The Poverty Of The United States

Many individuals all over the world are affected by poverty. In order to completely understand the cause, the effect, and the solution to ending poverty, we must first understand the meaning of poverty. Poverty is the condition where an individual’s basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter are not being met (business dictionary). According to the World Bank Organization, poverty is also the lack of healthcare, education, information, and jobs. There are two general types of poverty: Absolute and Relative. Absolute poverty occurs when individuals cannot obtain adequate resources to support a minimum level of physical health. Relative poverty occurs when individuals do not

The Great Depression in the 1930’s had been followed by a period of growing income inequality and a shrinking middle class. Due to the economic conditions, Income disparities in access to health care had grown much worse, medical costs were rising, and sickness became a leading cause of poverty. Since few people could afford to pay for medical care welfare agencies began to help pay for medical costs for the poor. By “1940, the population of the united states was 132 million with only 12 million – a little less than 10 percent covered by some form of health insurance”( Scofea, 1994). The growing concern of the increase in the number of people who are uninsured led to the enactment of the Stabilization act in 1942, which imposed wage and price controls but at the same time permitted the adoption of employee insurance plans. The federal government enacted this legislation to prevent employers from raising wages in order to compete for scarce labor in response to the inflation pressure of the wartime economy. Furthermore, the government provided private insurers with a new market for their products by permitting employers to offer health insurance to their employees. In the years that followed, the government passed several regulations that helped reinforced the institutionalization of the employment-based system of health insurance that

Poverty has been an ongoing issue since the birth of this Nation. When one thinks of poverty the last people we think of are the ones closest to home. As children some are told “finish your dinner, there are starving kids in Africa”, but what about the starving children whom are in neighborhoods close to us? Poverty is everywhere, even the places that are thought of as wealthy. Poverty in America; a continuing issue.There are many different definitions of poverty. The United States Census Bureau states that

In the beginning of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the “healthcare system” was left in the hands of the states, which the states handed off to private and voluntary programs to deal with. In the presidential term of Teddy Roosevelt, 1901-1909, he felt that “no country could be strong whose people were sick and poor.” (Palmer 1999) He did however back health insurance as a whole. Roosevelt was not the one fighting for the health care though, there were outside forces that impacted health care. The American Association of Labor Legislation (AALL) led the campaign for health insurance. They drafted their first bill by 1915. This bill wanted to limit the coverage toward the working class and anyone who earned less than $1,200 a year including dependents. The American Medical Association (AMA) backed this bill because they felt the same way about coverage. The AMA did not speak for all doctors and those who opposed this backing spoke up. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) opposed the bill because they felt that it would weaken the unions and they wanted to maintain their strength. The private insurance

However, the social security bill provided some funds to states for expansion through hospital construction, as well as child and maternal health services. After WW II the economy greatly expanded and American capitalism thrived, this was due to the growing family’s needs (Kaiser, 2009). President Truman picked up what Roosevelt had started and called the congress to pass a national health program to guarantee medical access to the American people (Kaiser, 2009). In 1945, President Truman was the first president to propose national health insurance (Medicare/Medicaid) but it was rejected by the congress at that time due to the racial segregation that existed among hospitals. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Medicare and Medicaid into law as an amendment to the Social Security Act. Although Johnson’s creative health plan improved access to healthcare for many poor and elderly citizens, it fuelled a spiral increase of healthcare costs that has continued till this day (Kaiser, 2009).

The cost of healthcare and insurance has risen drastically over the past and can now cost a family up to $8000 per year. For families living in poverty, this cost can be difficult for them to pay. For families or individuals in poverty that lack health insurance, a sudden illness, chronic disease, or accident will be devastating. If something were to happen to someone in poverty, it would be very difficult to pay the expenses of the healthcare they went through, which could, in turn, make them poorer than they already were. All of these causes must have an effect on the American society somehow.

