Reflective Paper/Generational Poverty

Poverty has now become “As American As Apple Pie”, a situation we choose to ignore, and along with it the millions of families who suffer from it. Many have this tendency to believe that they are safe from falling into poverty; unaware of the multiple situations that can cause one to fall into poverty. It makes one wonder what’s keeping them from tipping over, eventually leading to the question, what makes poverty so common, and why is it still around?

Generational poverty has different hidden rules, and beliefs than situational poverty. Generational poverty usually has violence, instability, uneducated adults, addiction, incarceration, death, and lack of space in a household. In generational poverty people don’t usually know how to manage money because they have never had much or any. Family is very important to people in poverty and the patterns are usually hard to understand for people outside of

Generational poverty involves special population of poor people. It is cycle of poverty wherein two to three generations were born and lived in poverty. Complex factors are involved that hinders them from striving to attain advantages that other groups may enjoy. People in generation poverty focus on survival and live in the now. They do not plan

Poverty is a common social issue that has troubled nations for thousands of years. While nations like the United States of America have worked diligently to eradicate it domestically, it still widely exists.“According to the U.S. Citizen burow 47.6 million citizens living in poverty.With 20% of those households living in extreme poverty.”(PBS.org)

We create this society in which every individual starts off at different points in life due to these social categories based on race and ethnicity, which in turn affects education, social class and our overall lifestyle. After we create these categories and put people there unwillingly, we act as though it is there fault and not ours, so our society is reluctant to help; in this way it would be a “helping hand” rather than a dependency people often associate it with. “Education is a significant factor in poverty” (Wong, Chapter 6); like stated above, different individuals get different starting points in life, therefore affecting where one ends up in life. “A national survey conducted in 1975, found that those living in poverty attributed it to personal failures, such as having a poor work ethic, poor money management skills and low personal moral values” (Martin

Overall, this paper is about how poverty is very prominent in our society, and we need to learn more about it. We need to increase aid to low- income families because they cannot support

The impact of poverty on families can affect a child's growth and development. “Poverty and the Effects on parents and Children,” Nagel states, “Families in poverty, when parents are working, are influenced by the kind of occupations in which the parents work. Kohn has found that lower-class parents look at their children's behavior with a focus on its immediate consequences and its external characteristics, whereas middle-class parents explore their children's motives and the attitudes expressed by their behavior.” Growing up with negative and disciplinary parents, it can impact a child's moral and emotional growth through life. Children grow up by the examples and actions of their progenitor, and if they have meager parents then they may grow up to be just like them. “Another study conducted by the U.S. Department of Education found that for every year a child spends in poverty, there is the chance that the child will fall behind grade level by age 18.” Pupils that live in poverty that don't get

But federal aid programs have not helped the poor become self-sufficient or reduced the poverty levels. Ever since welfare has been created it has weakened the American work ethic and encouraged out-of-wedlock births. That unfortunate “tradition” keeps getting passed down from generation to generation (DeHaven). An abundant amount of families out there truly need assistance. The troublesome reality is that the number of people trying to take whatever they can get outweighs the number that’s just trying to get back up on their

In the documentary “Poverty in America: Born with a Wooden Spoon” we get an in depth look about what it is like to live in poverty in America. In the early moments of the documentary we are informed that the poor people of America are a diverse group of people. These people can be put into sub group and each of them has certain different characteristics. The first and most obvious group is the homeless or otherwise known as the urban poverty. These people are scattered around inner cities and it is very easy to see how hard their life is and what kind of struggle they are going through. The next group is the group of situational poverty. Situational poverty comes about when something abrupt occurs in someone’s life that causes him or her to be forced into poverty. Examples of this can be divorce, losing ones jobs, or sudden illness. Another different kind of poverty is the working class poverty. These are the people that have jobs but make so little that they cannot get themselves above the poverty line. Next are immigrants they provide cheap necessary labor for the country to flourish but yet they are still consider to be apart of poverty. They often do not even work for themselves, they leave their homelands and live on their own just so they can get jobs to send back money home to their families. The middle class can also have people in poverty. They try to cover it up by getting themselves into loads of credit card debt and eventually fall below the poverty line to the

