Session 14: Immigration

Whether you agree or disagree, I think we should accept and improve our immigration system and allow immigrants to receive citizenship. Here are the reasons.

I realize the majority who complains about immigrations are our average working class citizens. They fear that  immigrants are taking their jobs and decreasing the economy

I don’t think that’s the case. Through my knowledge, I think it is the corporations/capitalism that is taking advantage of others because corporations/big businesses pay people who are willing to work at a cheap cost. Not just the Mexicans, it is everyone nation-wide!! This is another form of exploitation and many of us don’t realize that because it is happening in our own country and our average working class citizens rather blame foreigners for losing their jobs. In recent years, jobs are gone and stores have been shut down due to big companies such as Wal-mart.

Overall I don’t think the solution is to eliminate immigration because the problem will still exist. If immigrants were to leave and we still have the same problem, the next thing we would blame for unemployment would be technology such as the self-checkouts in the stores. HELLO!! As long as anyone or anything is helping corporations/companies make profit, they will take advantage of what is given even if it put other people out of jobs.

Corporations/companies knows the citizens are avail to form Unions and press lawsuits against companies’ for any hinder, but illegal immigrants have no documents so companies are least to face lawsuits. If they did, the illegal immigrants can easily get arrested and go back to their country just because the fact their working illegally. These corporations knows exactly what’s going on, but I’m sure the chairmen and the CEOs’ in these corporations aren’t complaining because it’s obvious foreigners work twice as harder and cheaper. Now you tell me..Who wouldn’t like that??

Session 13 - Housing & Community Development Policies

GREAT!! Reading through this session and the films, I enlighten up some aspects.

I feel as though we live in a society where we hold grudges to people who have committed crimes and simply cannot accept them back into our society even after they have done their time. With MVI organization, they help people move forward with their life and forgive them by allowing them second chances.

What you think is being done about poverty?? 

There are many things that the governments are doing to boost low-income families. For our neighborhoods in need of progress, governments created programs and Housing Acts such as the Home Mortgage Act, the Community Reinvestment Act, and the Community Development Block Grant by cheap payments on housings. Programs like HOPE IV assisted residents by moving families to a better housing in less troubled neighborhoods through the use of Section 8 housing vouchers. With Section 8, it allowed low-income families live in a better neighborhood that is affordable. It’s very important for families to feel safe and serine. Living in a lively, happy neighborhood, children are less prunes to crimes.

Under these programs and other Acts that I have yet mentioned has widely improved many communities and neighborhoods by enriching the vicinity with an uplifting, healthy, and a safe environment for the community.

Though these programs haven’t reached far to its full potential, I believe the government is helping as much as they can. Money is a big issue and with so many issues in our country, the governments are limited to their spending. I believe that if we truly want to help our nation out of poverty, we as people have to get together and get involve with the government to make a change. Otherwise, issues such as poverty can slip away and be ignored.

Session 12

I think it’s a wonderful idea we have the Social Security System. It helps elders who are retired and the ones who are disable. How they receive these funds from the Social Security are through our taxes we, employers pay. Unfortunately and currently, we have many people without jobs and in poverty due to our chaos economy..as well as foreigners who work and not pay taxes. This will become a greater problem in the Social Security System in the future because fewer funds are coming in. If there are taxes/funds decreases while retirement people increases, there won’t be enough for the retirements to receive the funds and care needed by the government. Our solution is to definitely boost well paying and increase jobs. By doing so, we can maintain a well Social Security System as we grow old so we can have enough  to retire from work since it’s one of the reason why we do pay taxes.

Session 11

How well do you think poverty is addressed currently in the United States??

After years and years, the discussion on our Nation’s health care system has been resolve due to President Obama signing the health care bill. The health care reform will enable everyone, our citizens, to receive affordable health care coverage.  In the past, we notice people were in debt because many weren’t able to pay their medical bills and many people couldn’t work because they were sick. The new health care reform will improve many people’s health and can help them recover to work again. Though the health care reform may be highly expensive, it will definitely help our nation who lacks insurance and may decrease adults and children from poverty. Like Medicare and Medicaid, these programs have helped low-income families reduce their medical expenses so they can afford other necessary expenses such as house payments and food to sustain a decent living so they do not end up in poverty

Session 9

Even though I think we should still improve our welfare programs, I think the welfare programs are pretty helpful to low income families. Statistics has even showed since the late 1990s that employment rate and full time workers has increase due to Child Care Assistance Programs. There are specific qualifications to be eligible for these programs such as Medicaid and Medicare; they are very useful to families with children. Children are among the highest rate in poverty. These programs such as Medicaid and Medicare offer benefits of dental care and healthcare. It’s good that the government is at least putting some sort of effort to decrease families spending on emergency healthcare and free/reduce lunch at school as well for low income families.

session 7

Many of the facts I looked over in this session isn’t new to me. Anyone getting paid minimum wage will not make ends meet. Minimum workers consist of waiting, cashier, retail, clerk, and working at fast food joints flipping burgers. Not until last year, Federal minimum wage increased to $7.25. Most workers making minimum wages are to believe adults without a high degree/ college diploma and females.

