Title: Poverty and Unemployment: Exploring the Connections | Learning for Justice
Headings: Poverty and Unemployment: Exploring the Connections
Poverty and Unemployment: Exploring the Connections
Bookmark Poverty and Unemployment: Exploring the Connections
Objectives
Activities will help students:
Essential Questions
Essential Questions:
Materials
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Content: Glossary
poverty [ pov -er-tee]
(noun) the condition of lacking sufficient money or goods to meet basic human needs such as food, shelter, clothing
Activities
Introduction: Many factors contribute to poverty. Most, if not all, of them—such as low-quality education, lack of adequate food and healthcare, and geographic location—can be traced to the legacy of discrimination that plagues people of color in the United States. Among the factors that often contribute to poverty are unemployment and underemployment. Put simply, many people live in poverty because they are unable to find a job that pays a living wage—or to find a job at all. To be sure, not everyone who is unemployed lives in poverty, but in this lesson you will look at how unemployment and underemployment often contribute to poverty. Poverty and unemployment do not affect everyone equally. People of color suffer from both unemployment and poverty disproportionately. In this lesson you will begin to question why—and in subsequent lessons you will delve more deeply into that question. 1.