Bridging the Gap between the Rich and the Poor

There are only two things guaranteed in life; death and taxes.

Let’s save the discussion of death for another day but we all must admit that tax is a key component and determinant of the costs of living in any nation and it directly affects the living standards of citizens in any given country. The worse-case scenario is negative impacts it exerts on the poor.

We all have bills to take care of; whether rich or poor, there are necessities which as human beings, we can’t live without. We need money to be at position to pay off such bills. The problem with being poor or being born in a poor lineage/family is that you will rarely have enough money to take care of most basic needs and wants. This is a pertinent issue because you will have to sacrifice a lot, even the most basic requirements as you try to satisfy other needs which may be pressurizing you.

That’s why we have beggars who can’t afford the next meal and have got to soldier on without one. Poverty is the main cause of high infant mortality rate when mothers can’t afford proper reproductive health care. It is the main reason you see so many street children, vagabonds who have turned to riff raffs of the society, families living in shanty and temporary homes, beggars in our streets, youth turning to robbery etc.

Yet, nobody chooses to be born poor. You don’t choose to be mistreated because of your social status. Do you get a medal for skipping a meal because you can’t afford any? No. Do you get a hi-five or thumbs up for being a street urchin or a riff raff? No.

The response is all in negation. But still hundreds, maybe thousands or more die each single day because their lack of money impede them from accessing basic health care; hundreds are turning to be robbers, gangsters, hit men, you name them. All because they are unemployed, have poorly paying jobs with meager salaries, have no reliable source of income or they are neglected by the government yet they need money to support and sustain their livelihood.

Today, there is that person who will spend the right in the cold because he/she has can’t access any decent housing.

Sarcastically, there are a few who flourish on affluent wealth. A few with big luxury cars, palatial homes, private jets, take their children to the most expensive schools & colleges and have tons of cash in their bank accounts.

How Can We Shift Poverty Problems To Lasting Practical Solutions?

Is the government and its functionalities spending sleepless nights as it seeks ideas, practical ways or maybe methods of bridging the gap between the rich and the poor? Or is it working in any way to lift up the living standards of the poor? What solutions can governments formulate to abolish and completely eradicate poverty?

There are some measures that a government should be embracing to address wealth inequalities and to fight and severe any poverty problems amongst its citizens such as moderating pay packages of public workers or levying high taxes on high-income earners and low taxes on low-income earners as well as minimizing the costs it spends on some sectors such as internal defense or on expensive overheads on utilities and then channeling the same to other basic sectors such as maternal and reproductive health care or secondary education.

Taxing high income earners and urging the rich to be more philanthropy can be a short term call but in the end it might contributes to raising the living standards of the poor and such results are in some way modest at least, but generally short-lived and not advisable.

Embracing Long-term Solutions

Philanthropy won’t work. It may offer a temporal solution which will still degenerate to the same poverty and wealth inequalities at the end. High taxes will encourage laziness and hinder productivity and development. Therefore these are not appropriate solutions to be embraced by any government, not unless in some emergency situations.

On average, even the working class have too little money. As a matter of fact, majority of them are victims of decades of downwards wage adjustments by corporations and business organizations which seek to attain efficiency in the production of goods and services, leading to workers with low levels of family income.

A living proof that most of the working class is made up of the poor is evident in the rise of service jobs, most of which are seasonal or periodical, part-time and badly paying reflecting the daily grind the “working poor” have to contend with.

The real solution to poverty eradication is raising the incomes and minimum wages of these people.

This can be achieved by observing the following:

• Enhancing the value income tax benefit that is paid to low income workers and extending its coverage to more of the poor.
• Raise the minimum wage to reflect the basic lining standards of the economy.
• Protect the working poor for poor wage scale of unscrupulous employers.
• Enacting laws and regulations to protect the workers from unscrupulous businesses and corporations from taking advantage of the desperation of the poor and the less-privileged people.