Another one of the major causes of poverty are low savings. These, in turn, equate to low investments. The poor seldom have enough finances to bring into existence even a little business of their own. They are often placed under the iron fists of unfair employers who fail to take into account the welfare of their workers.

Application of Materialism and Consumerism

Consumerism is a concept wherein people tend to overspend for unessential products or services. Sometimes, people fail to allocate enough money for the necessary things in life (food, clothing, shelter, etc.). Some even deliberately sacrifice these things for a chance to gain access to social status symbols.

Materialism is similar in a sense. Some upper society people tend to put affluence and social power  before anything else. In some instances, they see it more important than religion and morality. Their hedonistic lifestyles pull them into a world where the amount of money one has dictates the amount of respect a person receives.

Consumerism and materialism are at one end of the scale. Poverty and economic disability are at the other end. When the economic elite plunges deeper into material lust and financial greed, poverty rises eventually. Fortunes are spent on brand names, and a monetary imbalance is created in favor of the rich.

The essential things in life are what a person needs to live in decency and comfort. The money upper class people spend for exorbitant products and services don't settle to where it is needed most. This leaves the poor devoid of the essential needs in life. They live in conditions akin to dogs, and yet there are people who throw away money simply for pleasure and hedonism. That money, which sometimes serves to satisfy vices and sin, could have helped those in need. Instead, an unfair distribution of a society’s wealth only serves to make the rich richer and the poor as poor as they have always been. Much needed wealth circulates only in the higher classes and fails to make its way to the bottom pits of society where it is needed the most.

Such abuse of material wealth also happens among the poor. Many poor people spend what little money they have on drugs, alcohol, and gambling. Consider their lives wasted. They believe that the future will always be the same – lurking on the streets and living like animals in the middle of the slums. As a result, they throw away their lives and trap themselves in all sorts of vices and sin.

Consumerism and materialism contribute to the unfair distribution of wealth. The poor have no access to the huge wealth of the community. Those who control the majority of such wealth unfortunately allocate it to unnecessary ends. Things that are unessential are given more importance than the development of human life and human dignity.

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