I watched the video on Ulearn/Youtube about minimum wage where the lady asks you, what can you buy for $2.13? The only thing I could think of was one or two sandwich/burgers from a dollar menu at a fast food restaurant. A gallon of gas is more than $2.50!! $2.13 is not enough. It’s ridiculous that waiters and waitresses used to make $2.13 an hour. These waiters and waitresses rely on tip wages which isn’t too bad depending on location and who your client is, but what’s so surprising to me is most of them have to split their tips with busboys and other workers by 5%. It’s horrible to believe the working class could live off of minimum wages. How could they survive when expenses are increasing but not there income?

Many believe if maybe we just raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour, it would help the working class manage their time and money spent. It could maybe even help thousands of children and adult out of poverty, but realistically, most businesses won’t increase minimum wages because it could hurt their own pockets to pay more to each individual and maybe cause unemployment. It’s also hard to find jobs for typical American workers because we also have immigrants to compete with in getting hired. Companies who need workers without little skills are most likely to hire immigrants willing to work at a lower cost and since most immigrant don’t have documents, they are least likely to file law suits if anything thing was to happen.

Believe it or not, poverty will never go away and it will always be a problematic as long as someone is benefiting from it.

session 6

My perspective-

Of course the reason we have poverty is because of inequality. There’s a huge gap between the rich and the poor. The rich will always be “rich” from generation to generation because children who are born rich have the advantages. They have easy access to advance technology and able to receive the best education they can get. On the other hand, poor children don’t.  Some people argue that people are rich because they go to school and work hard to become rich. That’s not always the case.  Children from poor families aren’t getting the right education because of the school they may attend. These schools don’t have enough books or teachers. Poor families can’t afford or have time to waste to have their kid transfer to a better school. When the schools aren’t putting any effort to improve education or classroom sizes perhaps, kids lack “school spirit” and fall out.

When it comes to jobs, I think that a person that is already rich getting a job would be easier than for a poor man because they are likely to have more social connections.

Session 5

Globalization is a market system, changes in societies and world economy due to the dramatic increased in trade and culture exchange mainly between the rich and poor economies. In global poverty, there is 23.4 percent of the world’s population living on less than one dollar a day and almost half of those living in developing and transition economies are making at least two dollars a day which is ten percent of world’s population.

Facts are truly sad. If people actually want to end poverty, the time is now!

I actually like UN Millennium Goals but it had me thinking. Are the rich nations really trying to improve or worsen the situation on poverty globally?

Globalization sucks. I recommend anyone to watch Life and Dept in Jamaica. This movie has the best explanation to why the third world country suffers from poverty. In this video, Life and Dept in Jamaica focuses the country as an example of a small developing country being exploited by well-developed countries using globalization to benefit themselves.  In desperate need, no one would loan Jamaica money to jump start their growth. IMF known as the International Monetary Fund offered short term loans to Jamaica which they accept in addition, IMF applied specific rules to how they could spend and the amount they must charge on interest rate, the nation couldn’t afford paying back which led more loans and causing a cycle of people trapped in poverty.

Session 4

Going back in history until now, the south has always been the poorest in the U.S. region. From what I know, being poor can contributed to where you was born, raised, and the environment in which you live in. It’s about LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!

Where is poverty in America? Poverty is everywhere, outside, next, even far beyond from reach of our own region. People living in the concentrated poor communities face difficult problems, including poor education and mental health outcomes. In these concentrated poor communities, their children are prune to an increase chances of teen pregnancy, delinquency, and crime.

 In a closer look, most poor people live in metropolitan area such as Atlanta which isn’t too far from where I live. From the outside point of view, we see Atlanta as a beautiful city with nice tall buildings, hotels and much more to offer for the rich. So why is there so many poor people living in the cities? To find jobs of course. Cities have the highest job rates. Over the past decades immigrants has drastically increase moving into the cities. While white families move into the suburbs for better and “clean” environments known as the “white flight”. 

