The Sad Truth About Poverty

Before I get started speaking about a future sustainability issue I feel so strongly about I would like for you to get to know me better. My name is Edward Alongi and I am a 19 year old student who attends the University At Buffalo. I am currently studying and taking classes trying to get a degree in finance. The concept of money in general is something I find extremely polarizing which is why I am currently studying finance and it is also why I have decided to talk about poverty.

The issue I have decided to talk about in my post is poverty and I would like to speak more in depth about the importance, issues, and some possible solutions to the issues surrounding poverty. Poverty is so important to me because of the amount of people it affects around the globe. Above 10% of the entire global population is currently living in poverty and that is a number that has to decrease. 10% of the population is over 700 million people who are currently living in poverty, that is a number that I find absolutely heart-breaking considering most of these people have not even been given a fair chance to get out of poverty.

While the number of people who are in poverty seems to be extremely high I feel like those numbers might actually now be higher than previously reported due to the on-going COVID-19 pandemic the world is currently going through. With government forced lockdowns and current social distancing guidelines many local businesses like restaurants have been forced to shutdown and may not ever be able to open back up again which could lead to a significant increase to poverty rates. Unfortunately it seems that due to the pandemic poverty levels are going to increase globally however I do feel like there are solutions out there.

I feel like the biggest issue about poverty is the lack of awareness most people have towards the subject. If more and more people took the time out of there days to look at the affects of poverty I feel like more and more people would support the fight against poverty. On top of the overall awareness of the issue being so low another issue is the wealth distribution in general. As someone who is aiming to join the finance world I find it fascinating that some people have enough money to give everyone in The United States of America some money and yet many other people cannot afford their next meal.

After reading this post you might be asking yourself “What does this matter to me” or “What can I do to help?” or possibly even “Why is this an issue that is not talked about more?” and I hope you are having those questions because these are questions I feel need to be asked more often when discussing the overall solution to poverty.