Contemporary Social Issues: Wealth and Poverty

Causes of Poverty in Europe and Developing Countries

1. Poverty is caused by a lack of basic human needs due to the inability to afford them.
2. Basic human needs include nutrition, water, clothing and shelter, health care and education.
3. Relative poerty is the condition of having fewer resources or less income than others within
a society or country.
4. The causes of poverty include a lack of responsability, bad government policy and
exploitation.
5. The main causes of poverty in the UK are the inequality in wages, the reduction in the state
benefits and the higher levels of unenployment.
6. Food aid, when not for an emergency relief, can actually be very destructive for farmers.
7. Local farmers cannot compete with subsidiced food; consequently they are driven out of
jobs into poverty.
8. The strong dependency on the welare system has shaped European attitudes towards the
causes of poverty.
9. 17% of the EU's population is classified as mateerially deprived. This is higher for women
than for men in all countries, except Sweden.
10. On average, one in five children in the EU are living in poverty which equates to 20% of the
population.
11. Despite the promises of world governments, internationally agreed targets to halve global
poverty by 2015 will probably never be reached.
12. The rules of international trade are stacked in favour of the most powerful countries and
their business interests.
13. The debts of the world's poorets countries probably cannot be paid, and should be cancelled
in full, by fair and transparent means.
14. Poverty will not be able to be erradicated until there is an inmediate and major increase in
international aid.
15. Rich countries promised to provide 0.7% of the national income in international aid.
16. Charity organizations, not the United Nations, are suited to provide aid to the poor.
17. If a tax on bank transactions was globally introduced, it would raise enough money to
reduce poverty and protect public services and jobs.
18. Fair trade good are predominantly sold in specialist shops and cannot brack into mainstrean
distribution chains.
19. Fair trade addresses the injustices of conventional trade agreements which discriminate
against the poorest and weakest producers.
20. International trade results large-scale production and access to global markets.

Attitudes to Wealth and Poverty

21. Many people wrongly believe that in the UK poverty is alrgely the fault of the individual.
22. Three quarters of people in the UK think the gap between the rich and the poor is too large.
23. Attitudes towards what constitute poverty and its causes seem to have hardened.
24. Sympathy towards the unemployed increases significantly when people are informed just
how Jobseeker's Allowance really is.
25. Poverty is about lacking the basic necessities of life rather than not having what most
people take for granted
26. What people see as being basic necessities has changed as society has got richer.
27. Those commited to reducing poverty and inequality are making strategic mistakes in their
efforts to win public support.

28. The government should build on its minimum wage policy and go further in tacling low pay
at work.
29. People who care about poverty and inequality are right to push politicians to go further.
30. The Robin Hood Tax would raise enough money to help poor people, protect public services
and tackle climate change issues.

The link between Wealth and Health

31. The government is focused on closing the wealth gap between rich and poor.
32. In poor nations, up to 20% of children die before the age of five whereas in rich countries it
is less than 1%.
33. Most of the illnesses associated with poverty are diseases such as diarrhoea, malaria and
tuberculosis.
34. Acording to UNICEF, 24,000 children die each day due to the consequences of poverty.
35. Infectious diseases continue to blight the lives of the poor across the world.
36. Hunger and malnutrition exacerbate chronic and acute diseases and speed the onset of
degenerative diseases among the elderly.
37. Illness prevents people from working or affects their productivity lowering their income.
38. Those living in poverty have poorer life chances and poorer health because of lower living
standards, including poor housing and poor diet.
39. Obesity in the developed world can be seen as a result of a series of changes in diet and a
reduction in physical activity.
40. For those with disposable income AIDS can be a manageable condition, for everyone else it
means protractes illness and death.