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Poverty in America
1. introduction.
Poverty is not just an economic issue, it is also a social issue. As poverty rates in America are increasing at an unprecedented pace, it is time that Americans begin to care about its growth and start to gain more in-depth knowledge about it. In 2010, the poverty rate of America was 15.1 percent, which equates to an estimated 43.6 million people living below the poverty line. It's time to face the facts to see whether poverty is related to low educational attainment, to see more fully how poverty affects children, and gain more knowledge about the causes and ways to alleviate poverty. It is crucial that society gains the knowledge about poverty that is so desperately needed. For many years, there has been a fierce debate as to whether the government should assist the poor. Some think that these programs suppress the poor instead of helping them in the long run. Some people argue that society is tired of dealing with the "handouts". In reality, government programs such as unemployment insurance and food stamps assist during rough times. The projections for poverty in the next year are going to be even worse. But, which becomes the cycle and which is the cause?
1.1. Background and Significance
Currently, 40 million Americans live in poverty. It has become increasingly clear in recent years that America's wealth is not being shared with the poor, and the disparity grows each day. It is devastating to consider what lengths people will go to obtain the most basic human necessities, such as shelter, food, and aid to the sick. And what is still more distressing is that a number of these individuals do so in a world of plenty. Section one of this research will examine what poverty is, and will address the reasons for its persistence. Section two will discuss poverty from the perspective of race. Section three will discuss poverty from the perspectives of social structure and culture. Section four will address the social effects of poverty. The question remains: how can we, as a nation, put an end to and finally chuck out poverty, along with its costly effects?
2. Defining Poverty
What is poverty? Authors, scholars, economists, and people in general surely have different views on what poverty is. The federal measures on poverty developed by the federal government have different standards and measures than scholars. There is no general consensus about poverty, and it has been debated since time immemorial. Poverty does not only manifest itself in the number that is reflected on paper or reduced cash income for people to purchase commodities that others have; it is a multidimensional problem that affects many areas in life. Just because a family has more income does not mean that it has escaped poverty. Many families have to cut back on basic necessities in order to actually pay for other essentials, starving themselves in order to eat so that they won't have to pay the rising costs. Poverty dictates that they have to have money to pay for their survival, and as a "reward" for needing money, they remain in poverty. So is poverty a direct result of having little or no money? Recent research has shown that poverty is more than just earning money. It is also about the inability to fulfill one's wants and needs, including basic needs like food, shelter, and clothing. The definition of poverty that states that poverty is a state of deprivation does not solely encompass income but should also include the ability to remain attached to the labor force. Due to poverty, if individuals are only able to accept low-wage jobs as an option to provide for their family, to feed and clothe themselves. Furthermore, they are unable to fulfill their vital potential, and those that escape poverty more often than not relapse into poverty. Poverty does not dig into the personal lives of people where conflict among family members, difficulty to obtain resources for a proper education, and the like are restricted. Some individuals feel powerless and often can't discipline themselves or their children as they are struggling to survive. They share most of their worries with neighbors, and complete strangers tend to keep such matters confidential.
2.1. Official Poverty Thresholds
In this publication, the Census Bureau reports poverty data from several major "bases" or concepts. The oldest, and still most widely recognized, is the official definition of poverty in terms of money income. The poverty threshold, or poverty line, is a statistical yardstick to determine the income level below which families or individuals are classified as poor. To derive the poverty threshold, the economy-food budget is doubled (a standard originally derived in 1955 and updated in 1963), and the cost of food consumption is adjusted to reflect the proportions of household income that are spent on food. Since food was thought to account for one third of total spending on all goods by families of three or more persons of an "economy" food budget, the poverty threshold for these families is three times the cost of food. In order to estimate the thresholds for different types of families and individuals, we know the amount of food that would be consumed by persons in different demographic groups and estimate the spending levels that would allow for the food to be purchased. In calculating these thresholds, the Bureau of Labor Statistics approximates the change in "economy" food plans over time by the changes in food budget share (i.e. the percentage of total money income spent on food). Table III-1 shows the economy food budget, poverty thresholds, as well as average expenditures on food in the United States for 1962 through 1994, as defined under the official income poverty definition. In responding to current interest in comparing the thresholds to the nutritional needs of various subgroups in the American population, the Department of Agriculture periodically revises its economy food plan to reflect changes in consumption patterns. Researchers have recommended creating more complex poverty thresholds based on the cost of housing and other "non-food" costs since the official threshold was developed.
