The Negative Effects Of Poverty

As mentioned by Ruane and Cerulo in Second Thoughts, harsh realities of poverty affect children’s lives in profound ways. Children lack any power in improving their circumstances and depend on adults to gain access to basic necessities. Access to proper healthcare, education, and basic nutrition continues to be an obstacle for children. Poverty impedes children’s aptitude to learn and contributes to poor overall health and mental health. Perhaps most important, poverty becomes a cyclical nature that is difficult to overcome. Children who experience poverty when they are young tend to experience persistent poverty over the course of their entire lives. According to the Child Welfare League of America, the national poverty rate for children

Poverty is about not having enough money to meet basic needs including food, clothing and shelter. However poverty is more than not just having money. In addition to a lack of money, poverty is about not being able to participate in recreational activities; Not being able to send children on a day trip with classmates or to a birthday party, and not being able to pay for medications in times of illness. The poorest people will also have less access to health, education and other vital services. Problems of hunger, malnutrition and disease afflict the poorest in society. The poorest are also typically marginalized from society and have little representation or voice in public and political debates, making it even harder to escape poverty. Poverty is a direct threat to society and equal rights in America.

When people hear the words “child poverty” some assume that this term may refer to homeless children who are living on the streets. This isn’t necessarily true, in fact some children who go to bed every night with a roof above their head still suffer from some form poverty. According to National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP), 21% of children throughout the United States live in families who are considered poor. It is crucial for society to be more aware of this issue and to take part in contributing to help reduce child poverty within our country.

‘Poverty is on the agenda of the Every Child Matters framework, with one of the five outcomes stating that every child should ‘achieve wealth and economic well being.’ This means is it is important that children experiencing poverty have the same opportunities as their peers.’(CYPW, pg 186/187)

Poverty is a human services issue that is spread throughout the nation and world. ‘The percentage of children who are poor is more than three times as high in the United States as it is in Norway or the Netherlands.’ (Porter, 2016) The trend since 2000 is that there is an increasing amount of families, and in turn children, living in poverty. Poverty has been defined as the state of being extremely poor. But what does that mean? Poverty is the lack of financial, emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical resources. Children cannot change their situation because they are dependent on adults to provide for them which makes poverty easily passed from generation to generation. “Poverty directly and indirectly affects

Although some children who live in poverty try to succeed, some don’t try at all. Not trying makes the gray matter lessen. The less gray matter the harder academics gets for them. Most drop out and causes them to be in the same situation for the rest of their

For those who are rich and powerful in the United States, they do not have to worry about how their health might be affected by their financials. The reality is, everyone else has to deal with connection between health and poverty. The cost to be healthy is expensive, so when there is a shortage in money it also puts your health at risk. The effects that poverty has on your wellbeing is connected to the lack of healthcare, and substance abuse, as well as the increase in

For those who live in the United States, some do not see the correlation between poverty and its effects on people’s behavior to their academics. Poverty affects many students at a young age depending on the location they are in as it prevents underprivileged kids to seek higher education. However, with new opportunities [in effect], kids in poverty can have the same education as privileged kids. Poverty stricken students are disadvantaged when trying to obtain a higher education. Children in poverty lose their motivation in school when they do not have the support of their parents. Some other issues students face includes parents not being able to assist their child in school. Another is that the child is not able to go to school because they have to work instead and support their families. Although public education is available to all children, those that live in poverty are deprived of its full potential due to the factors of low family incomes as well as the lack of self-motivation and the importance of having an education.

