Poverty exists because our society is an unequal one, and there are powerful

political pressures to keep it that way. Any attempt to redistributing wealth and in 71.____

come in the United States will inevitably be opposed by powerful middle and upper

class interests. People can be relatively rich only if you are relatively poor, and as 72.____

power is mainly in the hands of the rich, public policies reflect their interests than 73.____

those of the poor.

As Mr. Herbert Gans has pointed out, poverty is actually functional from the

point of view of the nonpoor. Poverty ensures that dirty work gets doing. If there 74.____

were no poor poeple to scrub floors and empty bedpans, there jobs will have to be 75.____

rewarded with high incomes before anyone would touch them. Poverty creates jobs

for many of the nonpoor, such as police officers, welfare workers, and government

bureaucrats. Poverty makes life easier for the rich by providing them with cookers, 76.____

gardeners, and other workers to perform basic chores when their employers enjoy 77.____

more pleasurable activities. Poverty provides a market for more inferior goods and 78.____

service, such as dayold bread, rundown automobiles, or the advice of competent 79.____

physicians and lawyers. Poverty also provides a group that can be made to absorb

the costs of change. It is just that poverty is an inevitable outcome of the American

economic system, in which the poor are politically powerless to influence or change. 80.____