Teresa Graham English 111-0DJ Oct. 19, 2011 Teresa Graham English 111-0DJ Oct. 19, 2011 Working but Still Living in Poverty Many Americans work full time jobs but are living in poverty because of the recession, rising food cost, and government cuts. These situations are making it hard for Americans to make it in everyday life. They have to even sometimes beg for food for their families. So many people living in the United States have full-time jobs but the pay is minimum wage. With the economy in the shape it is, it makes those full-time jobs seem like only part-time jobs.
I will be focusing on just a few key areas that have been struck due to the recession for President Obama and the Great Depression for President Roosevelt and how each man either fixed the problem or is attempting to. Here is just a short list of issues: unemployment rate, financial institutions and the stock market. Just like President Roosevelt, President Obama hit the ground running with his uncanny ability to act upon the economic crisis that was yet again effecting the American people. Obama scored major points with the people since within his first hundred days in office he was able to get congress a much needed stimulus package for their approval that would take care of the financial crisis the American people were facing with major businesses and financial institutions declining at a very fast pace. However, Roosevelt was facing a much worse scenario with an unemployment rate of nearly 25% after the stock market crash of 1929.
President Roosevelt was there every step of the way after the crash during Hoover’s presidency. The start of the crash began with “Bull Markets”, meaning, stocks were becoming overpriced and not based on the actual value of the company. A stock market crash was bound to happen but at that time people didn’t care. People were buying loans like crazy in order to buy stocks, over 10 billion dollars was loaned to these people. In a lecture by Professor Newman, it was made known of the concept “selling short”, meaning, big businessmen would try to make more money on a market they knew was going down, and with that came a lot of common people losing money.
For the act of being even momentarily late to work, workers were charged twopence, and some factories would even close the gates of the factory, which disallowed workers from going to their job if tardy (A Working Day in a Manchester Cotton Mill 154). As workers were often poor and relied on their factory jobs for income, even one tardy could create a negative impact on them. Another factor contributing to bad working conditions in the factories was the disregard of the workers’ hygiene. Many factories did not have baths established (A Working Day in a Manchester Cotton Mill 155). Laborers often had no way to keep themselves clean, which was worsened by the factories’ already dirty environment.
ABSTRACT “Welfare policy successfully weathered an economic hurricane in the mid 1970’s and an ideological blizzard in the 1980’s” (Le Grand, 1990, p350). A statement suggesting that the welfare state in Great Britain had survived a crisis period in history. In the early 20th century it was highlighted in regards to the amount of poverty that men were suffering. Reforms after WWII were implemented and with Keynesian Economics there was an effort to improve the living conditions of the British people as well as the economy. This policy found itself in trouble on a few occasions but during the 1970’s there was a worldwide crisis and Britain asked the IMF for a large loan.
The prices of the products will either increase or stay the same but the wages of the people will always decrease. Black Thursday…as it was remembered, October 24,1929, nearly 13 million shares of stock changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the prices dropped sharply causing great alarm in financial community. The next day, the President reassured the people that there’s no need to alarm because the economy was on sound footing. Days, weeks, months, and years passed people lived in poverty, there are people who are called as ‘hoovervilles’ that were blaming the President of their current living status. The
The Causes of the Great Depression The Great Depression was an economic downfall that to this day is the worst economic downfall in U.S history. The depression started in the United States. People all over the world were affected by it, especially in Europe, Germany, Great Britain and other industrialized areas of the world. Mainly because America was a big creditor to those countries after World War I. The Great Depression lasted in America for at least ten years, but it took twenty-seven years to get the economy back above depression levels.
Workers were paid low wages, were forced to perform in unsafe working conditions, and lack of job security caused the workers to form unions. Workers began an effective sit-down strike at factories which prevented the employers from hiring other people to replace the workers. The women organized a first aid station, child care, and collected money and food to aid the strikers and their families. Laborers united across the country and organized strikes against other business. In 1935, Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act (hereinafter referred to as
The revelation of her poverty to the people she meets, who doesn’t exactly give her the things she needs, makes her feel mortified. There are countless needs for an individual in poverty, which they do not receive. When Parker sought for help she got it but it was barely enough for the necessities she and her children need. She uses logos to explain the cause and effect of the seventy-eight dollars she gets every month. She pays twenty dollars rent and the “rest goes for food.” This is the reason why she and her children can’t get the other necessities they need, including the children’s education.
Jodi Atwal Leech Eng 1A Essay 1 28 September 2011 Poverty: Shaping a nation of it’s own. Poverty has been around forever in every corner of the world; it is just that many of us here in America might have not noticed it as much until the last decade or so. Sure enough poverty is growing, and it isn’t taking its sweet little time at all. Is there a safe explanation for this that cannot be proven false? Many may argue that the falling economy and the wealthy not wanting to share their shares is to blame for the raising rates of poverty here in the states.