I have described thirteen of the more important functions poverty and the poor satisfy in American
society, enough to support the functionalist thesis that poverty, like any other social phenomenon,
survives in part because it is useful to society or some of its parts. This analysis is not intended to
suggest that because it is often functional, poverty should exist, or that it must exist. For one thing,
poverty has many more dysfunctions that functions; for another, it is possible to suggest functional
alternatives.