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Poverty In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

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Families that are poor or have a low income are more likely to commit crimes for the purpose of their own needs to survive. “It is a fact that neighborhoods where the poor are concentrated are more prone to high crime rates, and poor residents are the most common victims of crimes” (1). The best explanation for this is that poorer people have the same needs as a regular middle-class citizen. The poor citizens need certain things to help him or her live a healthy life, such as healthcare, food stamps, and more employment options. One may argue that healthcare is too expensive and that food stamps have been taken away from many people. It is also extremely difficult to get a well-paying job in order to pay for housing, healthcare, and food. The lack of healthcare, food stamps, and well-paying jobs can result in people turning towards crime because of issues such as mental health, physical health, and employment options. One reason that people turn to crime is because of the lack of healthcare. Even when healthcare is available to people, a large portion of them are not able to …show more content…

Sinclair bases these struggles on things that happen to Jurgis and his family. One example that the author describes is how thousands of men wait outside the workplace just to get a chance at a job. “All day long the gates of the packing houses were besieged by starving and penniless men; they came, literally, by the thousands every single morning, fighting with each other for a chance for life…. Sometimes their faces froze, sometimes their feet and their hands; sometimes they froze all together— but still they came, for they had no other place to go” (Sinclair 92). Another example the author displays is when Ona, Jurgis’s wife, dies after giving birth. If Jurgis had healthcare or enough money to pay for a real doctor, Ona may have survived (Sinclair chapter

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