3. Causes of Poverty
The Borgen Project povertycrowd, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr. The Borgen Project povertycrowd, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr. There are many causes of poverty in America. Some people point to single-parent families as the problem. Others believe that inner-city residents have limited resources. The truth is that there is not just one reason why someone becomes unemployed or underemployed. Here are some examples of those that are commonly considered causes of poverty. 1. Increase in inequality in a society The most common causes of poverty in America are described below: 1) Labor market issues 2) Education 3) Housing 4) Government programs 5) Health The most direct way government can reduce poverty is by increasing the minimum wage, which has not kept up with inflation, would certainly receive a wage increase. Such breadwinner demographic, benefiting those most in need without an adverse employment impact. Over the last 15 years, welfare was reformed with the provisions work an income tax credit and job-creating economic policies that, in not only well-designed programs can improve the economic opportunity of low-income families but also the willingness of parents to take on responsible actions that will help escape their families from poverty. Then, the focus should be on investment and education—particularly for those in urban and rural communities who often have fewer resources than suburbs and thus have trouble mat resume, as well as policies that create great job opportunities with family-sustaining wages. It is unlikely that any changes domestic policies alone will reduce poverty drastically. Other economic issues such as international debt crises, tighter monetary policy, and protectionist trade policies can undermine the efforts of the nation to help the disadvantaged. However, good policies can bolster the will to act; and improved economic programs at home can reduce our vulnerabilities to bad international policies and economic conditions. When poverty is viewed as a lack of resources preventing the poor from achieving a state of well-being enjoyed by the non-poor, measures to assist the poor become intelligible and justified. The more a nation operates with scarce resources, the more self-conscious it becomes about shifting substantial income into very poor families' hands to increase their resources. Such strategies could alleviate poverty. In conclusion, these measures include increasing the minimum wage by several dollars an hour and indexing it to inflation; expanding the job creation provisions of the earned income tax credit; requiring families responsible to work full-time to leave welfare that pays below the poverty line; increasing child support collections to the poor and holding the number of parents paying support; increasing the availability of, providing the incentive for, and the earnings gains of living-wage employment, reforming the housing subsidies, expanding the availability of public housing, and reversing federal budget cuts in programs that assist poor families; increasing investments in their children's education to ensure that they have the knowledge to secure jobs that pay a living wage. A few groups of Americans cannot work their way out of the poverty trap—not because they don't want to work themselves out of, but because work has been rewarded with such miserly wages that the working poor cannot escape the trap.
3.1. Economic Factors
The impact of economic conditions on poverty is largely seen through increasing or decreasing the needed material resources available to families and individuals. This includes things like assets, such as savings accounts and home ownership in an individual's or family's name, and income, like investments and earnings from a job. When these resources decrease, so does the available way to lift oneself out of poverty. Factors that affect poverty include energy costs, payroll taxes, and social security, as well as unemployment and underemployment. The decrease in needed resources can create a myriad of social problems as well. The relationships between poverty and economic conditions aren't always clear-cut, nor are they universal, but countless studies have confirmed these fair weather conditions to be a greater contributing factor to the rate of poverty than laws, policies, behavior, or bad luck ever could. This school of thought measures income, often measured through the Consumer Price Index, as well as inflation, underemployment, and unemployment. Income disparity, or the gap between rich and poor, is also of interest in this school of thought, as is outcome inequality, or the gap in outcomes between rich and poor. With countless other tools in their arsenal, like the polluted communities the poverty-stricken areas live in, people who agree with this school of thought stress climate change, the economy, the environment, labor markets, disadvantaged neighborhoods and race and ethnicity, financial assets, savings and investments, food insecurity, transportation, and state and local social insurance as the culprits to blame for America's poverty levels. Factors that frequently interact in situations of poverty include difficulty finding a job, low real wages, infrequent wage increases, and a low probability of upward mobility.
4. Consequences of Poverty
One way to ensure that poverty remains a constant in America is to have a generation of children born into it. The most serious consequence of growing up in poverty is that the deprivation and economic family stress can lead to lasting harmful effects on children's physical and psychological well-being. Poor children are more likely to die in infancy and at ages 1 through 14, more likely to be premature, more likely to have low birth weight births, more susceptible to diagnosable illnesses, and more likely to be intellectually disabled. During childhood, they are less likely to receive consistent medical attention, to have access to preventive medical services, and to live in an environment that is conducive to physical and mental health. Poor children generally have smaller vocabularies, lower levels of math and reading scores, lower verbal intelligence, and poorer cognitive development than other children. Poor children are generally less curious, persistent, and sensitive than other children. Poor children have less confidence and are more dependent and impressionable than other children. They have higher levels of distractibility and a lower attention span. Adolescents who grow up in poverty are more likely than other adolescents to engage in sexual activity and become parents, more likely to smoke cigarettes, and more likely to drink alcohol. They are also more likely to work as teenagers than other adolescents, and they are more likely to leave home, get arrested, or drop out of high school. To the extent that such consequences are shared by children across the cycles of poverty, they represent a society-wide source of concern. Because each young adult will enter adulthood less able to take on the economic and social responsibilities of full-fledged citizenship, more likely to be physically and emotionally unhealthy, less attractive in the marriage marketplace, and with less attractive job skills. The consequences of poverty in childhood can also take an enormous toll on deliberation, education, and the criminal justice system, with likely repercussions for teachers, students, and students' parents, and for state, local, and federal lawmakers.