In today’s economy the need for people with college degrees is at an all-time high. With factories starting to turn to robots, the world now needs people to program the robots. In order for you to program a robot, you need to learn how to code; which can usually can only be done at a four year university. . If every American had some type of education beyond high school, Americans would be better off because more people would have higher paying jobs while poverty levels would go down, more family time, crime rates would decrease, and more jobs would come and stay in the United States.

Today thousands of Americans are waking up and enjoying a pot of coffee, cooking themselves breakfast, and taking their morning pills and medication. Whereas in other poverty stricken areas today, thousands of americans are waking up and not looking forward to their sickness brimmed morning, knowing that there was no hope for a medication that they could afford to buy. According to the article “31 Million People Can't Afford Healthcare” by Robert King, many believe that with the help of the government and a little ingenuity then it is possible for the 3.1 million U.S. citizens suffering from the severe lack of free health care to be able to receive medical attention in their greatest time of need. Faced with this problem, many people have wondered

With a staggering number of 14.5 million children living in poverty in America, which mean that children who come from these families are at a higher risk of outcomes. In an article written by (Rodgers,H,R,2015), poverty is a massive societal problem with a multitude of negative cause and effect relationships evolving from poverty(2015). Children raised in poverty are at a higher risk of an adverse health issues such as mental illness, malnourishment, child abuse, victims of violence, lack of quality schools and/or daycare. While the government has given allowance for each state,city and county the overall benefits are not successful as should be. However, since poverty is a dynamic family problem; programs are implemented not end poverty,

What is poverty? A question most Americans will not have to think twice before answering. Poverty is, of course, simply a lack of money. The views of a specific person will defer when politics or morals are introduced, however, the idea stays the same. Those in poverty are there because they have less money than what has been decided to be livable. Poverty has changed significantly over the last two hundred years in the United States, and yet, the measurement has hardly changed since it was created fifty years ago. As the United States of America has because a better-established country and therefore a more prosperous country, the type of people that are considered poor has changed quite a bit. Before industrialization and immigration

As of 2011 information released by the U.S. Census Bureau, 15% of people in the United States live in hardship, more than 46 million individuals live without necessities in America. Compared with the poorest nations on the planet, the destitution rate in the U.S. is moderately humble. In a few nations, the impoverishment rate is more than five times the United States. In Haiti, the most astounding on the planet, 77% of inhabitants live in destitution. Education and proficiency rates are especially low in these nations. (Hess and Weigley 2012)

Poverty is more than lacking monetary value for daily needs, which means that poverty prevention must give adequate attention to the non-economic factors which affect the impoverished. One cannot look at the spokes of poverty without recognizing the spiritual poverty that essentially underlies all of poverty. Nearly four fifths of the world’s children grow up with no knowledge of God, resulting in a catastrophic spiritual poverty. Without God many feel they lack purpose and when one lacks a purpose they are deprived of a drive to fulfill that purpose. This lack of drive contributes directly to the disintegration of Aristotle’s ideal citizen. With no drive, there is no self-sufficiency, and with no self-sufficiency there is no independence

In the United States, 45.3 million people live in poverty. In a country with a population of 313.9 million people, that means that almost 15% of the nation is living in poverty. Of those who are in poverty, 12,700 of those are veterans. As small and insignificant as that may seem, it is a problem that those who fought for the country are the ones who end up fighting to stay alive in that same country they just devoted their life to. A major factor that leads to poverty is joblessness. The unemployment rate is drastically different for veterans than it is for the average citizen. Within the past ten years, veteran employment rate skyrocketed to an astounding 11.7%, whereas the general public has an employment rate of 9.1%. Now, the question of “Well, why?” occurs. Veterans cannot find jobs in their home country anymore because of mental disabilities that they evolved during their time serving.

in temporary or seasonal jobs and these people are called the underclass. Of course we

I stopped for a moment to imagine an average Americana’s world without a health insurance, what will become of such individual when the need for healthcare beckons? How will such individual offset the outrageous bill of healthcare? Health insurance is used in America to describe any program that helps pay for medical bills through the following: privately purchased and social insurance or a social welfare program usually powered by the government. Simply put, health insurance is any form of insurance that provides protection by offsetting the actual costs of medical services.