Session 6: Economics and Causes of Poverty

Chapter 5 and 6 in some way legitimized my idea on how historical discrimination and hinderance on many minority groups still have a lingering effect on the poverty rates of some of those minority groups to this day. In these chapters, it talked about how some of the institutions and laws that were set up to purposefully disenfranchise minorities, Women included. What I found to be most interesting is how many believe that poverty is becoming, and to some, already is, "a woman's problem". Many of the families in poverty are headed by single females, and the fact that there is still great income inequality between men and women, even when doing the same job, contributes greatly to the notion previously stated. Minority women fair much worse, seeing as they are not only minorities, but women as well, which makes it doubly hard for them to acquire prosperity. One common thread that I have seen since reading this book is the impact on education and success and income stability. It seems that education is the a direct link to the potential income that will be acquired by an individual. This goes back to the institutions set up to keep minorities in poverty, with legislation like separate but equal, and traditionally racism and segregation, where many Blacks and Latinos have access to schools that are greatly under-funded and don't have as many resources as those of their White and Asian counterparts. Overall my views have not changed from this week's reading, hopefully something will change with next week's reading assignment.