Poverty exists because our society is an unequal one, and there are plenty of political pressures to keep it that way. Any attempt to redistribute wealth and income in the United States will be opposed by powerful middle and upper class interests. People can be relatively rich only if others are relatively poor, and since power is concentrated in the hands of the rich, public policies will continue to reflect their interests rather than those of the poor.
As Herbert Gans has pointed out, poverty is actually functional form from the point of view of the non-poor. Poverty ensures that ‘dirty’ work gets done. If there were no poor people to clean floors and empty dustbins, these jobs would have to be rewarded with high incomes before anyone would touch them. Poverty creates jobs for many of the non-poor, such as police officers, welfare workers, and government officials. Poverty makes life easier for the rich by providing them with cooks, gardeners and other workers to perform basic work while their employers enjoy more pleasurable activities. Poverty provides a market for low-level goods and services, such as day-old bread, rundown automobiles. Poverty legitimizes (make legal) middle-class values. To the middle class, the fate of the poor---who are supposed to lack honesty, and a taste of hard work---only confirms the desirability of qualities the poor are thought to lack. Poverty also provides a group that can be made to absorb the costs of change. For example, the poor bear the pressure of unemployment and it’s their homes, not those of the wealthy, that are destroyed when a route has to be found for a new highway. It cannot be said that the wealthy keep the poor in poverty. It is just that poverty is an outcome of the American economic system, which the poor are politically powerless to influence or change.
67. The best title is ________________________.
A. Functions of Poverty B. Political Power in Poverty
C. The Fate of the Poor D. An Unequal Society
68. Poverty exists in American society because ____________.
A. the wealthy work hard and are glad to keep it
B. the majority of the non-poor are totally indifferent (not paying much attention) to it
C. the rich are politically powerful while the poor are politically powerless
D. the poor like the jobs that they’re supplied by the wealthy.
69. The poor take on ‘dirty work’ ___________________.
A. under political pressure B. for the high pay offered
C. as they are reasonably paid D. though ill-paid
70. The author thinks that _____________________.
A. the poor lack such desirable qualities as honesty
B. the poor are not supposed to work hard
C. the poor are willing to bear the costs of change D. none of the above