Session 3

I watched the video on Down and Out in America, they mentioned about the farmers. It’s sad to me to see these farms becoming foreclosed by banks. Twenty years ago we had well enough six million farms in America and now there are at least one third of what we had. 

I’ve also watched another documentary called Food Inc. for my own knowledge of what the farming industry has become. Farming has become something known as factory farming. Clearly, it has made food that we buy in stores cheap, but are we, the consumers actually benefiting from this? NO. It’s the major corporate that control every aspects of the factory farming. They tell the farmers what to grow, how to grow, and when to grow, otherwise, they are easily put out to business. This video gives you good informal facts to how America has shifted and clearly the “Leaders” is taking advantage and controlling the people, the ordinary farm workers, and no one is doing absolutely anything about it. This Food Inc. video gives reasonable idea to why so many people always say Rich becomes richer and poor becomes poorer. It made me realize the government doesn’t actually care about the working class and who becomes poor. I recommend many of you guys to watch this documentary. You can simply watch it on Netflix.com

Poverty measures

There are different views of poverty and how we measure poverty. We discuss about the difference between absolute, relative poverty, and other measurements of poverty. Absolute poverty is when people are suffering or those who are below the poverty line. They lack the basic needs, and they simply cannot afford service, food, shelter, and etc. The situation does not change overtime.

Relative poverty measures the people who can provide simple needs but they are still below the standard of living.

Quasi-relative measure includes the expenses for food, clothing, shelter, and utilities. Quasi-relative is more updated on changes in standard of living and adjusted for family size. 

My Perspective in America and Globally

Who you think is poor, both in the United States and Globally?
**I think anyone who does not make enough income for the standard of living are poor. My concerns for the society and globally on poverty are the single mothers. Single mothers have the worse case scenario because of the responsibility that is put upon themselves without having another provider for the family. Most single mothers are not well educated. They are living off paycheck to paycheck, usually working double shift during day and night and still bare to take care of their child/children on their own. I believe it is a horrible living situation for both mother and their child/children.


Why you believe people are poor in the United States and Globally?
**Lack of education is one of many important reasons why there are poor people. Poor families either live in poor neighborhoods or live in a society in poor conditions. Their children ends up going to a low standard school with few or not enough books for each individuals. They are also limited to computers and other advance technology which makes it difficult for them to learn. When there is a lack of education, children loss faith and tend to drop out of school believing it isn't important anymore. They usually find illegal ways to make money. When they get busted, they pay a higher price that they cannot afford so they end up in jail or prison with a criminal record, and when they get out, it's even tougher to find a job because many working places and industries doesn't accept anyone with a criminal record. Also females who lack sex education, protections or simply cannot afford birth controls are prune to poverty because they risk the chances of unpredicted pregnancies. Some do end up with a baby and forced to drop out of school to find a job to afford raising their baby. It is very important to have a good education but in my belief, poor people are already victims in this society and that is why many people say poor people becomes poorer as rich becomes richer.
In the third world country, because of their environment which they live in and deprived soil, they lack adequate food, nutrition, and water which make it difficult for them to have an average standard of living. Many of them work in factories and agricultural labor. They tend to make only enough money to eat. Many countries has yet or even close to become a developed nation.


What you think is being done about poverty(e.g. current policies and programs in the United States and Globally)?
**There isn't a lot being done about poverty. There are programs such as WIC for low income families/single mother with children and Medicare for low income families without insurance in the United States but, it's not a guarantee for everyone with needs. Some are denied. In global perspective, they remain poor even with the so call help from the well developed nations. They give out loans to third world countries with high interests. This makes it difficult for these countries to unable to pay back loans and stuck with debts.


How well you think poverty is being addressed currently in the United States and Globally?
**Poverty has been discuss upon, but I don't think it has been firmly address because rich countries are controlling the situation on poverty. As long as the rich men are making fortunes from the poor nations and in our poor societies, it will not change since we live in a free market economy where money is power.


What you personally think should be done about poverty in United States and Globally(e.g., policies, programs you would suggest)?
**I think what should be done about poverty in the United States is to increase better education. Build better schools or receive more books and educational needs such as equipments and computers. We should give more financial needs for students, families or people with low income, and increase minimum wage. In order for this to process, I think that people with high income should be tax higher than middle class and working class. For the third world country, I think the World Bank should reduce there interest fees to other countries so they can start developing there nation and able to pay back their debts.