Preview

Illiteracy In The United States

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1791 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Illiteracy In The United States
• Unequal wealth distribution: People that are rich, just get more money and people that are poor, just get less money. The rich people receive the biggest part of the income and the poor people get a much smaller portion of the income. Wealth should be redistributed so it’s more equal otherwise poverty will be a problem (Magazine, n.d.)
• Illiteracy: People don’t have enough education and that means they can’t do most jobs. People struggle to communicate effectively if they don’t have education needed. This means that people that have innovative or great ideas can’t share them or put them into action because they don’t have the education that they need to accomplish that. The Central Connecticut State University did a study which showed that South Africa is one of the most illiterate countries in the world. The rankings are based on 5 categories that are used as indicators of the literate health of nations: newspapers, libraries, education inputs and outputs, and the availability of computers. South Africa was ranked as 56th overall. (BusinessTech, n.d.).Research shows that 58% of Gr 4 learners in South Africa can’t read and 29% are completely illiterate. (Help2Read, n.d.). When looking at wealthy countries, the illiteracy rates of those who have completed Gr 4 are low. England has 5%, the
…show more content…
On the other hand, 1 in every 4 South Africans go hungry regularly. Round about 40% of South Africans eat the recommended amount of calories daily but the food doesn’t have enough nutrition causing them to be malnourished. Food insecurity also includes not having food of sufficient quality. 43.6% of children in South Africa have a Vitamin A deficiency and 1 in 10 children in South Africa are anemic. That means they don’t have enough iron in their bodies. This can lower their IQs because they don’t get the nutrition their bodies need. (News,

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Wealth is distributed unequally amongst the world’s people. This issue has been a long-standing, global problem, and applies to numerous people and numerous measurements of wealth. In terms of income, which is one of these measurements, “[…] the lowest quintile of U.S. households accounted for 3.4% of total income,…

    • 1142 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    social developments and/or humanitarian efforts: A pole done in 2011said that the literacy rate of the population was 90.4%, meaning 9.6% of people are still illiterate in the country. Every year this can go up if children…

    • 356 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Wealth inequality can be described as a lot of different things. The one that comes to mind the most though is the gap between the rich and poor. This gap is made up of a variety of different things. The one that comes to many minds is the tax code system. In order to correct the wealth gap in the United States efforts should be made to change the tax codes to close the gap between the rich and poor.…

    • 893 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Money is one of the main contributors when it comes to illiteracy. Low literacy costs about seventy-three million dollars per year, in terms of health care. America has to provide for the welfare for all the illiterate people in the Unites States who do not even know how to read. Some people drop out of high school and rely on welfare to get them through life without getting a job, because only one out of four high school dropouts get job. Illiterates cannot do simple things that a high school graduate could do, so therefore they have to rely on someone else to do the simple tasks for them. For example, if people cannot read street signs, applications for jobs, or even menus to eat they have to rely on someone else to do this for them which cost money. Illiterate people are vulnerable to society, so America spends money to try and make them seem less vulnerable and try to make them fit in. Forty-four thousand people are added to the adult illiterate population each week in the United States, which is more money due to the fact that if more and more people are becoming illiterate they are relying on the government to give them money through welfare and even food stamps. All in all money is a disastrous problem when it comes to illiteracy and the United States is trying to be more manageable with the financial…

    • 817 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Are the Rich Necessary

    • 2480 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Some people referred to as egalitarians or equalitarian wishes to get rid of the rich or at least reduce the extremes of wealth and poverty. They views rich as parasites because they reap the benefits in luxury while the poor work hard at minimum wage to earn their money. They argue that wealth causes poverty, the rational without the rich there would be no poor. When calculated, if the top one percent of rich in America gave half of their net income to the poor, poverty defined by the government would be eliminated in the US. This may be true for America but the affect on the global poor would be minimal because the needs of the poor globally are greater than American poor. The problem is not that the rich does not adequately share with the poor, instead they grind people to the ground, exploit them, steal from them, and deny them with decent living standards or health care.…

    • 2480 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society by Jonathan Kozol, is an article which illustrates the reality for millions of Americans, and the impact illiteracy has on the overall population and that individual and their family. Kozol draws emotional and personal stories which impact the reader as well as allude that the lack of literacy is in direct correlation with Democracy and how illiterate people will vote, if they even do at all.…

    • 366 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jonathan Kozol discusses in depth the negative effects that illiteracy has on everyone. Illiteracy is unfortunately a common problem today and usually is more prone in lower income families and is passed down through the generations. When your parents can not read or write, you grow up without the importance of being taught these skills and then the cycle of illiteracy continues. I can only imagine the shame and discomfort someone feels in not being able to read or write. When signing documents you have to trust that the person reading it to you is honest, or you will be signing something you do not understand. “A submerged sense of distrust becomes the consequence to a constant need to trust” (233), because you don’t have a choice.…

