Data as Evidence

            For this blog post, I decided to look at the differences between the county, state, and nation on the amount of children who are living in poverty. This is a sad statistic for anyone to look at. According to dictionary.com, Poverty is “the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor.” When we think of poverty, we often think of the adults who don’t have a job and can’t support themselves, but in many of these cases there is also the children who are dragged down with the adults.

When looking at the national average (See graph below), we can see that the percentage of children who are living in poverty has gone up considerably. In 2011, the average was up to its highest peak in history, at around 22.5%. This may seem like a small percentage, but when you look into the 2010 census and see that at that time there were 74,181,467 children under the age of 18 living in the US. By 2011, that number would have increased, but going with that we get that there is about 16,690,830 children who are living in poverty range.

 

 (http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/Line/43-children-in-poverty?loc=1&loct=1#1/any/false/867,133,38,35,18,17,16,15,14,13/asc/any/322)

Looking at poverty in a little bit smaller scale, we see that our state of Michigan is not better off than the state average (See graph below). According to the national kids count website, we see that in 2011, Michigan peaked at about 25% of children living in poverty. That is one quarter of all the children living in Michigan are at poverty level. Chances are we have gone to school with these children, became friends with them, and knew nothing about what was really going on for them at home.

(http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/Line/43-children-in-poverty?loc=1&loct=1#2/24/false/867,133,38,35,18,17,16,15,14,13/asc/any/322)

Once more we will move down to a smaller picture of the poverty in our country. For this next section, I will be looking at the county that my home town is in, in Michigan. Marquette County. Compared to the state and national averages, Marquette County is doing pretty good actually. According to the graph below, Marquette County has peaked at around 18%. It is still not a very good number, but it better than the 20+% off the state and national average. Marquette County is a smaller County in Michigan, so that could be one of the reasons that it is lower.

 (http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/Line/1765-poverty--all-ages--saipe?loc=24&loct=2#5/3795/false/867,133,38,35,18,17,16,15,14,13/asc/any/13136)

Now, you may be wondering why the poverty level of children is so high right now. That can be caused by many things. The one thing that I think of is the unemployment rate. Right now the rate is up pretty high which means that not as many people actually have a job at this moment. Without a job, they have no way of getting money in to pay for what they need and they are dropped to poverty level. This matters to us on a sociological level because our society is pretty much run on money. Those who don’t have much are seen as outcasts. Without having money, they may not be able to get to college or get a high paying job, and they could be stuck in poverty when they are older because of this. It is my guess though, that like the housing bubble, this will only be a short time. Looking at the three graphs posted above, you can see that the poverty rate has gone up and down throughout the ten years shown. I do think it will continue to gradually get bigger, but in that time it will go down slightly and people will be able to adjust better.

 

 
Sources:

Kids count data center. The Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2013. Web. 15 Sept. 2013. <http://datacenter.kidscount.org/>.

 

 

The Sociological Imagination

This morning was like any other school day for me. I got up at 7:00 and went on facebook before getting ready. I then brushed my teeth, brushed my hair and got changed. I grabbed my supplies and headed out of the door, as I said “see you later” to my roommate. While walking down the stairs, I politely moved out of the way as someone else was coming up and we shared a smile before I continued down to my first class. I hurried along the way because I didn’t wanted be late, yet still smiled and said hi to friends as I passed them. When I came to the door, a nice gentleman held it open for me and again I smiled and said thank you. I made it to my class early and sat down and unloaded my supplies.


Even though these may seem like simple tasks, when looking at the bigger picture of them, they become much more.



1.) I went on Facebook. Facebook has become such a big part of our society recently. It contains all of the who’s-who and what’s-what of our daily life. Is has gotten to where you are basically left out of the loop when it comes to most information if you do not have access to Facebook. Most people no longer use email, or write letters to get in touch with others. If they have something they need to say, they go straight to Facebook. In my experience, people think you are strange if you do not go on Facebook and one of the first questions I usually get now is “do you have a Facebook account?” If it is not Facebook, It is Twitter. Our society is wrapped so tightly around technology that it is easiest just to jump on board rather than be left behind. I have seen everyone from eight year old children to elderly grandparents joining Facebook just to keep in touch. Facebook is also used a way for future employers to check on your character to see if they should hire you.

2.) I brushed my hair. I am told by society that I must brush my hair. The people who are higher up in society are usually the ones who have their hair done up into fancy hairdos or at least have clean hair. We see many famous people daily on tv with perfect hair. You are looked down upon by many people if you walk around with messy hair. You may not get hired at a job because the boss may think that if you don’t care about your appearance, then you probably won’t care about your job either.

3.) I smiled as a greeting. In society today, we have many types of greetings. Some are nice, and others are mean. Smiling at a person as you pass shows that you are a kind person and not any threat. If you are not in a good mood, and you frown or scowl, then you could be taken as antisocial, or a threat and no one will want to be around you. Even though they are basically the same thing, just flipped over, a smile is seen as a more open gesture than a frown is and people would much rather hang out with the happier looking person.

4.) I had someone hold the door for me. For some reason, this is customary for boys to hold open the door for girls. You always hear people say “Ladies first” when it comes to guys and girls. Boys are taught (and expected) at a young age that they should respect the girls and treat them like princesses. However, it is not pushed upon girls to hold the door for guys. I hold the door open for anyone just because it seems nice. In our society though, it is more focused on boys being proper towards the girls.

5.) I arrived to class early. It is seen as rude in our society today to come barging into a classroom late. You are interrupting the class and breaking up the learning for your fellow students. When you show up early, you show the professor that you respect what he or she is doing and take your learning seriously. Arriving early allows you the time to prepare your mind for the lesson so you can get the most out of it. This is important in our education based society. We are told that school is very important and for the most part can’t even get a job without it.



Now, what if we didn’t do some of these tasks, or if they were seen as strange to our community? What would that be like? Take brushing your hair for instance. What would the world be like if when you turned on the TV, you saw your favorite actress rocking her matted birds’ nest of a hairdo? We would never have to take the time to brush our hair because wealth and status would be shown by how messed up your hair is. If you took the time to straighten, or brush, or even style your hair, you would be seen as an outcast. Your hair gets greasy, why would you want to touch that? It would just dirty up your hands and get all over everywhere. The people who touch their hair to clean it up are the ones who will be seen as dirty or unclean individuals and will be cast aside like garbage. The grease that you got on your hands would get all over the door knobs and railings and disgust everyone around you. What kind of a world would that be? Not one that I would personally like to live in.