Question

Herbert Gans posed the following question: “How is poverty positively functional in U.S. society?” Identify three of the “benefits” he outlined that the nonpoor receive from the existence of poverty.

Answer 1

Herbert Gans through his question ‘how is poverty positively functional in the US society’, clarifies how poverty indirectly helps the middle class and upper middle class people than the poor themselves. He discusses 13 points agenda which covers socio, political and economic benefits other receive from the existence of poor people in America. Among them, there three most important benefit he sites which are more explicit in the society.

Firstly, all the other middle class activists groups such as the police, cheap liquor shop owners, church minister, pawn shop owners and even prostitutes use the poor to purchase their sales and services for a cheaper price. The existence of the poor makes their professions easy thus put them in the middle class scale.

Secondly, most of the second hand products including food is bought by the poor and the sellers are mostly from the middle and upper middle class who sell their old things to poor in order to buy something new.

Finally, only poor people will be chased for any crime in the country even though it would have been committed by a middle class or upper middle class person. This safe guards the middle and upper middle class people from the law enforcement agencies. This is because the poor will not have enough money to fight their case and hire a lawyer.