The Invisible Killer

By: Jeanpaul Poker

        In the Southside of Chicago, Patricia, her husband and multiple children live in their grandmother's basement while their mother works her minimum wage job, slaving away every day to try and sustain the family. But then, sadly the Covid-19 pandemic hit,  and she had to take time off from her job. This is a story of one of the thousands of families struggling from poverty.

       Poverty has always been a problem in our society, but why does poverty even exist? Some people are in poverty because some companies don’t have very good working conditions, such as low income, bad hours, understaffing, and inconsistent management. An example of some of these companies include Hertz, Regal Cinemas, Walmart, McDonalds, and CVS. Some companies do care and try to give benefits and a good wage, but others just give what they have to give you by law and keep harvesting your labor for money. This is called Social Murder. Social murder is when companies don't care about people’s working conditions as long as they are still making money. 

       The government spends around $1.1 Trillion on issues relating to poverty. The US has many organizations such as the Affordable Care Act, the Rental Assistance programs, and Supplemental Nutrition assistance programs. The government is spending all of this money to fund these organizations, but this money isn’t being spent correctly. These organizations have some flaws such as, their focus being on the wrong things, poor execution, and social inequality. 

       A doable solution for this that the government could do is to help create well paying jobs that meet the needs of a family. The Federal government could invest $2.3 trillion into the American Jobs Plan, which is an Organization that is focused on making jobs that have decent wages, good benefits, and accessible to everyone. This plan could rebuild the economy and let Americans have financial security. There is poverty all around the world, but it is especially bad in the United States. 

       In similarly rich countries to the United states they have a significantly less amount of people in poverty.  Also, it would be better for the United States if there was no poverty. David Brady, a UCR Professor, says, “If we had less poverty, there'd be a lot better health and well-being, people could work more, and they could be more productive,” 

       We aren’t giving poverty enough attention. Poverty is killing 183,000 people, and we are just letting it happen. “Poverty kills as much as dementia, accidents, stroke, Alzheimer's, and diabetes,” says David Brady, a UCR professor. The reason you never see anyone dying from “poverty” is because it is not technically a cause of death, but it is still a major factor contributing towards death. A reason for poverty being a major contributor towards death is because many people in poverty don't have access to basic healthcare and other resources such as transportation, a sustainable source of food, and a safe course of shelter. Also, studies show that substance abuse is more common among people who are in poverty.

       Around the world there are many groups and organizations such as Oxfam, Red Cross, CARE, and Global Citizen, that are trying to help people in poverty and give food out to those in need of it. These groups are extremely helpful, and they are contributing towards the goal of exterminating poverty for good. There are also many individuals who are helping to stop poverty. They try to give people money or food. Also, to help people in poverty you don't have to go around and give people money. You can just easily online donate any amount of money to one of these humanitarian organizations to help someone in need. 

       Poverty is a growing issue that is heavily affecting our society, and the people we know. There are so many ways to help people in poverty, and we just need people to acknowledge this issue and give aid to those in need.