Child Poverty

Poverty can be characterized either as far as a clear salary level or as a relative condition that progressions as society reclassifies it. As the age of the world grows and progresses among the middle and upper class, the lower class is struggling to keep up with the rest. As citizens they have the right to be in the same boat as other successful people in the world, they just do not have an advantage in doing so. Communism is not in the conversation, but many of the working people in poverty deserve to be paid as normal to keep a home and more. Poverty can be reduced drastically with just a little help and kindness.

This article focuses on statistics and actions (or lack of) in policies related to poverty. The topics that is discussed included who is the most likely to live in poverty and how it is measured. Also discussed in this article are the public policy response and poverty reduction. The articles credibility is high due to the type source which is academic. However, the reliability of the context in the article is questionable because of the lack of a strongly written argument. The statements appear to lack explanation on how they got their evidence,

There has been significant progress in reducing relative poverty since 1999 until 2004, when it slowed down and the absolute poverty rates in Scotland have been broadly the same since then. However, the difference between the absolute poverty rates before and after housing costs has widened from 1 percentage point in 2007/08 to 3 percentage points in 2009/10. Material deprivation varies more than low-income poverty, when comparing types of locality. In the poorest local authorities between a quarter and a third of households are poor in terms of low income and/or material deprivation. However, in rural local authorities in Scotland poverty levels are generally lower (Bramley

Grace Abbott once said, “Child labor and poverty are inevitably bound together and if you continue to use the labor of children as the treatment for the social disease of poverty, you will have both poverty and child labor to the end of time.” Child poverty is one of the biggest issues facing Canadian children today. Child poverty can significantly shorten a child’s life. One of the major reasons child poverty in Canada is so high is because of low wages. These children have a disadvantage to all the other children in Canada. There is major inequality among these children. There are many problems that come out of child poverty and effect the children directly. This paper will talk about the four major effects of child poverty; health issues and nutrition, emotional and behavioural issues, education, and their home environment. (Introduction: dimensions of children’s inequality, 2003).

As we can see though income is a major contributor to poverty, when children are born the parents have a hard decision to make whether to return to work or stay at home. Either one of these decisions though has a negative consequence on the family’s budget, be it higher expenses or less income. A lot of people think that claiming benefits will help them make up the short fall in wages but this isn’t the case. In reality, benefits are set at levels that leave recipient’s living below the poverty line. In 2009/10 it was estimated that a family with one child claiming jobseekers allowance received only 65 per cent of the amount they required to live above the poverty line. (DWP, 2011.) This then has a knock on affect in other aspects of life. Parents have to decide whether feeding their children is more important than heating there home. It is estimated that 1.6 million children are growing up in homes which are too cold. (Barnardos, 2014.) Children growing up in poverty have it very hard not only do they grow up being cold and hungry they also miss out on activities at school and with friends.

Relative poverty can only exist where there is inequality. nevertheless this does not mean that inequality and poverty are identical as not all forms of inequality will indicate relative poverty, only those in which individuals or groups fall well below the average. ASB(1996). Poverty alleviation is a central aim of economic and social policy, and yet there is no consensus about what poverty means or how it is best measured Thye measurement of poverty itself can have several risk factors with poverty measures such as the oldest and most widely used is that of income deprivation where the poverty line is the required disposable income needed to meet peoples basic needs. Saunders (2005) In Australia, we measure poverty can be defined by The proportion or number of those who earn below a set poverty line. This poverty line can be determined as relative meaning in relation to everyone else’s income. This increases as income increases. A fixed poverty line usually increase with inflation also known as the Henderson Poverty line, which was adopted concluding the report of the Commonwealth Commission of Inquiry into Poverty in 1974. More recently poverty has be calculated as being below 50 per cent of the median household income. This measurement tool is used by the Australian Council on Social services (ACOSS) which is a peak body for non-government welfare groups. Baum &

Fifty-five percent of boys and sixty-six percent of girls miss out on at least one of the three meals were meant to have a day. Child poverty in the first three years of life is related to substandard nutritional status and poor motor skills; poverty is also associated with childhood obesity- as they get older, poor children are more likely to have chronic health problems, such as asthma and anaemia. (American Psychological Association, 2018).

Most people from other countries think about the States as being the land of the “American Dream”. Despite being home of the “American dream”, poverty has become one of Americas most major leading problems. Poverty affects multiple groups of people throughout the United States. Child poverty specifically has grown vastly and has fostered major issues such as educational issues, behavioral problems, and generational poverty. Through the pursuit of knowledge, developing critical thinking skills among youth, creating a relatable educational experience for student, and giving students the tools to brake generational disparities, childhood poverty can be reduced.

Poverty is an ever increasing issue in the UK and is perceived as a major social problem due to the consequences that it brings with it .The term ‘social problem’ refers

This Infographic caught my attention because it was using very bold colors such as blue, white and yellow. The infographic also caught my attention because it had a theme of a school it also had a title which started with “child poverty”. The word “poverty” when look at it, I expect a homeless child in some developing country. The child I expect looks very skinny, hungry and has clothes on that are torn up or no clothes at all. Also this infographic had a lot of numbers side by side, this caught my attention because I was very curious about what those numbers were for. In my thoughts I was thinking the numbers were to do with education inequality’s but I soon found out that I was wrong.

Department for work and pensions, 2012. Households below average income, An analysis of income distribution 1994/5-2010/11, Table 4.3db. [Online]

Clearly, we can see from the table that 11% of all households whose total amount of population was 1,837,000 lived in poverty. The proportion of poor single person with no children was 19% (population 54,000), whereas sole parent had 21% people (population 232,000) who lived in poverty. However, couple with no children had a 7% of population (population 211,000) living in poverty, whilst the proportion of poor couple with children who was poor account for 12% (933,000). In addition, there was 6% of single aged person who lived in poverty, whereas only 4% aged people (population 48,000) lived in poverty.

Relative poverty is ‘a measurement of the resources and living conditions of parts of the population in relation to others’ (Schwartzman, 1997). This means that people, who are living in a way that deprives them of a similar standard of living that is the norm to their society, can be considered as living in poverty; relative rather than absolute (Fulcher, J & Scott, J 2007).

Throughout the course of history, millions of children have been victims of physical abuse; it has been shown that the effects of this abuse can profoundly influence ones mental and physical health in the span of his or hers life.

Absolute poverty (AP) is where a person or family lack the bare minimums for healthy survival, referring to a person's living needs of water, food, clothing and shelter (Browne, 2009). AP is measured by pricing these basic necessities and drawing up a poverty line, those incomes that fall below the line are defined as poor (Haralambos & Holborn, 2008). There has been attempts to define and operationalise the concept of AP; in 1995 The United Nations defined AP as a condition characterised by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food and water, shelter, education and information; it depends not only on income but also access to services, such as schools and hospitals (Haralambos & Holborn, 2008). In America they use $1 a day threshold for serving with the minimum needs but, in the UK incomes are not this low, so these thresholds have no importance (The poverty site, 2007).  In 2015-16 30% (18.9 million) of individuals where living in households with income below minimum income standards it increased over a 5th since 2008 to 2012 (JFR, d.u.).