It is our duty as both humans and Americans to solve poverty

Poverty has existed for a lot longer than fifty years...

While poverty has been an issue since the beginning of time, and will likely continue to be a pervasive issue, the recent technological advances made in the last 200 years have exponentially improved the quality of life for many people. Therefore, the gap between those in poverty and those living in luxury has also grown exponentially. It's our job to elect representatives who work to make resources available to those living in poverty and hold officeholders accountable for making progress.

I agree that it is our responsibility to maintain a healthy socio-economic dynamic for every American. It is our duty as human beings to try to help each other and love each other in any way we can. It is easy to fall into the societal ideas that some people are better than others, whether it be based on economic standing or other factors. But, as the Irish proverb goes, nobody is better than you and you are better than nobody. I think that American culture, as it is so deeply tied to capitalism, values the individual over the whole society. People view each other as competition. Because we are responsible for providing opportunities to everyone, though, we have to push ourselves to lose sight of our cultural values and connect with other, more important ones. But we must also recognize that poverty is not solely an American issue, nor is it an issue that has pervaded society recently. Poverty is rampant in many other areas; almost all the countries in Africa are rated as underdeveloped by the UN Human Development Reports. So not only is poverty an issue and a responsibility in America, but also throughout the entire world.

I agree with Allan: the hard truth is that we can't "solve poverty". We can, however, alleviate it and change what poverty means. For many people now, poverty means illiteracy, starvation, a lack of clean water, and limited opportunity. The whole cycle of ending poverty really starts with water. If you don't have clean water readily available, your whole life circles around getting water. Often this means walking far distances, spending hours or even the entire day walking to obtain safe water. When so much time goes into this, people have little time for anything else. Woman are often the ones who are in charge of the water, so that means that they don't have the opportunity to attend school; they've spent their day walking miles while balancing a bucket on their heads (also 2/3 of the 757 million people in the world who are illiterate are women). And when women aren't educated, literally every single other aspect of life is affected. If a women is educated, she is less likely to contract HIV/AIDS. She will be more likely to have her children vaccinated and send them to school. Girls with higher levels of education are more likely to get married at an older (much more reasonable) age. And have less children. And those children are less likely to die. And these women are more likely to hold higher level positions and earn more money. All this cause of water! So if we can give more people in the world easy access to safe water, we can change their lives drastically - and change the meaning of poverty.

People who are born poor have literally no say in their position. Its not the fault of a baby who is born in a low-income home, and is not given the opportunities as a person born into a rich family (though its not their fault either). So should we say to the person who isn't able to receive the same opportunities as a rich person just, "Hey, you were born poor, sucks to be you". Why? It isn't their fault. There really isn't an easy way to structure an argument against this; its unfair to help a person who was born into a rough situation with the argument of, "You're poor, therefore it is because of you are not succeeding" There were very few examples of people who rose from very poor situations, and even those who did, like Andrew Carnegie, they should be the ones who should be giving back those in poverty, as they have also been there at one point. Without acknowledging that poverty is everyone's problem, those people will most likely just be stuck in the bottom, and so will the next generation of those below the poverty line. It's the cycle of poverty, continually rotating at the bottom, because no on is there to pull you out.

I agree with Emily and Jordan. People do not get to choose which family they are born into and they should not be judged on the success of their parents or guardians. Unfortunately, I think many people do assume the "every man for himself" (especially successful ones) and that can negatively impact society as the wealthy businessmen attempt to increase their wealth at whatever means necessary using the newest technology accessible to them while the lower classes fall farther and farther behind. It is also unfortunate that many people ignore the needs of poor people because they themselves were lucky enough to have been born into a well-off or capable family. If restrictions were put in place that benefited lower income families, like scholarship money into college or denying admissions for higher GPA to grant admission to a lower income student to improve a college's public appearance, the upper class would have a fit and pour their resources into changing those laws. Wealthy people should recognize how lucky they are and use any money they do not need to try and help fix poverty.

To redefine poverty in the United States, and hopefully in other countries as well, would require legislation and regulation regarding the redistribution of wealth as, like previously mentioned, social darwinism continues to be applied, whether purposefully or not, to contemporary society. This is regardless of the fact that the top 20% of the population holds 85% country's wealth and continues to input it into corporations and foundations so that it remains in that percent. Irrational and inaccurate assumptions that people earn their failure and a more common current misconception brought on by the rise of Trumpisms, that the work ethic and motivation of the impoverished and lower class is subpar and therefore, offering assistance to the poor would be taking opportunities for success from deverving wealthy are contributing to this resistance to sharing the responsibility of poverty.