John Galbraith The Position Of Poverty Summary

Poverty has been a major issue throughout the history till date, many nations are still fighting to solve this issue. They have been taking measures to eradicate poverty. However, many People are suffering from poverty, they have shortage of food, clothes and shelter which are the basic needs for a living. In the article “The Position of Poverty” by John Kenneth Galbraith a professor of economics at Harvard University. He talks about how an economy of a country affects poverty and how it can be eradicated.

Galbraith quotes “A vast number of people both in town and country, he noted, had insufficient food, clothing and houseroom; they were: in “overworked and undertaught weary and careworn, without quiet and without leisure.” Large amounts of people do not have adequate food, clothing and shelter. They have been working hard for long hours, doing overtimes but they are not being paid enough. They are not getting the wages they deserve because they are illiterate and lack skills. They are fatigued, miserable, depressed and worried because they don’t have enough money to earn a living for themselves and their family.

He lacks that quality because of “mental deficiency, bad health, alcohol, discrimination.” On that other hand he says “insular poverty” refers to a group “an island” which is poor. They don’t have enough income and their situations are bringing them “below the poverty level.” People don’t have enough income because of lack of education and lack of skills which ends up to unemployment. Galbraith says “The poor gets jobs more easily when the economy is expanding.” He goes on to give a variety of reasons that if economy expands then poor can get jobs easily and problem of unemployment can be solved and if problem of unemployment is solved, poverty automatically will