Analysis Of The Documentary Poor Kids By Frontline

The documentary “Poor Kids”, it shows the story of the lives of three families who struggle to make ends meet every day. These families lack the resources such as money to buy food and other every day necessities, pay for the rent, and the parents not having a job or not having an unstable employment. I felt heavy hearted after watching this documentary because I can imagine myself in their situation. I feel blessed that I did not have to go through what these families are going through. It is hard to imagine how it feels like to have no money or little money to buy food, clothes and other things, pay the utilities, not having a decent place to live, moving from one motel to another, and not having a stable to job to support the family.

In the 2012 documentary Poor Kids, children living in the Quad Cities reflect on their lives in poverty. Each story is different but similar in many ways. At the time of the film, there were sixteen million children reported who were affected by poverty. The film also stated that one in five children were living in poverty. With large quantities of children being affected by poverty, the important to understand how these children are dealing with the factors of poverty.

Prior to watching the documentary Second Chance Kids, I did not realize the amount of juveniles sentenced to life in prison without parole. The statistics throughout the documentary were shocking. For example, across the country, there are more than two thousand people convicted of murder as juveniles and sentenced to mandatory life in prison without the possibility of parole (Dornstein, 2017).

In today’s society, the stigma around child poverty is related to homelessness. Poverty is the lack of support, goods, and money. As a matter of fact, many kids who partake in the 21% statistic from NCCP do live with parents who go to work and have a paying job. With that being said, the jobs that some of their parents have are unstable and their income is very low making it difficult for these children’s parents to make ends meet. This issue is transparent and many do not realize just how much we are surrounded by those who suffer from child poverty.

In the documentary “Poor Kids” you get to truly see and feel how it is to be a child that suffers from food insecurity, poverty and the rest that comes with it. The fact that this problem exists in a developed country that you would assume it could provide for all their citizens. Well, the reality is we have many families suffering because of lack food and on top of that, we have children suffering from lack and food and more. As a society, we have grown to just be concerned about ourselves and we don’t focus on issues that affect others. We fail to see the struggles of others because it doesn’t directly impact us. We are focused on attaining wealth at all cost we would rather waste food than provide help for the ones in need. Ultimately, we are creating policies that, make sure no one gives food to the ones that needed the most. It’s a sad reality that we must face in order to continue to strive as a nation. Therefore, we need to acknowledge others and provide them with the respect that they deserve. We also have many corporations and elites that have control, power, and wealth. The stratified system in the U.S is making it that much harder for lower-income families to come out of poverty. Not only are they suffering from lack of food, lack income, and resources, but this also is affecting their pride and self-worth.

As affluent as society is today, we must recognize the less fortunate and how they get there. As we learn more about the poverty-stricken, we can understand them better to aid them and break the cycle. Overwhelming amounts of people do not realize the global pandemic that poverty is today. The statistics are heartbreaking. Over half of the children in the world live in poverty, and there are nearly 2.2 billion children in the world. Campaigns have been established to recognize poverty globally. The effectiveness of these campaigns remains relatively undisclosed, yet they are still continuous. The methods used to advocate for and promote awareness for poverty vary depending on the community, this, as a result, ultimately determines the impact of the poverty campaigns.

In the introduction of this essay we will be looking at ‘what is child poverty?’ Poverty is often associated with the third world and developing countries where death from starvation and disease is the outcome. This kind of poverty is rarely seen in the UK though. Child poverty is unfortunately a result of adult poverty with Child poverty having lifelong consequences. There are 3.5 million children living in poverty in the UK today, that’s 27 per cent of children or more than one in four (department for work and pensions, 2013.) Poverty in the UK is about a lack of resources, lack of capital both income and wealth. But it can also be resource poor such as; education and good health

Poverty hits children hardest in the world. When I was younger, the Armenians had faced the hard facts of poverty after they break up with the Soviet Union, war with Azerbaijan, and a devastating earthquake. My family moved into our motherland Armenia while our nation was going through these huge dramatic changes. Furthermore the poor economy and inflation destroyed numerous hopes and futures. In the novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, Arnold Spirit, describes his hardships involving poverty living on Spokane reservation. The people on the reservation are stuck in a prison of poverty. They are imprisoned there due to lack of resources and general contempt from the outside world, so they are left with little chance for success. Like Arnold, I also went through hardships regarding poverty and education.

