A recent survey made for the Associated Press revealed that our nation’s gap between the rich and poor is growing wider. The reason may seem logic from both aspects, despite one class severely suffering from the gap. The losses are poverty and welfare dependency. Unfortunately, they are a effects of unemployment.
According to the survey, 4 out of 5 adults in the United States struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives. This itself is representative of the steady decrease in economic security. Good-paying manufacturing jobs hold some of the blame for the shift in employment as many companies opt to employ overseas factories for production.
William Julius Wilson, a Harvard professor who specializes in race and poverty stated [that], “It’s time that America comes to understand that many of the nation’s biggest disparities, from education and life expectancy to poverty, are increasingly due to economic class position.”
Many know that the effects of poverty and unemployment do have an impact on crime and drugs, whether before or after use or distribution. For example, 28-year-old Renee Adams expressed “a wish that employers will look past her conviction a few years ago for distributing prescription painkillers, so she can get a job and have money to ‘buy the kids everything they need.'”
