B2 – Upper Intermediate
We are living in a wealthier world. The number of people living in extreme poverty has halved in recent decades. More people own cars and mobile phones. But why do we still see poverty?
Listen to the podcast then be ready to answer some discussion questions.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/features/6-minute-english/ep-150305
Discussion Questions:
- How big is the problem of poverty in your country?
- Would you say that there is a big gap between the rich and the poor where you are from?
- Are you able to see your taxes at work? Why or why not?
- What are ways for government to solve poverty?
7 replies on “Poverty In a Rich World”
1. It depends on how you look at it.
If you take Africa as an example then in Spain the situation its pretty good, even if we have some people that doesn’t even have a house, there are a lot of opportunities to get a work and your life on to something.
2. Yes, like the rest of the world i would say.
You can see where the rich people live, the cars they drive and how they treat all the rest of humans and that is a symptom of that gap, just because the majority of people live in neighborhood where you can see people suffering of poverty for time to time.
3. Yes I do, every month you have your payroll given to you by the company and you can see how much the state takes from your salary separated in different services.
4. Well, while I’m not an expert in economy or managing resources, I think that giving people opportunities to make themselves a space in society with a job and a house with their family is the way to go. Every one of us needs the primary needs solved to be able to focus on growing up and get a better education and a better job. If you are suffering to get your food, you are not going to spend eight or more hours a day focusing on your education because you need money just to eat or somewhere to sleep.
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1. Yes, Catalonia is not an exception, poverty is a big issue here too.
2. Yes, and as occurs in other countries each day this gap is bigger. I think there was easier to get out of a “poverty status” in the pass and now, as the gap is bigger, it’s quite difficult to move from this situation.
3. I think that is more clear at our social live than at work, as taxes are mainly invested on “public services”,
4. There are a lot of ways to do that, but I think investment in education and in innovation (helping to create businesses) could we some of the thnigs they can help with.
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Poverty has always been an issue in Spain. But especially since the pandemic started, Spain has reached the highest rate of poverty since the crisis started and there are millions of people in social exclusion.
I would say there is a huge gap in Spain between the rich and the poor, considering how some people are struggling to cover their basic needs while others have a high level of luxuries that most of the population could not even dream of.
About the taxes management, I think there is a terrible management of them and combining that with all the corruption we know it exists, there are many infrastructures that could be better maintained and some public services that could improve their service if it was not for the big public money leak we know it exist.
There are many ways to solve poverty, such as reducing the taxes from the primary need products and rising the luxury ones, increasing the minimum wage, to allow everyone that has a job to have the minimum needs covered and investing more money into public services, among an infinity of solutions that are already applied in many other countries.
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Sadly, poverty is a big issue in Spain as the big gap that separates rich and poor people. The years of crisis and unemployment had a big impact in the living conditions of the Spanish population. Today there are many families that had lost their houses because they first lost their jobs. And at the same time many rich people took opportunity of the special conditions caused by the crisis and they increased their wealths. This brings a situation of inequality that we can easily appreciate in Spain.
I would say that taxes are working, not in the best way, for sure it could be done much better but in someway it works.
I think that government must assure that big company and rich people pay their taxes. It should persecute and prosecute those ones that evade their taxes.