Recently, Americans received some sobering news about the unemployment rate in this country. The rate is now 10.2%, the first time the number crack the 10% mark since 1983 and despite that the recession is finally over ( the rate shows no signs of slowing down. Apparently, the media didn't get the memo that the unemployment rate had already reached double digits well over a year ago for both African-Americans (currently at 15%) and Latinos (currently at 12%.) I wonder why is that the number is higher for both groups when in comparison to the national figures? Hmmm....now that is a topic that will be discussed at another time. What I am going about in this post is poverty, specifically, how to slow down or even lower the poverty rate in this country.
Poverty's Paradise
Poverty has been a part of this nation's history for centuries, whenever if the economy was really good, or when it is near depression-type numbers (like it is right now) and it is not going anywhere anytime soon. This post will illustrate my ideas on how to lower the poverty in the United States. By any means I am not United States Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner or former Chairman of the United States Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan, but I have some thoughts (radical, maybe, we'll see about that) on the subject.
The Ideas:
1. Equal Pay For Equal for all people
There is a bill that ensures equal pay for everyone regardless of the job, however it seems that the glass ceiling has been cracked, but it has not been broken for both women and minorities in the labor force in 2o09. Yes, there are cases that women and minorities make as much money as men, sometimes more, but that percentage is low and a man usually make the most money between the two groups majority of the time. In my opinion, if a woman, a minority and a man has the same job title at the same company,with similar skills and earn the same college degree(s), then everyone should receive equal pay for their work, and that person's race, gender or ethnicity should never became a factor on why they earn less than a man. If there a case where a company/corporation/organization actually base their salary scale on their employee's gender or skin color, then they will be held accountable for their actions and will face severe punishment (firing/suspension/fine.)
2. Give the CEO a ultimatum
It is always something that when you hear that the day a CEO retires, they receive their base salary (with a bonus attached to it )along with a retirement or severance package, which earns them millions of dollars. If you are an employee and you hear that the boss is getting paid like that, and you look at your paycheck, you have to be ticked off, to say the least. In my opinion, when a CEO retires, they must decide which paycheck that they want to keep between the base salary and the retirement package. Once they make that decision, the money that is left over, will be place back in the company/corporation so that they can hire new workers and create more jobs. The goal here is to bring in as many people into the work force as possible and make a lot of money at the same time.
3. Trust Fund
One of the many reasons why poverty has never gone away is because there is
a continuous cycle among families that one generation is just as poor as the previous one and the next generation is going to face the same financial struggle as the first group and so on and so on etc. There has to be a way to break the chains of poverty that has plagued so many families throughout the years. One way is to establish a trust fund for all children the moment they start kindergarten, where each child will receive the same base amount and that money will go to the fund in her or his name. Once they start first grade, they that where it is going to get interesting. Each child will receive money for every good grade they earn in the classroom, but they will not lose any money if they earn bad any grades at school. Basically, a student will not lose nor earn any money in their trust fund they receive bad grades, they just get rewarded for their high grades in class. The money accumulated in the trust fund will last until the student graduates from high school, and once graduation day comes, the student can use the funds for variety of things (ex. go on to college, start a business, buy a house, buy a car, etc.) as long as that person uses the money wisely and not blow it on stupid stuff. The cycle of poverty has to end sometime and needs to stop now.
Conclusion
Those ideas stated above are ways, in my opinion, to lower the poverty rate in the United States. Will a politician use my ideas to fight poverty, I can't answer that, but would be great to see if anyone would try out at least one of my ideas and see what happens.
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