Introduction
In my letter, I would like to address a serious issue that, unfortunately, still affects our community of Savannah, Georgia, and in poverty. This problem influences both individuals and society, as it is closely connected with the rise of homelessness, malnutrition, food insecurity, insufficient childcare, lack of access to healthcare, under-resourced institutions, unsafe environment, and others. Further in the letter, the poverty in our city will be elaborated on, and my solution for its elimination will be stated, as well.
Discussion
According to the provided statistics, approximately 24 percent of the city population is below the poverty line (Savannah’s poverty rate is higher than Georgia’s, nearly double the national average, 2019). The main reason behind the worsening of this tendency is the growing wealth gap, which demonstrates an uneven distribution of resources between national households. Significantly, it is mostly the non-white population, that suffers from the wealth shortage, since one of the causes of the initial wealth gap emergence was former racially discriminatory housing and lending policies. For instance, 69 percent of those with a yearly income lower than $10000 are represented by people of color, mostly black (Household income in Savannah, Georgia, #10). Moreover, the wealth gap between white Americans and minority Americans is predicted to increase in the future, just like it already did after the Great Recession.
Conclusion
In my view, to eliminate the issue of poverty in Savannah, we should follow Karl Marx’s philosophy of justice expressed by fairness, which was described in Chapter 9 of “Roots of Wisdom: A Tapestry of Philosophical Traditions” by Mitchel. According to it, manual labor should not be exploited for a minimal wage, instead, the means of production should belong to the workers (Mitchell, 2019). While the poor spend their whole life working, still being unable to escape poverty, the rich become even richer. It is only communism that will allow us to stop alienating people from their work and achieve justice in terms of the obtained wealth of the citizens.
References
Household income in Savannah, Georgia. (n. d.). Statistical Atlas. Web.
Mitchell, H. B. (2019). Roots of wisdom: A tapestry of philosophical traditions (8th ed.). Cengage Learning.
Savannah’s poverty rate is higher than Georgia’s, nearly double the national average. (2019). WJCL. Web.