Research Paper on:
Contemporary Society and Poverty Causes

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
life, and it often changes their perceptions for the worse. The drive to possess great amounts of money has survived throughout the centuries, only to become even more disastrous  in contemporary culture. There appears to be no end to what people will do to acquire a lot of money, often sacrificing their families, their health and their morality.  How can something that fits in the palm of ones hand evoke such cultural tension and strife? To be sure, the more money one possesses in most cultures  equates to a better life, inasmuch as it allows people to rise out of poverty. What are the major causes of poverty in todays society? How is this  related to racism, if at all? When considering such concepts as poverty, welfare, racism, social fact, social structure, social stratification, social inequality, functional theory and conflict theory, one gains  a significantly better perspective of how greed and lack of social conscience reflect povertys primary causes. Defining these particular concepts proves to be  an easy venture; putting them into action, however, is another matter altogether. Poverty is to live below the socially accepted line of decent existence. It is important for  the student to consider the fact that those in poverty typically do not have many of lifes basic necessities, such as enough food, adequate housing or medical care. Welfare  is a government system that was designed to help those who are poverty-stricken by providing the aforementioned necessities by way of monthly checks. Racism plays a significant role in  the aspect of poverty, inasmuch as the vast majority of the poverty-stricken population is of color. The very nature of racism is to dislike a person because of his