Extra Credit - America's Invisible Policy Choices

In "America's Invisible Policy Choices", Fischer points out an interesting phenomenon in America where the social policies do not seem to improve the issue of inequality but tend to widen the inequality gap between the rich and the poor. From the statistics provided in the article (Figure 6.1), we can see that the American government actions did not reduce the proportion of poor children significantly compared to other countries.This illustrates that the social policies imposed to improve poverty is ineffective and insufficient. The American government doesn't seem to realize that only little improvement is actually made towards the issue. On the other hand, the government introduces policies that subsidize and benefit the middle and upper class which in fact worsen the inequality gap. It seems to me that most of the policies that the American government are only beneficial to those who are wealthy and the poor had never benefit from it. For instance, the Medicaid program which aims to provide health insurance to people does not cover all the people in general. Many people are left out and most of them are from lower class as the article states that "Among low-income families above poverty line, more than one in five remains uninsured all year" (143). In fact, these are the people who really needed the medical coverage as they are poor and inadequate in health. Nevertheless, the program keeps those already healthy ones more secure, leaving out those who are in need. On the surface, the policies seem to deal with poverty, the fact remains that not only they did not help to solve the problem, but also they cause the situation to worsen.