Introduction to Sociology

Figure 1. Changes in the number in poverty and the poverty rate.


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24. 
    The poverty line defines the income needed for a basic standard of living and is determined by ________.
    
    1. 
       Comparing the share of the total income (or wealth) in society that is received by different groups
       
    2. 
       A worker’s self-reported understanding of his or her own class status.
       
    3. 
       By tripling the cost of a nutritionally adequate diet and adjusting for other factors such as size of the family, composition and ages
       
    4. 
       Conducting phone surveys to tabulate a representative sampling and averaging the results
       

25. 
    One common explanation for poverty is that it arises from personal failure due to one’s character, motivation, and education, while another explanation is ________ , which is to say that poverty arises due to factors such as the type and availability of jobs in the market, which exist independently of any one individual’s actions or priorities.
    
    1. 
       Structural inequality
       
    2. 
       Class status
       
    3. 
       Meritocracy
       
    4. 
       The Moynihan Report
       

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Watch the selected clip from this CrashCourse video to understand
how poverty looks within the United States.
https://youtu.be/c8PEv5SV4sU

Causes of poverty

Poverty as a personal failing

When it comes to poverty in the United States, there are two main lines of thought. The most common line of thought within the U.S. is that a person is poor because of personal traits–things like personality characteristics, motivation, and education. This viewpoint puts the blame on an individual’s personal failure not to climb out of poverty and is centered around the belief that anyone can succeed if they try hard enough. This thought pattern stems from the idea of meritocracy, or the belief that individuals are selected and moved ahead based primarily on their achievements and intellectual abilities.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Secretary of Labor and sociologist, completed a report titled “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action” (known as the Moynihan Report) in 1965. The intent was to show that civil rights legislation alone would not produce racial equality, and to advocate for additional policies to address structural discrimination. Unfortunately, the report was interpreted as focusing on the internal dynamics of Black families, as it seemed to identity racially disproportionate rates of divorce, “illegitimate” children, welfare dependence, and unemployment as primary factors. This reading allowed many conservatives to argue that racial self-help was both adequate and necessary, with some commentators straying into judgement instead of analysis so as to focus on “loose morality among African Americans” as a way to blame Black families themselves for inequality ^[2].