As of 2019, 10.55% of the United States population lives in poverty. That’s over 34 million people. The poverty line in the U.S. per individual is $12,880. If that isn’t bad enough, take into account how the COVID-19 pandemic has made it harder than ever for people to recover from lost time and salaries, resulting in poverty. Everyone got locked down, people lost time and money, so they started losing their homes, cars, etc. It has pushed many people into a steep poverty hole that they cannot jump out of.
This sudden poverty increase has caused many employers to have issues with their pay. Many people have different outlooks, though. Some say that people will not work because these employers do not pay enough anymore and unemployment is more sufficient, while others say that working is the best thing you can do during these times to bring employment rates back up to further improve pay.
Despite what lens people look at this situation in, there is no denying that this is a problem that needs to be better controlled, and hopefully fixed for good. Not only should we be trying to recover from the pandemic, but ending poverty as a whole will improve living conditions not only across the country, but the world.
Thank you.
I really enjoy how within the first sentence, you state a very sad but honest fact. I feel like not sugar-coating a topic like this is very important and allows an audience to realize how real these issues are. The only advice I have is that I think this elevator pitch is somewhat lacking an artifact. I think it would be very helpful to have an image or statement displaying this issue and assisting in getting the point across!
I really like your idea of using ethos, pathos, and logos to approach this issue. The logos will help you inform the depths of poverty and pathos may help you appeal to the audience’s emotions and really pull us into your civic argument. Like Ruby said, I do think you might need some sort of artifact (advertisement, poster, etc.) for you to further analyze that displays poverty in some way you think is meaningful/memorable.
I like how you used a sad but powerful statistic as a hook, I think most people can be sympathetic towards people in poverty, so it was well placed. I also think that using ethos, pathos, and logos lens to discuss this issue, I think it is relevant considering how big of an issue this is.