preview

The Definition Of Poverty On The Number Of Adults And Children

Good Essays

The definition of poverty hinges on the number of adults and children in the family. Based on income in the United States in 2015, roughly, poverty lines as the weighted average poverty thresholds for family with one person, two people and three people, are 12,082, 15,391, and 18,871 dollars, respectively [1].
Poverty rate differs between race and Hispanic origin, age, and sex, disability status, and other societal characteristics, including immigration status, region, and work experience. The real median household incomes of US families have increased slowly from 1967 to 2015, after adjustment for inflation, but racial gaps still persist. For example, using 2015 dollars as the unit, the real median household income of all races has …show more content…

The first five years of life are most crucial to shape a child’s future life chances [5]. Poverty is also linked to health disparities. To characterize how much the census tract is inflicted by poverty, poverty can be measured by percent of the census tract population below the poverty line. The 5-year survival rate of cancer is found to be lower in poverty-stricken areas, where health service access is usually limited [6].
The last report of the Census Bureau from 2015 shows that while the poverty rate for the population as a whole was 13.5%, the rate varied greatly by age, sex and race. Nearly 20% of children under age 18 were poor in 2015, compared to 12.4% of people ages 18-64 and 8.8% of people ages 65 and older. Therefore, around 14.5 million children–one in five–were in poverty status in 2015 and represented 33.6% of the people in poverty. Approximately 45% of poor children lived in extreme poverty, defined as an annual income of less than half the poverty level, and the youngest children had the highest poverty rates (21.4% of infants, toddlers and preschoolers) [1]. Children who are born into poverty and live persistently in poor conditions are at greatest risk of adverse health outcomes. However, even short-term spells of poverty can expose children to hardships, such as food insecurity, housing

Get Access