Poverty And Income Inequality In The United States

According to authors of Culture and Neuroscience in Developmental Psychology (2012) many children that grow up in poverty develop behavior issues, social withdrawals, depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. Many also do poorly academic wise. However, researchers discovered when poverty-stricken children were relocated to high class neighborhoods and schools their previous behaviors

First, he points out the issue on how inner-city schools are still failing because they are lousy schools that use the same approach each year and still no improvement. Furthermore, science says that students lose ground in the summer, which causes them to lose what they learned the previous school year. Although, science has proven this to be true businesses to use science to better inner-city schools education. In addition to, inner schools failing and losing what they learned poor people are not aware of how critical and important the first three years of brain development. However, wealthy people and educated people are aware of the role of language, stimulus, and response. This causes those who are educated and wealthy children to have an advantage over poor

A key factor to understanding how poverty exists is to understand what it does to the victim’s brain. The conditions that come with living in poverty such as overcrowding and exposure to violence can affect a developing brain negatively in the same way drugs or alcohol does. The stress that comes with living in poverty during childhood has over time led people into depression and certain forms of addiction in their adulthood. According to Ostrander, “poverty perpetuates poverty, generation after generation, by acting on the brain.” The maternal stress response system is a very crucial thing to the development of a child’s brain and may crumble under pressure, releasing certain hormones that affect its development. While some children are able to

“Poverty is the worst form of violence.” Mahatma Gandhi’s words still ring true in today’s society. Poverty is nothing to sweep under the rug or put on the back burner. While many statistics state that poverty is decreasing, other sources state the opposite. Poverty is a hot topic in the U.S., foreign countries, and speaks true about many genders, ethnic groups, and children.

Moving on to the third chart, the author talk about how in reality it’s even more difficult for poor children to make up for their parents’ lost ground. A child born to parents with income in the lowest quintile is more likely to end up even less than what their parents had made. Statistics shown that it was 43% vs. 4% comparing the low-income side, in contrast to the higher income children who could end up in higher quintile than their parents. In figure 4, a chart more distinguished than others the author talks about how the income level have very small effect on the mental function of children under age one. Instead of income inequality having such a big impact like the other graphs, this one has less impact. Furthermore, the wealthy that have two incomes and parents with college degrees have more money to spend on their children shown in figure 5. The numbers have increased from 1972 to 2006 for the top quintile yet for low quintile it has its own pattern but the bars do not sky rocket as the high income. Ms. Woodruff explains in figure 6 that the achievement gap between low and high-income

Growing up in poverty has a significant effect on the brain. While poverty affects many aspects of the brain processes, spending patterns are greatly impacted by the mindset of poverty which in turns affects quality of life. Occasionally, those in poverty make it out. Despite gaining a higher socioeconomic class, quality of life can still be influenced by the impact of poverty. This is because those who grew up in poverty continue their impulsive spending habits when they move into the middle-class because poverty leaves an enduring impression on the human brain.

Early childhood. During the 1990s, the nation was inundated with reports on the importance of the early years on children's brain development and later cognitive achievement. While some of the reports may have overstated the issue and understated the importance of a child's later years on development, evidence suggests that the early years may be a critical period of development in which family poverty has particularly strong effects on young children. As seen in Table 1, poverty occurring early in a child's life (age two to four) is associated with large effects on indices of child school readiness and cognitive outcomes.

Since the early 1980s in the United States, there has been a big push advocating for tax cuts benefitting the wealthiest Americans at the expense of investing in education, infrastructure, child care, and income supports that would help raise well-off children to be productive adults. As a result of this, the gap between the rich and the poor has grown wider, making the wealthy more willing to sacrifice overall economic growth in exchange for the larger share of money that they are getting for themselves. This has led to severe income, racial, and poverty inequality in the United States and creates an inequality trap because as the rich get wealthier, they favor policies that earn them more money and power at the expense of the low-income workers education and well-being.

They did not find differences between children from middle class and affluent families but those only 50 percent above the poverty line showed gray matter volumes 3 to 4 percent below the norm. In other words, more money does not necessary mean better outcomes but at a certain point a “drop-off” effect of income occurs where a lack of financial resources is detrimental to development. “The reason I think we’re not seeing a continuum is that humans are very hardy,” Pollak says, “I think the human child can learn to accommodate quite a wide variety of circumstances — what’s happening in extreme poverty is that we’re moving out of the range where the human brain can

Therefore, children who live in these poor neighborhoods are less likely to participate in school events. Poverty effects the intellectual, emotional and physical development of children. Wood discusses that children living in poverty have a harder time focusing in class and do not do as well in school. Wood uses facts stating that students who are growing up in a poor environment have lower IQ

Growing up in poverty has a significant effect on the brain. While poverty affects many aspects of the brain processing, spending patterns are impacted which affects quality of life. Occasionally, those in poverty make it out. Despite gaining a higher socioeconomic class, quality of life can still be influenced by the impact of poverty. This is because those who grew up in poverty continue their impulsive spending habits when they move into the middle-class because poverty leaves an enduring impression on the human brain.

Bidwell (2013) describes the initial effect poverty has on children who are exposed to poverty at a young age based on a study derived from a team of researchers at the St. Louis-based university, led by Joan Luby. The analysis conducted included 145 brain scans of children between the ages of 6 and 12 who had been tracked since preschool. The results show that poverty affects the growth in parts of the brain involved in stress regulation, emotion processing, and memory. In addition, result Bidwell (2013) goes on to state that other environmental factors range from poor cognitive outcomes, a student’s behavior, and school performance, to a higher risk for antisocial behaviors and mental disorder. Lastly, it is expressed that exposure to early life adversity should be considered no less toxic than exposure to lead, alcohol, or cocaine.

For example, the article it states, “childhood poverty may also lead to brain changes that influence mood and risk of depression” WORKCITE’. Therefore, at times child whose parents are living in poverty sometimes might be working two jobs to make it, so at times the child isn’t getting enough attention to help the child’s brain development.

In the article “Money Can Buy You a Bigger Brain” it is argued whether children, teens and adolescents with families of a higher income are more intelligent than those who come from a lower income family. Children of upper class economic backgrounds are more likely to have higher IQ’s, attentiveness, spatial awareness and a greater capability of transferring acquired information, including memories, from short-term to long-term. With the objective to defend these claims a recent study was found, “The areas of the brain noticeably larger across more advantaged children are key to academic success, as well as memory retention, reasoning, and language skills, making their impact on potential prosperity vital. The finding chimes with a 2013 study,

The limitations of this study is that they do not have much physical evidence of the effects of the brain. The author of the article does mention this however the researcher does provide brain scans showing how the brain function changes. By looking beyond cognitive skills tests towards the physical effects of poverty on the brain, it will make the study more credible.