Poverty exists because our society is an unequal one, and there are powerfulpolitical pressures to keep it that way. Any attempt to redistributing wealth and in __1__
come in the United States will inevitably be opposed by powerful middle and upper
class interests. People can be relatively rich only if you are relatively poor, and as __2__
power is mainly in the hands of the rich, public policies reflect their interests than __3__
those of the poor.As Mr. Herbert Gans has pointed out, poverty is actually functional from the
point of view of the nonpoor. Poverty ensures that dirty work gets doing. If there __4__
were no poor poeple to scrub floors and empty bedpans, there jobs will have to be __5__
rewarded with high incomes before anyone would touch them. Poverty creates jobs
for many of the nonpoor, such as police officers, welfare workers, and government
bureaucrats. Poverty makes life easier for the rich by providing them with cookers, __6__
gardeners, and other workers to perform basic chores when their employers enjoy __7__
more pleasurable activities. Poverty provides a market for more inferior goods and __8__
service, such as dayold bread, rundown automobiles, or the advice of competent __9__
physicians and lawyers. Poverty also provides a group that can be made to absorb
the costs of change. It is just that poverty is an inevitable outcome of the American
economic system, in which the poor are politically powerless to influence or change. __10__