Poverty is “the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor” (Dictionary.com, 2017). Based off this definition poverty is a condition that can cause a cascade of cause and effect actions that is detrimental to families and individuals both physically and mentally. Haan, Kaplan, & Camacho (2017) completed a study on the correlation between social and economic status and health in adults in Oakland, CA. They found that the lower the socioeconomic class the higher incidents of diseases and deaths related to chronic diseases (p.1161-1162). Just being without money or little money was not the only indication of health indication, a person living in an area with higher poverty issues

Currently, well over forty-five million people in the US are considered impoverished (Gongloff, Mark. “45 Million Americans Still Stuck Below Poverty Line: Census.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 16 Sept. 2014, 10:23 am), and—though that number is slowly dropping— this is still one of the pivotal issues politicians rarely is ever mention. Most assume this is due to people being “lazy”, and simply “not willing” to work hard enough to earn a livable wage despite the fact that many of them work twelve to sixteen hours a day. Many then find themselves wondering why this is the case, and while the answer is heartbreaking, it’s not nearly far-fetched enough to warrant surprise. In fact, it’s rather well-known that most people who fall below the poverty line are either people of colour, women, people in the LGBT community, the elderly, disabled, or non-Christian: all minority groups. The matter of helping them (or even if we should in the first place) along with who is responsible is a hotly debated issue. It’s even worse when the fact that those who need help in the first place rarely if ever get a say, as they are almost entirely handled by those who have little-to-no experience with such matters.

The logic of poor peoples purchases as they attempt to meet a wealth image they cannot obtain is obscene. It is impossible to provide for their families and live a rich lifestyle under little earnings. Stated by Isabel Sawhill, “None of this means that providing lower-income families with more money is necessarily a bad thing” (Sawhill). The political system works in a matter to benefit poor families with money they do not earn. Poor individuals complain about being poor while it is quite simple to overcome poverty and rely on a career. Pursuing a career and presenting a humble attitude can help with overcoming poverty and presenting a better reputation. Poor individuals need to visualize more than spending money on unnecessary items, work to flip their money without relying on the government, and be themselves not a false image.

Children in poverty is a typical social issue occurring in society today. “More than 16 million children in the United States – 22% of all children – live in families with incomes below the federal poverty level” (“National Center For Children In Poverty,” n.d.). The federal poverty level measures the amount of income a family takes in per year. It varies depending on the number of people in a family. For a nuclear family (two parents and two children) the federal poverty level is around twenty-four thousand dollars in a year (“Health Care.gov,” n.d.). The average American makes around forty-six thousand dollars a year. The parents of the children in poverty make at least twenty-two thousand dollars below the average. Their families are extremely poor. Also, not just one child is facing this hardship, sixteen million children are part of families below the federal poverty line, just in America. “About 22% of children in the U.S. lived below the poverty line in 2013, compared with 18% in 2008” (Calfas, 2015). Unfortunately, the rate of poverty affecting children has gone up through the years. More and more children will face poverty during day to day life. Children can be affected by poverty in many ways. “Poverty can impede children’s ability to learn and contribute to social, emotional, and behavioral problems. Poverty also can contribute to poor

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

In the United States and in countries all over the world, poverty has extreme impacts on a

Some people have a different viewpoint on this topic of effects of race on poverty. They claim that racism has decreased over the years. Studies have shown that black residential segregation has decreased, not by a lot, over the years from 1980 to 2010 (Firebaugh). As stated in the article, the change is very minimal; therefore, it does not make this situation better. Americans do not want to agree to the fact that inequality exists. People support their wrong claim by articles that do not show the effects of the small change. They are being ignorant when they say that discrimination does not exist. They do not want to fight this problem, which has never disintegrated since the beginning of American history. Philip Bump himself writes, “Americans don't want to imagine that our racist history is actually an ongoing, racist reality” (Bump). Americans are under the misunderstanding of all people being treated fairly. This misconception is due to our politicians saying that racism has decreased over the years. Some Americans are ignoring this fact because they think it does not affect them in their life. They are wrong if this is the assumption that they are making. The reason for them being wrong is that it hurts them economically. If more people are in poverty, then the gross domestic product (GDP) will be low. This will hurt the US economy. The reason for this negative effect is that it will increase inflation in the US; as a result, the prices for goods and services will sky