4.1. Health Disparities
It should be noted that poverty results in bleak health conditions. A lack of access to healthcare can increase the frequency and severity of common illnesses. In addition, it can exacerbate the despair and hopelessness experienced by those in poverty. The poor have lower life expectancies than those more fortunate, and in addition to fewer years to live, they lose an average of at least a dozen years of living healthily. In fact, it can be shown statistically that over half of the increase in personal healthcare expenditures in the United States from 1970 to 1982 came from population changes in specific diseases and their related nursing home expenses. A disproportionately large amount of these afflictions can be tied to poverty. Consequently, healthcare policies can be seen as poverty policy, reducing our national embarrassment by improving the lives of the poor. Several reasons for the increased occurrence of diseases of the poor in the United States are that they do not have an adequate diet, have a lack of access to preventive healthcare, and suffer from fouled air and water. First, poor eating habits do more than simply deplete vital nutrients. They increase the frequency and severity of infections and decrease the body's resistance to disease. Of course, hunger and malnutrition are also problems for the poor, leading to problems with growth, mental development, and the energy available to work and learn. These nutritional and dietary issues result in birth defects, weakening of the immune system, brain damage, chronic illnesses, and a lower level of physical and mental performance. Improvement in this area not only reduces the burden of poverty, but it can also, in fact, be a way of reducing it. Let's focus on the children. They are innocent victims; they didn't ask to be born. But if they're here, we must, in the name of our own self-interest, let's stop it and break the cycle. The high level of prenatal care presently provided by the Medicaid program and the associated support services, available in all 50 states, may prevent the substantial rise in infectious disease among the poor, which could increase everyone's healthcare costs. Note that the Medicaid program covers the medical bills from prenatal care to delivery and then pays to support the child for the first 30 days of life. This support pays for all medical expenses related to premature babies, helping all low-income women obtain well-baby care. If the kid needs expensive formula or food, Medicaid picks up the tab. If the child has a disability, or receives IV Cards Benefits, he/she is also entitled to the benefits of the Medicaid program. Moreover, before society decides not to create the wheel, they will benefit from the extra alertness to the economy, as well as additional insurance benefits for anyone who has been insured under the Social Security Act.
5. Current Policies and Interventions
The poverty measures presented in the previous chapter suggest that poverty in the U.S. damages the quality of life of over 40 million Americans, imposing substantial social and economic costs. Federal and state governments have a diverse array of policies and programs designed to improve or enhance the economic positions of families and individuals in poverty. This chapter provides a comprehensive review of the large number and potentially large effects of these programs. However, this discussion serves both as a review and a prelude to later chapters that report the results and findings from a number of new studies about specific programs. Evaluating the merits of any single program often relies on general recognition of the prevailing policy environment but does not generally require a thorough understanding of other programs. Indeed, much research on specific programs does not focus on the broader policy context. However, some efficiency and equity measures are better placed in the context of other programs. This chapter is organized into three related sections. The first section provides an overview of the social safety net. It distinguishes between programs targeted at the poor and programs whose primary purpose is either income security or general social welfare and security. Then, it discusses the goals and designs of the means-tested cash and near-cash programs for the poor. A.3 describes how government spending has varied across means-tested programs over the past 40 years. The remaining parts of the discussion examine how broad economic and demographic trends are likely to influence the effectiveness of these programs. A.5 presents data on the desirability of benefit expansion or administrative simplification of programs as of the late 1990s.
5.1. Government Assistance Programs
In the United States, several government programs have been designed to alleviate poverty. These programs have been quite successful in this respect, but the cost has been large. The more important programs are described in the following paragraphs. Probably the best known of these programs is the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program. This program is a joint federal and state program, with both sharing the cost. Approximately 70 percent of the cost is at the federal level. The program covers over ten million people each month. The recipients consist of families with children in need and have an earnings table lower than a defined standard ($3,000). In addition to the benefit to the financially-needy families, approximately 10 million people receive benefits through the program by the existence of each family member being eligible. Approximately ten million of these individuals live with a non-working or low-income parent(s). Six million of these persons live with a parent who is an unemployed child, or is only employed on a very part-time basis. Other groups who are eligible aren't in the workforce. One way to join this grouping is to lack the ability to be employed. In 1969, 1.5 million people were receiving benefits for supplemental security income. Given the other methods of supplying health and income assistance, we look upon these benefits as being another direct government assistance program.
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Arguments About Poverty in America
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Published: Aug 1, 2024
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The causes of poverty in america, the consequences of poverty in america, the urgent need for solutions.
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