Funeral Costs In The 21st Century

Facing Poverty from Funeral Costs in the 21st Century
Each day many Americans are beginning find themselves face-down in poverty after a loved one passes due to the high expenses of funeral services. Due to the inflation of money supply, prices are rising in all industries, while many people argue the price of many funeral industries it begins to put a bad name on their company (Boring). There are many funeral directors who try to steer families into a more affordable alternative if they have no money for a funeral (Williams). Although those within the funeral industry would argue that they should be able to set their prices and policies as any other business, funeral costs are too high for many families to manage and the government, life
The funeral industry emerged in the aftermath of the Civil War. It began with embalming the fallen soldiers. During and after the war, embalming became acceptable to many Americans that wanted to have one last look at their loved ones(Farrel). Many more undertakers began to experiment “embalming” after the war was over, by the end of the 20th century, embalming became a necessary practice for many parts of the country. Citizens who owned furniture industries often began to focus on the production of coffins for the embalmed individuals, until the early 1950’s, there were over 700 companies making caskets in the US. The death of Abraham Lincoln sparked the rise of the funeral industry by transporting his dead body from Washington to Springfield, Illinois for burial. The nation wanted to see his dead body, but it was not easy to keep a corpse presentable during this time, until Thomas Holmes, known as one of the founding fathers of the funeral industry and “The Father of American Embalming”, thought that their way of embalming was too harsh because they used chemicals like arsenic and mercury(Farrel). Holmes began to experiment arterial embalming, filling the arteries with preservatives like alcohol and flushing the blood out of the
Heather Kennedy, funeral poverty officer, said: “We’ve learned the value of looking beyond these obvious allegiances and building relationships across traditional political divides. The campaign has succeeded when we’ve been able to communicate with funeral poverty”. If your on certain benefits you might qualify for a “Social fund funeral payment”, but only covers 35% of a basic funeral. If you’re in just low paid work you will not receive any benefits from any form of government towards funeral cost(Kennedy). Considering there is so much green space in the US, there should be natural burial at a very low cost from the government, this space takes over more than thousands of free space widely spread throughout the country(WIlliams). The government should cover at least ½ of the funeral if the family is on special medicaid and obviously can not afford a proper burial(Kennedy). As one suffering from this devastation some ideas for preparing for these circumstances could be that if there’s time, try to prepay some funeral expenses unless death occurs unexpectedly, others could not claim a body if you desperately have no money, and it be taken care of by the state or government, or before death if you have no money a considerable thought would be to donate the body to science(Kennedy). Funeral operators should make their most affordable package visible to the public including third party