Module 5 Resources

🏘️ Social Problems & Inequality Vocabulary

🟢 Level C1: Advanced

Focus: General social issues, basic economic hardship, and policy concepts.

1. Phrasal Verbs (C1)

• Live on

  • Meaning: To have a particular amount of money as income for basic needs.

  • Example: Many families in the area are struggling to live on the minimum wage alone.

• Fall through

  • Meaning: To fail to happen.

  • Example: Their plans to build low-cost housing fell through after the funding was withdrawn.

• Get by

  • Meaning: To manage to live or accomplish a task with difficulty or with limited resources.

  • Example: After losing his job, he has been barely getting by on unemployment benefits.

• Be cut off

  • Meaning: To be isolated or deprived of resources or support.

  • Example: When the utility bill wasn't paid, the residents were cut off from electricity and water.

• Take on

  • Meaning: To accept a responsibility or burden.

  • Example: The local council decided to take on the challenge of reducing youth unemployment.

    
    

2. Idioms (C1)

• On the breadline

  • Meaning: Having the minimum resources necessary for survival; extremely poor.

    
    

  • Example: After the factory closure, hundreds of workers suddenly found themselves on the breadline.

• The vicious cycle

  • Meaning: A sequence of reciprocal cause and effect in which two or more elements intensify and aggravate each other.

    
    

  • Example: Lack of education leads to unemployment, which creates a vicious cycle of poverty.

• Sweep under the rug

  • Meaning: To hide or ignore a difficult or unpleasant problem or fact.

  • Example: The city tried to sweep the growing homelessness crisis under the rug before the major international event.

• The bottom line

  • Meaning: The final result or the most important consideration.

  • Example: When discussing social welfare, the bottom line is ensuring basic human dignity for everyone.

• A drop in the bucket

  • Meaning: A very small or insignificant amount compared with what is needed or expected.

  • Example: The government's new funding for affordable housing is merely a drop in the bucket compared to the actual need.

    
    

3. Nouns (C1)

• Disparity

  • Meaning: A great difference.

  • Example: The widening disparity between the rich and the poor is fueling social unrest.

• Tenure

  • Meaning: The conditions under which land or buildings are held or occupied.

  • Example: Secure tenure gives renters and homeowners stability and peace of mind.

    
    

• Inequality

  • Meaning: Difference in size, degree, circumstances, etc.; lack of equality.

  • Example: Addressing wealth inequality requires fundamental changes to the tax system.

    
    

• Recidivism

  • Meaning: The tendency of a convicted criminal to reoffend.

  • Example: High rates of recidivism are often linked to a lack of support and job opportunities after release.

• Stigma

  • Meaning: A mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person.

  • Example: There is a strong social stigma attached to accessing welfare and public assistance.

    
    

4. Adjectives (C1)

• Exacerbated

  • Meaning: Having been made worse or more severe.

  • Example: The recent layoffs have exacerbated the already critical unemployment situation.

• Underprivileged

  • Meaning: Not enjoying the same standard of living or rights as the majority of people due to poverty, lack of education, or unfavorable social circumstances.

  • Example: The program provides free meals and tutoring for children from underprivileged backgrounds.

• Systemic

  • Meaning: Relating to a system, especially a social, economic, or political system.

  • Example: Activists argue that racial discrimination in hiring is a systemic problem, not just an individual one.

• Inadequate

  • Meaning: Lacking the quality or quantity required; insufficient.

  • Example: The report found the public transport links to the new housing development were completely inadequate.

• Rampant

  • Meaning: (Especially of something unwelcome or unpleasant) flourishing or spreading unchecked.

  • Example: The lack of police presence has allowed gang violence to become rampant in certain neighborhoods.

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5. Verbs (C1)

• Subsidize

  • Meaning: To support (an organization or activity) financially.

  • Example: The government plans to subsidize rents for low-income families in major cities.

• Alienate

  • Meaning: To cause (someone) to feel isolated or estranged.

  • Example: Policies that ignore the needs of the poor can alienate large sections of the population.

• Deteriorate

  • Meaning: To become progressively worse.

  • Example: The condition of the city's public housing stock has been deteriorating for years due to neglect.

    
    

• Mobilize

  • Meaning: To prepare and organize (a group of people) for a purpose, typically for action.

  • Example: Community leaders are attempting to mobilize residents to demand better resources.

• Exploit

  • Meaning: To make full use of and derive benefit from (a resource); or, to take advantage of (a person or situation) unfairly.

  • Example: Unscrupulous landlords often exploit tenants who do not know their legal rights.

    
    

🟣 Level C2: Proficiency

Focus: Deep structural problems, socio-economic theory, specific policy tools, and severe hardship.

