How Does Poverty Affect Society

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Poverty is when a person lacks possession of money and materials. Here in America, this applies to about 15% of our population. This means that around 46 million Americans are struggling to make ends meet and survive (Searchusapeople). Poverty effects society in many ways. We see a higher crime rate, a higher dropout rate, and an increased amount of alcohol and/or substance abuse in lower income communities. This mixed with the ineffective government aid programs has led to an increase in poverty rates throughout the years. “To me, the poor are like Bonsai trees. When you plant the best seed of the tallest tree in a six-inch deep flower pot, you get a perfect replica of the tallest tree, but it is only inches tall. There is nothing wrong with …show more content…
Well based off my research I found two basic guaranteed income models: The universal basic income referred to as UBI and the negative income tax referred to as NIT. The less expensive of the two models, the NIT has an income cutoff point where if you made less, your taxes are negative. This means instead of paying the government, the government pays you after you file your taxes. This may pose a problem though. Say everything is going fine and dandy, then right after filing your taxes, you lose your job. Your income is below the cutoff, but the government can’t give you money until you file your taxes next year. One of the solutions is the other model, the UBI. With the UBI, every non-incarcerated adult gets a check once a month regardless of income (Tencer). For sake of simplicity, the UBI is the on I’ll be writing about. More specifically 1000 dollars every month per adult. The government needs to start issuing a UBI because full employment is impossible, there is just not enough capital for everyone to be working. This combined with more and more jobs being automated full employment is impossible. Due to the impossibility of full employment, there will always be people unemployed and thus more likely to be impoverished (Chancey). A UBI would allow those who have lost or are without jobs to still play a role in society by allowing them to go back to school with worrying about how they could feed their …show more content…
Well, let’s do some math, in the US, the total income in 2010 was approximately $8.4 trillion (Rampell). The most inexpensive UBI plan that would still eliminate poverty would be about $12,000 for each adult and $4,000 for each child a year. This would cost around 3 trillion dollars, which is about a 35.7% tax increase for every tax payer. Although, this number is still off due to the 100 plus poverty prevention programs that would no longer require funding if a UBI was enacted. This, according to the article I read would save around 1.5 trillion dollars. This means that the previous estimate of 3 trillion drops down to 1.5 trillion, and the actual tax increase is only 17.8% rather than 35.7% (Santens). This extra 17.8% does not have to apply to all tax brackets (the higher brackets could be taxed more), but for the sake of equality, let’s say it does. Say Joe earns $20,000. He gets taxed this extra 17.8%, meaning his tax burden goes up $3,560; he still receives a basic income of $12,000 a year though, so he actually gets an extra $8,440

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