The Uses of Poverty: The Poor Pay All (2nd part)

Gans also provides possible solutions to the problem. Some of his solutions are to pay higher wages to those who perform the dirty work in our society, to give other roles to those people who benefit from the poor, and to equalize the difference between the rich and the poor. But with these alternatives Gans comes to the conclusion that many of these solutions could be dysfunctional to our society. For example, aiding the poor requires a high cost. If this is done, then there would be a social dysfunction because of the amount of money required. If the poor were to be affluent, then they could take over the roles of others. All of these alternatives would make the poor resistant to the cost of growth and social change. Therefore, poverty has to exist because it is functional to some parts of our society.

Some of the information presented in this essay is common sense but other is very informative. First of all, I think that the introductory paragraph is very interesting because it explains why there are more studies and researches about the poor people than the rich people. In the introductory paragraph, I did not understand why Gans stated that we need the poor. The first thing that came to my mind was to disagree with his idea because the poor, people in our society, suffer from this condition and suffering cannot be functional, I thought. But after reading the whole passage, even though I did not agree with most of it, I understood why poverty keeps a balance and why it functions in our society. On the other hand, the first and eleventh function of poverty really caught my attention. It is sad to now that most of the dirtiest work that no one wants to do is performed at a low wage by the poor people. I thought that the eleventh function of poverty was inhumane. I believe that it is not fair to take someone’s home way just because were they live is a good location for the establishing of new buildings and projects. Even though it is disappointing to acknowledge that poverty does have functional aspects to our society, it is important to recognize that this is not just happening in the United States but also in other countries of the world.