Although poverty is not an overwhelming issue in the United States as in other countries such as India or Ethiopia, it still plagues parts of the country. Whether or not poverty is fair has long been debated. Constantly, diverse groups of people are trying to come up with ways to alleviate it. When trying to discern the origin and fairness of poverty, it is a good idea to explore how things like equality of opportunity might correlate to the subject. It is also important to examine what poverty is defined as and what types of poverty exist. Social issues and how they relate to an individual's ability to make their way out of poverty also present an opportunity for close examination.
             First off, what is poverty? Can it be defined as the man who begs for your money on the street corner, or is it the man who owns a cozy two bedroom home in the middle of a newly built multi-million dollar neighborhood? One could live in poverty and not even be aware that his standard of living would be considered destitute, while at the same time another might live in what he or she feels is indigent and very well may live well above the poverty line. A well-known professor of Economics that had taught at the prestigious Harvard University might have some thoughts about this. The man's name is John Kenneth Galbraith, and in one of his books he states, "For poverty does survive. In part, it is a physical matter; those afflicted have such limited and insufficient food, such poor clothing, such crowded, cold and dirty shelter that life is painful as well as comparatively brief. But just as it is far too tempting to say that, in matters of living standards, everything is relative, so it is wrong to rest everything on absolutes. People are poverty-stricken when their income, even if adequate for survival, falls radically behind that of the community. Then they cannot wholly escape, therefore, the judgement of the larger community t...