Categories of Poor

0:01 Hello students, welcome to the third in a series of tutorial videos we're doing on poverty. In today's tutorial, we are going to be looking on the categories of poor and that primarily is the categories of poor people within a society. Now uh let's begin by identifying who poor people are in our society. I told you already I would classify as poor and you can you can see that based on my job anyways uh who are poor people within our society. Now what you'll see on the screen says that poor

0:46 people are people who are affected by poverty and poverty affects diverse groups of people and this is often due to social, economic or physical disadvantages. So those are three indicators you can look on to determine who poor people will be. people who are affected by things socially, socially, economically and physically, right? And when you understand these different categories, it will better help you to understand this lesson of who the categories of poor are or who the poor people in our society are. So the first category of poor is people

1:35 with special needs, right? And these are individuals who are either physically challenged, mentally challenged or they have certain developmental disabilities. So you know special needs when somebody tells you special, you normally have a disability. This disability can be mental, it can be physical, uh, right? And it could be a blend of both. And you probably would want to ask, so what makes people with disabilities more susceptible to poverty than anybody else? Just think about their condition. Because of their condition, several times they're not the most employable. Uh, some of them necessarily can't work because of their conditions.

2:21 Nobody would hire a mad man to work in their establishment. So because of that, that person is not getting an income. That person would become a dependent on their family and you'd understand why that person would be susceptible to being poor and might end up in different situations like homelessness. Think about the amount of uh people in Jamaica who are mentally ill that you see on the streets that doesn't really have a home. Right? So the first category of poor are people with special needs or as you call them persons with disabilities. The second category we're looking at are the elderly, women,

3:06 children, and youth. Why are the elderly susceptible to being poor? Well, the elder the elderly are susceptible to being poor because when you realize that there is literally a age li there are limitations concerning age as it relates to how long you can work or be a part of a labor force in your country. It doesn't normally work right across the board, but in certain jobs there is an age limit, a retirement when you should stop working. So normally what elderly people do, they have what you call what you'd call a pension, but this

3:54 is not something that all of them has. And also it's not as secured as the concept is portrayed. And also think about poor people who did not prepare things like a pension. So poor people are susceptible to being poor because again they are not working. Women are susceptible to being poor as well. Primarily women who are traditional in their thinking. So women who agree that they should stay home and allow their uh male counterparts to be their bread winner and work those women would be susceptible to be poor because as we would say in Jamaica if the man moving foot she drop because she doesn't have any form of financial backive as some form of security check then to ensure

4:39 that she's in a position to finance herself should her partner no longer want to entertain her or facilitate a relationship with her. Children is also another category of poor by virtue of the fact that children are not at a age to work means that they can't gain an income. And if you realize an income is a sole indicator that helps to determine who the categories of poor are within our society. If you're not making money, you're susceptible to being poor. All right. So, let's continue. So, so far we have looked on the disabled or people with special needs, elderly, women, children

5:25 and youth. Let's see what are the others. All right. So, the other category of poor are unemployed people. again by virtue of not having actual employment be it because of as I stated earlier physical challenges or just for the fact that you don't have certain qualifications might put you in a position to be vulnerable to being in a state to a state of poverty right uh if you're not working you won't be able to source your basic amenities that you need to survive and remember last week when we were looking at things like the poverty line and how important it is that you're able to meet your basic needs and how that affects how you are defined as being

6:11 poor, right? All that will come in handy here. So, if you're unemployed and you can't well, you won't be able to meet certain basic needs and that would put you into a state of absolute poverty. All right, the other category of poor we're looking at single parent families. uh a single parent family is not an ideal family structure and because of that the level of support you'd get out of a nuclear or an extended family uh is reduced within a single parent household. And normally what happens is it's normally the mom and the mother would have to work and all of these things. And sometimes there are a lot of kids like there's a lot of financial strain that exists in a single parent

6:58 household. And as such, single parent families are susceptible to being poor. Certain issues that you hear which are raised rather in a single parent household aren't things that would be the status quo elsewhere in other more stable families. And by definition, a single parent household is not prided as a stable family structure. Though there is some level of discrimination with that, it is just what it is. All right. Fifth category of poor are indigenous people. Now think about well Jamaica doesn't really have a great indigenous population. But in other

7:45 Caribbean islands like Guyana, you have a high uh you have a significant portion of the population that are made up of indigenous pe that's made up of indigenous peoples. Uh so these are people who are normally simple, you know, they live in uh the rural areas. They depend on the environment to survive. They are susceptible to being poor by virtue of the fact that in their little world that they exist there are certain limitations that they that they live within and these limitations sometimes are in their minds that affects them from becoming employable. They don't even live in a system where employment is something that um is valued. So they normally depend on

8:33 each other. They do subsistance farming and that sort of a thing. They don't access education. They don't go to school for the most part. So they are susceptible to being poor in need because if whatever resources they depend on in the environment from the environment runs out then they are in problems unless the government makes provisions for them. All right. And the last category we're looking at, as you see here, other vulnerable groups and this may include homeless people, refugees, and other people living in extreme poverty or unsafe environments. Now, uh that takes us to the end of this lesson. These are the categories of poor. Remember to consult your remember to consult your study

9:20 guides as you are even going through the recordings. All right. So remember as well to take your time and you can do