Social Benefits Drastically Reduce Poverty

|absolute and relative poverty. You will also read about the relationship between poverty and inequality, covering the types of |

As citizens of the United States of America, we are extremely lucky. We have the freedom of speech, the right to religion, and all around free-will. We are a free country. Thus bringing attention to the less fortunate parts of the country is not easy. The citizens of the country tend to turn a blind eye to the hardships that some people face. Why aren’t we doing more to help those in need? As a country united, we need to be doing more to help the people in poverty, hunger, and who are homeless in America.

Absolute poverty measurements are based upon a worldwide standard. They measure if a person is too able to earn enough money to satisfy the basic needs of individuals . This formation therefore looks at deprivation since it looks to see if you have enough to survive. Additionally this standard is a worldwide standard of what it expected to be needed by individuals to survive. Thus the absolute poverty measuring is a more fixed and world standard of measuring poverty. The Canadian version of this measurement is the MBM. It defines poverty as anyone who has a yearly income below the market basement, the amount that is defined as the minimum needed to have the access to the most basic necessities of life . The basement though will change as newer technological advances are deemed necessary for basic living . In 1988 this poverty line the market basement was $20,230 for a four person family. This is “roughly half of the LICO… poverty line incomes”

One of the United States most effective tools is The Earned Income Tax Credit which encourages work and improvement of family (Center for American Progress, 2016). In the year of 2014 Earned Income Tax Credit helped more than 6.2 million Americans in the fight against poverty (Center for American Progress, 2016). A disadvantage to the Earned Income Tax Credit, is experienced in workers whose income is relatively low without qualifying children (Center for American Progress, 2016). In these instances

According to the author he believes that welfare reform can end poverty in the United States. The Census Bureau released data that showed that, at least in the writer’s eyes that the United States spends almost four times on welfare programs than would be spent to simply pay people out of poverty. Tax payers at this point pay a trillion dollars annually to support these welfare programs (Ferrara, 2014).

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 &

Ronald Reagan said, “Welfare’s purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.” Welfare is not solving Poverty in America. Before I start this argument I need to assert that I do not think that welfare is a matter of solving poverty anymore. I agree with Ban Ki-Moon when he says, “True security is based on people’s welfare.” Welfare has become a way of keeping the impoverished people from becoming desperate enough to commit crimes, but within this system, that was originally meant to improve the poverty situation, there is evidence that it is causing more people to fall below the poverty line and become dependent on it. I think the US government should consider a welfare reform while thinking about what they really need welfare to accomplish. I think that a welfare program is necessary and I think that a program to help people who are in poverty is needed, but right now I do not think these two programs coincide as they are supposed to. Thus, welfare is hindering impoverished people from ever getting above the poverty line, and the government needs to reform the program.

There are two forms of poverty and three ways to measure poverty in Canada. The two forms are absolute poverty and overall or relative poverty (Raphael, 2011). Absolute poverty can be defined as the state where individuals do not have minimum income to meet basic necessities of life such as: food,water and shelter. This form of poverty is detrimental

Edsall, (2015) noted, over the past fifty years, poverty experts have agreed that poverty amongst our people, have gotten better. Thus, according to this article, “there were many rising disagreements over who’s really poor, and what condition the people may live in.” Thus, in 2013, the United States found 45.3 million people living in poverty. However, many of the experts in this article had many different views on poverty and who they figured to be poor. Moreover, relative and absolute poverty was mentioned in this article. Thus, absolute poverty, is not having enough resources to meet your basic needs, and relative poverty, is having enough resources to meet your basic needs. Lastly, this article discussed anti-poverty policy, and how it has marginalized many people. Furthermore, we as social workers need to understand relative poverty in order to deal with this issue.

The first systematic studies conducted in regards to the measurement of poverty have primarily focused on the identification of those who are deemed to be in poverty merely through

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).

In 2010, about 46.2 million people were considered poor. The nation’s poverty rate rose to 15.1 percent, whereas in 2009, 14.3 percent of people in America were living in poverty (Censky, 2011). That is an increase of 2.6 million people in 2010. In the United States, the federal poverty line – an absolute measure of annual income – is frequently used to determine who is categorized as poor (Ferris & Stein, 2008, 2010). Currently the government defines the poverty line as an income of $11,139 for an individual and $22,314 for a family of four (Censky, 2011). In sociology, poverty can be defined using two terms – relative deprivation and absolute deprivation. Relative deprivation is a comparison between people and social class. With

When refer to define poverty, the difference between the traditional unidimensional approach and contemporary multidimensional approach for the measurement of poverty should be considered. While only one variable is submitted in terms of the traditional approach, for example, consumption or income, multidimensional approach, for example, Sen’s capability theory, expands the amount of dimensions alongside which poverty is determined. The multifaceted reality of poverty, conversely, makes it tricky to confine the essence of this experience by means of a single uni- or multidimensional approaches for measurement (Fusco, 2003).

Absolute poverty is where people don't have enough money to provide standard living conditions for themselves and characteristics of substandard lives are disease, malnutrition, and low-life expectancy. Relative poverty is where a person is considered poor in relation to the average wealth held in their society. Poverty is a

The situation keeps aggravating despite of several poverty alleviation programs that are implemented every year. The main reason for such failure, apart from the implementation issues, would be the measurement and numbers on which these programs are based. Appropriate measurement is central to analyzing and understanding poverty and its alleviation.