With the United States of America having one of the highest child poverty rates, the documentary titled, Poor Kids, takes us to Stockton, Iowa where we follow the lives of three destitute families from the point of view of their children. Two of the families are on the verge of homelessness and the other one is already living in a shelter. Throughout this documentary we see what being poor in America looks like through the eyes of children.

Poverty is a human services issue that is spread throughout the nation and world. ‘The percentage of children who are poor is more than three times as high in the United States as it is in Norway or the Netherlands.’ (Porter, 2016) The trend since 2000 is that there is an increasing amount of families, and in turn children, living in poverty. Poverty has been defined as the state of being extremely poor. But what does that mean? Poverty is the lack of financial, emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical resources. Children cannot change their situation because they are dependent on adults to provide for them which makes poverty easily passed from generation to generation. “Poverty directly and indirectly affects

A child living in the 21st century is no stranger to poverty and the desperate lifestyles it promotes. Too often the case, children, living in families with incomes below the nation’s poverty line, are limited to criminal activities, low-level education, and blue-collar employment. Furthermore, years of economic strife in the United States have invited a cycle of poverty to predetermine the lives of children in poverty-stricken families, where they are raised with insufficient care and inadequate resources in unstable environments. Not that it is in any way the fault of the parents, whose financial situation isn’t always an accurate reflection of their parental capability, the government’s assumes the responsibility of removing children

It is known that the children are unable to determine their life circumstances, their families, and care solely for themselves without supervision. With this being said, children have little to no jurisdiction in determining the situations that they are confronted with. Most of the time when we ponder child poverty we think of low-income families or lack of food in the household, but it extends beyond that to “an environment that is damaging to their mental, physical, emotional and spiritual development” (“Children Under Threat,” 2005). Unfortunately, the prevalence of youth poverty in the United States may seem uncommon to those who are personally unaffected by the crisis; however, statistics show that 15 million children (21% of all children) live in families with incomes below the federal poverty threshold (Child Poverty, 2017). Moreover, when considering the demographics of impoverished children the following are true: a child in the U.S. has a 1 in 5 chance of being poor and the younger they are the poorer they are likely to be, and a child of color is more than twice as likely to be poor than a White child (Child Poverty, 2017). Research proves that poverty is the single greatest threat to a child’s well-being as it decreases the likelihood of a child graduating from high school, and it increases the chances of them becoming involved with the criminal justice system (Ending Child Poverty Now, 2017).

We as Americans are extremely lucky. We live in a big country with many resources and almost all the luxuries we ever wanted. On the flip side, in America there are also many people who do not have these privileges. The lower class is a struggling class. For many years, people have been trying to pull themselves up from the lower class and the majority does not succeed. Childhood poverty is a large problem in the U.S. It is said that the poorest people in the United States are the children of the lower class. Childhood poverty could lead to a number of problems such as hunger, violence, physical and mental disabilities, educational problems, homelessness, family stress, sickness, and too-early parenthood. The sad truth is that

Children in poverty is a typical social issue occurring in society today. “More than 16 million children in the United States – 22% of all children – live in families with incomes below the federal poverty level” (“National Center For Children In Poverty,” n.d.). The federal poverty level measures the amount of income a family takes in per year. It varies depending on the number of people in a family. For a nuclear family (two parents and two children) the federal poverty level is around twenty-four thousand dollars in a year (“Health Care.gov,” n.d.). The average American makes around forty-six thousand dollars a year. The parents of the children in poverty make at least twenty-two thousand dollars below the average. Their families are extremely poor. Also, not just one child is facing this hardship, sixteen million children are part of families below the federal poverty line, just in America. “About 22% of children in the U.S. lived below the poverty line in 2013, compared with 18% in 2008” (Calfas, 2015). Unfortunately, the rate of poverty affecting children has gone up through the years. More and more children will face poverty during day to day life. Children can be affected by poverty in many ways. “Poverty can impede children’s ability to learn and contribute to social, emotional, and behavioral problems. Poverty also can contribute to poor

The United States is the wealthiest nation in the world, but yet poverty remains prevalent. Childhood poverty affects every aspect of their life. “Poverty is not having income for basic needs, food, medical care or basic needs and housing” (Crosson-Tower, 2014, p. 59). Poverty is affecting thousands of Americans every day, and it isn 't sparing anyone of a particular race, age or gender, leaving people on welfare, and without homes, or transportation. Poverty is a crisis that deserves attention from everyone, and it has many faces that are often not recognized