What do you think would have THE most impact on eliminating poverty in the United States?

Question

What would you as an individual do to help?

Since this is a "opinion" answer- the most thumbs up will get B.A.
I am reading all the replies too- doing a casual survey for a class. Thanks for reading, and answering!!!

Assuming your helping those who WANT help. Some answers making assumptions about welfare being a hand out- and not a hand up.

Answer 1

I suspect eliminating incentives for employers to move jobs overseas or to Latin America, so that people can work, particularly in industries that have decent wages.

Answer 2

Very good question! Eliminate greed, the driving force of our capitalist system. Can you actually believe that many employers think that a person can live on $10.00 an hour today? Or better yet that they can not afford to pay more? No one in our country truly cares about others, it is always, me, me, me. Look at the health care situation in our country, all based on greed. If we truly had a country and government that was based on the values it was founded on there would not be the poverty that there is today. Although some people actually want to be poor, and that is a fact. We can not have a national health care program, because , they say, we do not have the money. Yet we have billions to give to New Orleans, billions to fight wars, billions to give away to other countries, amazing. We have created a tax system that is the most absurd abuse of power in the history of the world. As an individual I can say that I have not done anything major but when I had the power to help, I did. When I was an employer I treated all my employees as I would like to be treated. Still today, I have much less then many of them and that does not bother me at all. If I won the lottery I would give away at least half to someone who needed it more then I did. And even the half that I kept, I would try to help those who needed it more. But the answer lies with our system, it needs to be changed back to what it was intended to be, of the people, for the people, and by the people. We are far from that now. The money is there, it is just stolen from us, and used for things that do little or nothing for the people.

Answer 3

I guess I have a very different take on this than most. Parents! Only when the mind set of parents changes will we make inroads. Children will live up to expectations, and if they are expected to get an education, they will get one. When parents STOP making excuses for all of their children's failings and START getting involved with these kids, when parents expect homework to be done, expect their kids to speak and write English, know their math, etc. , then kids will be prepared to get a job that pays their way. Money is NOT the answer, for their isn't enough money in the world to stop poverty as a handout....a handout today will do nothing for tomorrow. But a job is forever, or job skills is, at any rate. You cannot blame teachers, for they have been cast into a roll of baby-sitter. Good luck

Answer 4

to eliminate poverty money needs to stop being wasted on hand outs. Welfare is the biggest JOKE. No one is going to do anything for themselves if it is always handed to them. (same goes for the extremely wealthy... look at how useless some of their kids are, the ones who have everything handed to them)

Instead of welfare & social programs, the government should subsidise college so folks can go to college, make something of themselves & be proud of it.

Cutting other programs & pumping money into hand-outs doesn't fix anything...it only make it worse. I mean, why would people in the slums be proactive & do something to help their situation if they can stand in line & get it with out any effort???

The answer to this problem doesn't lay in cutting defence, pumping up welfare, or anything like that... the answer is that people need to have a sense of pride & accomplishment. There needs to be hope & a drive to succeed. the tools for this need to be readily avaliable & funds need to be cut off so people will take the higher road, educate themselves & work to make a better life.

Answer 5

The only way we can eliminate poverty is if the mindset of those people change. They would have to WANT to get a job instead of getting a paycheck for sitting at home. That' the only way. As long as we are still paying them for not having a job that pays more than their bills then they will do nothing. Taking money away from war, or putting more toward education won't work if they know that if they do nothing and sit on their butts that their bills will get paid.

Answer 6

The only common factor in poverty worldwide is lack of education. Find the poorest people in any country, rich or not, and they all have lack of education. The US spends more today on poverty programs than it ever has, yet poverty is higher now than 40 years ago. The only thing that hasnt changed, is the education level of the poorest.

Answer 7

Q-1== Short of eliminating capitalism and become a socialist nation......nothing.

Q-2== Keep on being a consumer so people have jobs.

Answer 8

I wonder if having some kind of forced savings acount would do any good. Kind of like Social Security, except when they've taken out, say $5,000, then it stops, and when you get into a bind, then you're allowed to withdraw, instead of going straight to the government for help.

Answer 9

only one thing? Poverty is multifactorial. I'd say the two most important things would be quality K-12 education and decent paying entry level jobs .

Answer 10

Stop fighting wars and invest the money to improve people's lives. The Iraq war has cost $ 130k for every man, woman and child in America. The gulf war was $ 25k. The Balkans - $ 35k. and so on.

If that won't eliminate poverty in America - I don't know what will.