The Financial Crisis Of 2008 - 1689 Words

Our society seems to doing well since the financial crisis of 2008. The country is recovering from the Great Recession, unemployment is down and the global domestic product is up. People have jobs and are paying taxes. President Obama lowered our budget deficit and promised to make healthcare more available to all. On average, America is well on its way to recovery. But what about the people that slipped through the cracks of the financial stimulus plan? These are the people that lost their jobs, and subsequently their homes. These are America’s impoverished and homeless. Homelessness now contains a bigger spectrum of people than ever before. This population now includes many everyday people, including college educated individuals. These†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"In 1980 federal dollars accounted for 22 percent of big city budgets. By the end of Reagan’s second term, federal aid was only 6 percent† (NHI). These dramatic cutbacks had horrible consequences on cities with large poor populations. The already poor were forced out on the streets. In 1973 the poverty rate was 11.1%. This number began to rise after implementation of Regan’s policies in 1980’s to 15.2%. The amount of people living in poverty was slightly lowered due to President Clinton’s democratic policy in the late 1990’s, to 11.3% by 2000. It then rose to 12.7% in 2004 (NPC). Thus poverty can be seen as a product of welfare policy, but it is also a product of our materialistic consumer culture. This is an issue where all of us are to blame. We value money and instant gratification more than people’s lives. People walk by beggars without acknowledging them, something that we wouldn’t consider doing to the higher class of society. We dismiss them as useless junkies because of their hard circumstances. Students Against Hunger and Homelessness report that 20% of homeless people are addicts and 25% suffer from mental illness. Such progression happens because after landing on the street some people turn to drugs or alcohol for comfort. However, dismissing them as drains on our society is not the right mindset to