Detroit Business Daily

Poverty...?

I have to do a research project on poverty for my economics class. I'm doing a powerpoint and I was just wondering what things I can talk about? So far I have "What is poverty?" and the different measures of poverty (relative and absolute) What are some other things I could use? Thanks!

Public Comments

1. I would talk about how the full employment, which is the employment that produces the most while limiting inflation, by definition requires some unemployment. Those that are unemployed by that system are poverty stricken, but if they were employed (and thusly not in poverty) the economy as a whole would suffer and inflation would increase. So, some poverty is a necessary evil.
2. How about comparing poverty levels from around the world. what is it to live in poverty in the U.S. as compared with China or India.
3. How about comparing poverty in developed countries v. non-developed? The USA for example has the richest poor people in the world.
4. Have a look at global poverty, you can do comparative scales of earnings between the global average and US average income. Also a wealth ownership breakdown, as in what percentage of the worlds population owns what percentage of the global cash supply etc. Other things you can look at, the trends in the USA towards jobs with minimum wage, the numbers of people over time who are poor in your country or state. Access to health care, medicine and education are other good ones from an economic point of view, also the real cost of not dealing with poverty at a national level.
5. You can do some solid research - Google is a good place to start - and show correlations between the spread of global corporate capitalism and the growth of poverty. An example would be outsourcing American jobs in the clothing industry to places like Pakistan may help Corporate middle men make more money, but it doesn't do a thing for the slave waged Pakistani workers or the Americans who lost their jobs.
6. This would be cheating, so PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE dont use this as a speach, k? It is very important for you to do something like this one your one especially on a subject as important as this. It must come from your own heart, or it will be pointless. Anyways, I had to do a speech in health, and this was the subject and speech I used. I hope it helps, but just as an example: World Poverty: Malnutrition, AIDS, and Violence Half the world lives on less than 2 dollars a day. Less than 1% of what the world spends on weapons every year was needed to put every child in school by year 2000; it didn’t happen. 400 million have no access to safe water & 10.6 million children died of disease, violence, and malnutrition due to extreme poverty. My topic is World poverty; Malnutrition, AIDS, and Violence My first topic is Malnutrition. Malnutrition is when a person’s diet doesn’t provide enough calories and protein for a healthy life. Roughly 850 million people suffer from malnutrition worldwide Due to extreme poverty, that many people cannot even afford to be fed properly. Malnutrition can also cause and contribute to many life-threatening diseases and illnesses. AIDS is another life-threatening disease that is spreading worldwide. AIDS stand for Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome. It is a very serious and dangerous disease that is spreading fast. Not only is it an STD, But being HIV positive can also be passed from a mother to her child, which makes it even more dangerous. AIDS had killed over 25 million people by 2006, and has orphaned 15 million children, because $100 a year for medication was not affordable. Most of us spend more than that on things like shoes alone. Violence is my last topic. Crime rates are actually lower in 3rd world countries, but much violence will go undetected. Violence and oppression towards women is also more common and often times considered acceptable in places like the Middle East, and Africa. Genocides based on Race, religion, gender, nationality, etc, go unstopped. Such as, the crisis that currently is happening in Darfur. Many government officials are even paid off to ignore such injustices. I’m not saying that poverty causes violence, but lets the violence go unstopped. Poverty is the cause of many things, but all of those things are something we can change! I believe it is wrong when a child dies because they have so little, in a world that has so much.