    • 432 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Howard (2001) claimed that poor nutrition leads to low achievement at school because poorer homes have a lower intake of vitamins, minerals and energy which reduces children's health and lowers their energy levels, and will also weaken their immune system. Malnourished children will have more time off school due to illness, and their academic success will suffer as a result.…

    • 524 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    In today’s capitalist economy, where economic transactions and business in general is centered on self-interest, there is a natural tendency for some people to make more than others. That is the basis for the “American Dream,” where people, if they worked hard, could make money proportional to their effort. However, what happens when this natural occurrence grows disproportional in its allocation of wealth within a society? The resulting issue becomes income inequality. Where a small portion of the population, own the majority of the wealth and the majority of the population own only a fraction of what the rich own. This prominent issue has always been the subject of social tension from even before the French Revolution and spawns numerous other social issues in a society. In the more recent Occupy Movement, beginning in 2011, protesters used income inequality as a motive. Moreover, they were justified in doing so. In a 2010 statistic, it was revealed that the top 1% of America, own 35% of the wealth while the lower 80%, over the majority of the population, only have 11% of the nation’s wealth distributed between them. Financially the situation is even worse where the bottom 80% own only 5% of the financial wealth and the top 1% own 42% of the Nation’s financial wealth. Not to say the top 1% didn’t work hard to get to where they are, but according to the ideals of the “American Dream,” the top 1% should have worked 243 times harder than the average, not the poorest, worker in America. This extreme of disproportional wealth distribution is not only a source of social conflict, but a catalyst for various other problems that exist.…

    • 1528 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “The Human cost of an illiterate society,” Jonathan Kozol attempts to convince his reader that illiteracy is extremely harmful to a society, and that it is the ultimate destruction of a human being’s life. He explains with great detail how being ignorant (unknown) at something so universal like being able to read the directions on a medicine label, can lead to a lifetime of hardship and long term agony. Kozol develops his reasoning by contributing meaningful but real world examples on how being illiterate is dangerous and fatal. For example He uses not being able to explain where you are if something fatal was to happen, and not being able to understand the dangers of a cigarettes label with a surgeons warning on it. After giving a plenty load of examples, he then brings the discussion back to his central argument on how being illiterate can be costly. When a person does not understand what they have wrongfully done it can be difficult to prosecute or judge that person. If he is not able to read then that person might not be aware that giving a child too much aspirin could result in overdose which can ultimately lead to death. The question that still remains is should that person be held accountable. According to today’s society the answer is still unknown but to protect the people of this society from that illiterate person, the answer is yes that person must be limited. What this ultimately means is that, he must be kept from society so that he won’t cause harm for his on ignorant habits. He will have to be watched, fed, and kept in an environment where he will always be stable. This top of living can cost a lot of money and this is the financial burden that cost a society so much money. In a way this is unfair…

    • 367 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    What does our ideology say about why some people are rich and some are poor?…

    • 332 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Essay On Income Inequality

    • 1933 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Income inequality means that there is no equality between people. Also, there are big differences between the rich and everyone else. This problem grows year after year. Some people become poor and other become rich. The American Dream is related to income because everyone who wants to achieve the American Dream must have a great income. Rich and poor people are all human beings, but poor people have stolen money from each other because they do not have a great experience to get money. Rich people have great experience in business because they received from his or her family, also they study in great school and university. In addition, education is one of the greatest things to have the huge income. People who study in higher education will…

    • 1933 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Précis: In "The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society", Jonathan Kozol, a Harvard graduate, argues that illiteracy cause the loss of choice or freedom and leads to many problems. Kozol highlights his argument with examples of when illiteracy can be binding such as "Many illiterates cannot read the admonition on a pack of cigarettes. Neither the Surgeon General's warning nor its reproduction on the package can alert them to the risks."(20). He gives extensive and detailed scenarios in order to raise awareness on the harm of illiteracy. Kozol addresses his readers so that they may spread awareness on illiteracy and eventually resolve the problem.…

    • 415 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Unequal income distribution between the richer and poorer individuals in a society will create inequality in resources they have access to for instance low income individuals will have access to food bank with no choice of variety, however the higher income individuals will be able to choose where they shop and they will be able to determine what level of quality the purchase.…

    • 362 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Anthropology Chapter 8

    • 490 Words
    • 2 Pages

    One big example that you will see in our society today is public education. Public education is funded in through state and local taxes. This acts as a leveling mechanism that allows all of the tax monies to be collected into an education fund that is spread throughout the entire education system within state. The predominantly upper class areas do not get higher percentages just because they are wealthier. This allows the funds that are collected from the rich as well as the poor to be evenly distributed to the educational systems of a society. This then allows the state officials to allocate certain funds where they see fit. Again this keeps the funding fair and allows all members of the society to reap the benefits, which in turn is public education.…

    • 490 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays