Describe the basic insights about income inequality and poverty offered by the structural functional, social conflict, feminist, and symbolic interaction theories of poverty. What is one weakness of each theory?
What will be an ideal response?
What is intersection theory? Provide data that support this analysis of economic inequality.
What will be an ideal response?
How do the conservative, liberal, and radical left approaches point to different causes of the problem of poverty? What solutions do these approaches support? What would you do to address poverty in the United States?
What will be an ideal response?
How are age, race, ethnicity, and gender related to the risk of being poor? Provide data in support of your assertions.
What will be an ideal response?
Sketch a brief history of welfare in the United States, including the colonial era, the early industrial era, and the twentieth century. What changed with the 1996 welfare reforms? What do you make of our nation's response to poverty?
What will be an ideal response?
According to which of the following political positions does the solution to poverty lie in government reforms, such as increasing the minimum wage and raising tax rates on the wealthy?
a. radical left
b. liberal
c. conservative
d. radical right
As of 2010, the typical welfare family received about how much assistance each month?
a. 400
b. 800
c. 1,000
d. 1,200
If you take a radical-left point of view, you see the main cause of poverty as
a. personal deficiencies in poor people themselves.
b. the normal operation of a capitalist economy.
c. misguided government assistance programs.
d. modern, industrial technology.
Radicals on the left agree with liberals that poverty is
a. a matter of personal responsibility.
b. built into the very nature of capitalism.
c. a societal issue.
d. mostly a thing of the past.
A radical left solution to the problem of poverty would be
a. raising the minimum wage.
b. creating equal opportunity for people to achieve according to their talents.
c. expanding government assistance programs.
d. replacing our nation's capitalist economic system.
Quick Reply