Generational Poverty is defined as a family having been in poverty for at least two generations (Born with a Wooden Spoon). In order to understand generational poverty first one must examine the family background and history. Majority of people who experience poverty or live in poverty don’t want to be in poverty. One would believe that poverty is a curse that has been passed down from generation to generation. People believe because of their family lineage they must continue the legacy of staying in poverty. Poverty is a gigantic monster that continues to plague the United States. According to the video “Born with a wooden spoon” there is 12% of the USA population,

This week in class the focus has been on generational poverty. There are a lot of key factors that lead to poverty. Poverty does not exist because people want it to. Poverty is a way of life for those who don’t know another way and feel that they don’t have a way out. Every day in society people turn their heads or frown up their nose at people who they see living in poverty because they think they are better than them and will not lift a hand to help them out. The big question is why do we do this? In most cases, the poverty line or clash of the classes are based on wealth and there is certainly a variation in the wealth among the population. But classism exists from the beginning of education to death.

This makes things much more difficult, especially for those women whom are single teen parents. Teenage mothers are more likely to drop out of high school and be dependent on welfare. The level of education for the parents is also another aspect of poverty. Other characteristics that contribute to poverty parents are their emotional status, or even mental retardation.

This review is formulated with scholarly sources and references based off of poverty in America. This disclosure is approached with a value free sociological approach, and it will give insight on the social causes of poverty and the effects it has on America. Poverty is a very controversial topic. Many will assume that people living in poverty are lazy, made bad life decisions, or that they are solely the reason for their predicament however, people living in poverty would argue that their are deeper issues for it. Poverty will be deeply explained and researched from both perspectives

The pinpoint cause of poverty is challenging to find. People who live well off and are above the poverty line may be quick to assume that laziness, addiction, and the typical stereotypes are the causes of poverty. Barbara Ehrenreich, a well known writer on social issues, brings attention to the stereotypical ideology at her time, that “poverty was caused, not by low wages or a lack of jobs, but by bad attitudes and faulty lifestyles” (17). Ehrenreich is emphasizing the fact that statements like the one listed, often influence readers to paint inaccurate mental pictures of poverty that continue to shine light on the ideology of stereotypes being the pinpoint cause to poverty. However, there are many other causes that are often overshadowed, leaving some individuals to believe that poverty was wrongfully placed upon them. Examples would include: high rates of unemployment, low paying jobs, race, and health complications. Which are all out of one’s ability to control. There is no control over a lack of jobs and high rates of unemployment, nor the amount of inadequate wages the working poor receive. Greg Kaufmann, an advisor for the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and The Half in Ten campaign, complicates matters further when he writes, “Jobs in the U.S. [were] paying less than $34,000 a year: 50 percent. Jobs in the U.S. [were] paying below the poverty line for a family of four, less than $23,000 annually: 25 percent” (33). Acknowledging Kaufmann’s fact, the amount received for a family of four is fairly close to the yearly salary of a high school graduate, which means, receiving that kind of pay for one man may seem challenging, now imagine caring for the needs of four individuals. To make matters worse, certain families receive that amount of money and carry the burden of paying for

Poverty is a considerable social problem; with a significant impact on those who suffer within. Growing up in poverty “reduces a child’s chance of growing up to be a healthy, well-adjusted, and contributing adult in our society” (Crosson-Tower, 2014, p. 59). Poverty is families having to struggle to afford necessities. Poverty does not know where your next meal is coming from or having to choose between paying rent and seeing a health care provider. The impact of poverty affects one’s ability through physical, social, emotional, and educational health. Even though individual overcome poverty it still extends across cultural, racial, ethnic, and geographical borders. Children represent the largest group of poverty in the United States. “Growing up in poverty places a child at a profound disadvantage and substantially lowers the chances that the child will mature into a well-adjusted, productive, and contributing