used China as an example, a heavily populated where excessive reproduction was taboo and ignored, consequently having a noticeable negative impact on China’s economy. China was not able to feed, house, or properly provide for its people, this was known as the Demographic trap (66). It wasn't until the Demographic Trap was confronted by Chinese government that China was able to prosper. China put a law in place that limits the amount of children a couple can have and they realized that with the large population they had at their disposal a powerful workforce in the production business which proved to be very successful. Eventually China started to outsource jobs to developing countries like Africa, which led to expansion of their economy and adding to the working class (71). Sachs shows how China was able to turn a population control issue to one of the most powerful work forces in the global …show more content…
Sachs talks about countries that have barriers like physical geography, culture, and geopolitics, which is harming the growth of their country. In the African Sahel, agriculture is a mainstream economy, but there are issues like rainfall, fertility of land, and animal diseases, that slow down and some cases completely stops the economy (87). There is no reason why Africa’s biggest economy should be agriculture if there is no way of confronting the issues that come with physical geography. Another issue Sachs talks about is geopolitics and its restrictions it puts on countries. Wars, terrorism and refugee movement can be detrimental to a country’s economy because of the travel sanctions and trade barriers that come with it, making international relations harder to form (89). The IMF, WHO, World bank and other United Nations sectors have to be able to work together to address this issue, until this happens a country’s economic potential will only be