1. Phrasal Verbs (C2)

• Eke out

  • Meaning: To make a living with difficulty; to obtain with effort.

  • Example: He had to eke out a living through a series of unstable, low-paid, zero-hour contracts.

• Wipe out

  • Meaning: To destroy or eliminate completely.

  • Example: A single catastrophic medical bill can wipe out a family's entire life savings.

• Shore up

  • Meaning: To support or strengthen (an organization or system).

  • Example: New investment is desperately needed to shore up the failing public health infrastructure.

• Voted out

  • Meaning: To remove a politician from office by voting.

  • Example: The mayor was voted out due to his complete failure to address the escalating homelessness crisis.

• Hollow out

  • Meaning: To remove the central part or core of (something); often used metaphorically for communities or industries.

  • Example: Globalization and factory closures have effectively hollowed out the economic base of the former industrial towns.

    
    

2. Idioms & Collocations (C2)

• Structural violence

  • Meaning: A form of violence wherein a social structure or institution harms people by preventing them from meeting their basic needs.

  • Example: Inadequate access to healthcare and education is often cited as a clear example of structural violence.

    
    

• The revolving door

  • Meaning: A situation in which people repeatedly enter and leave a building, organization, or job; often used for people in poverty cycling between prison, shelters, and temporary jobs.

  • Example: The challenge is to break the revolving door between short-term incarceration and chronic homelessness.

    
    

• Socio-economic strata

  • Meaning: Levels in society composed of people with similar social and economic status.

    
    

  • Example: Access to quality education is heavily determined by an individual’s position in the socio-economic strata.

    
    

• Safety net

  • Meaning: A metaphor for government programs (like welfare or unemployment insurance) designed to catch people in case of economic hardship.

  • Example: Critics argue that the current social safety net has too many holes and fails to support those most in need.

    
    

• Intergenerational poverty

  • Meaning: Poverty that passes from parent to child.

  • Example: Breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty requires long-term investment in early childhood development.

    
    

3. Nouns (C2)

• Precariat

  • Meaning: A social class formed by people whose lives are insecure and unstable, especially due to having temporary employment.

  • Example: The rise of the gig economy has dramatically increased the size of the precariat across major economies.

• Dispossession

  • Meaning: The action of depriving someone of land, property, or other possessions.

  • Example: Land rights activists are fighting against the dispossession of indigenous communities for commercial development.

• Resilience

  • Meaning: The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.

  • Example: Community programs aim to build resilience in vulnerable children to help them overcome environmental challenges.

• Gentrification

  • Meaning: The process of renovating and improving a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class taste, often displacing poorer residents.

  • Example: Rapid gentrification has pushed up rental prices, making the inner city unaffordable for its original inhabitants.

    
    

• Marginalization

  • Meaning: The treatment of a person, group, or concept as insignificant or peripheral.

  • Example: Marginalization due to disability or race often severely restricts access to the labor market.

    
    

4. Adjectives (C2)

• Abject

  • Meaning: (Of a situation or condition) extremely bad, unpleasant, and degrading; utterly hopeless.

  • Example: Charities are trying to alleviate the conditions of abject poverty that still exist in the country.

• Stratified

  • Meaning: Arranged in social layers or levels.

  • Example: The society is heavily stratified along lines of inherited wealth and class.

• Transitory

  • Meaning: Not permanent or lasting.

  • Example: While short-term aid helps, the problem of chronic unemployment is not merely transitory.

• Perilous

  • Meaning: Full of danger or risk.

  • Example: Many migrants undertake a perilous journey in search of better economic opportunities.

• Impoverished

  • Meaning: Reduced to poverty; deprived of strength or vitality.

  • Example: The aid effort is focused on the most impoverished neighborhoods on the outskirts of the capital.

    
    

5. Verbs (C2)

• Decimate

  • Meaning: To kill, destroy, or remove a large percentage or part of.

  • Example: The economic crash effectively decimated the retirement savings of millions of middle-class families.

• Ameliorate

  • Meaning: To make (something bad or unsatisfactory) better.

  • Example: The new rent control policy is an attempt to ameliorate the housing affordability crisis.

• Entrench

  • Meaning: To establish (an attitude, habit, or belief) so firmly that change is difficult or unlikely.

  • Example: Deep-seated policy failures have allowed high levels of poverty to become entrenched in the region.

• Disenfranchise

  • Meaning: To deprive (someone) of a right or privilege, especially the right to vote.

  • Example: The complicated residency requirements effectively disenfranchise many homeless people.

• Redress

  • Meaning: To remedy or set right (an undesirable or unfair situation).

  • Example: The commission was established to investigate past injustices and provide a framework for redress.