The Pros And Cons Of Poverty

Poverty affects over 767 million people in the entire world. In the United States alone, poverty affects more than 42 million people. According to feedingamerica.org, of that 42 million affected, 13 million children and over 5 million seniors live in poverty. Poverty is grouped into two different categories; absolute and relative. Wikipedia.org defines absolute poverty as the absence of enough resources to secure basic life necessities. This includes not having safe drinking water, not having clean bathroom facilities, not being able to get proper healthcare, not having access to education and not having proper shelter. Absolute poverty is also referred to as living in extreme poverty. Relative poverty, according to wikipedia.org, is the condition in which people lack the minimum amount of income needed in order to maintain the average standard of living in the society in which they live. The meaning of poverty varies from country to country and person to person. For example, while some people in the United States would be considered as living below the poverty line, a person from another country may consider that person rich. However, poverty is simply when an individual is unable to meet their basic needs. This includes not being able to clothed, house or feed oneself or one’s family. Poverty is a problem that will not be easily solved. There have been many attempts to try and end poverty, but yet it continues to grow. In a country such as the United States that’s

Poverty is present in today’s U.S. social system. For example, as Lesser states in the Clearinghouse Review, “Forty-six million Americans live in poverty” (1). Lesser then goes on to say how forty-six million Americans living in poverty correlates to almost one in every three single-parent families is poor (1). This is a daunting fact as it applies to today’s economic context with “rising unemployment rates and mortgage crises driving more individuals and families to seek the support of a cash-strapped social welfare structure” (Grijalva 1). With this in mind, many legislators are discussing the topic of poverty in the political realm. In order to tally the score of representatives the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law conducted its sixth annual Poverty Scorecard. “The 2012 Poverty Scorecard grades the voting record of every U.S. senator and representative on the most important poverty-related votes in 2012” (Lesser 1). The 2012 votes covered a range of topics such as budget and tax, food and nutrition, health care, housing, and many more (1). The results of the 2012 Poverty

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.

It is not shocking to hear that tens of millions of Americans are living in poverty. Startling statistics about the poor are constantly being tossed around on television with images of run-down neighborhoods and malnourished children. The real surprise, however, is that millions of those in poverty are full-time, minimum wage earning workers. Many say one should feel morally obligated to help these people. President Barack Obama said it best in his February 2013 State of the Union address, “Let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on earth, no one who works full time should have to live

Compared to the rest of the world the United States is economically prosperous however, many citizens are plagued with poverty and destitution. Poverty has become such a problem that one in six Americans are living below the poverty line (Yen). Despite the significant number of Americans living in poverty, most Americans are unaware of its vast scope and scale. The public’s apathy towards poverty has caused it to become an invisible epidemic. The middle -class’s flight from the cities has created de facto segregation between the impoverished and the financially comfortable. Lawmakers find that running on the platform of “fixing poverty” is not appealing to the majority of their middle-class constituents. The media turns a blind eye to

In America today, millions of people suffer from a lack of basic needs due to a shortage of reasonably paying jobs. A growing percentage of Americans are falling below the poverty line, and, in recent years, the rapid growth of technology is destroying blue-collar jobs. For example, 55-year-old Glenn Johnson of Miami is making about $14,000 a year - or $7.93 an hour - working at Burger King and Walmart. Johnson is a single parent who toils day and night to provide for his family. He gets home at 1 or 2 a.m., but despite his hard work, he depends on food stamps. Johnson described his daily routine to the Huffington Post as “pure hell.” Unfortunately, this is a reality for more than 45 million Americans, roughly 15 percent of the American population,

It is an undeniable fact there exists a growing poverty epidemic within American society that needs to be addressed. According to a 2012 report by the Cato Institute the United States government spends nearly one-trillion dollars every year to combat severe financial need through a total of 126 separate welfare programs. While this value by itself seems significantly large, perhaps to an even excessive extent, in reality it had little effect on the American poverty level, never al allowing it to drop below 10.5%. Even with these massive government expenditures aimed at elevating quality of life, for many households an escape from their low-income bracket is still vastly unattainable. Current statistics show that more than 40% of individuals born into the bottom quintile will remain there, failing to escape into a life of financial stability. Despite immense funding, in its existing state of organization, the system of aid currently offered by the American government to lower income household fails to effectively alleviate the living conditions of the impoverished due to its negligence towards payday loans and the other intangible costs of poverty, its temporary and ineffective solutions to fight hunger, and most significantly, its insufficient reliance on an unreliable and inconsistent enforcement from state jurisdictions.

Today, despite strong labor markets with record low unemployment rates, there are millions of Americans who work but remain poor. In 2009,.which is the most recent data available, accordint to the Working Poor Families Project (a privately funded effort aimed at improving economic security for low-income families) 10 million low-income working families in the United States an increase of nearly a quarter million from the previous year. Forty-three percent of working families with at least one minority parent were low income, nearly twice the proportion of white working families (22 percent). The number of working poor in the United States is higher than they have ever seen it before and it continues to increase at a staggering pace. I'm going

28 percent of American workers in 2011 earned poverty-level wages. That is, three years ago more than one in four workers in our country were not able to stave off poverty despite their active employment, according to the Economic Policy Institute, and that number has only increased since then. In absolute terms, this translates to millions of employed Americans still falling below the US Census’s poverty level, according to Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Bill Quigley. These workers toil long hours at jobs that are challenging both physically and mentally. And to add insult to injury, they are faced with social stigma on account of their status as low-paid

Even though having the “poor class” is a necessary evil needed for society to function, most Americans, at some point in time, will experience what it is like to live in poverty or live below the poverty line. One main reason for having a high percentage of people living in poverty is because the U.S. policy makers have ignored the poor and have given tax breaks to those with a much higher income. Funding for welfare was slashed and extended unemployment benefits were ended. With little success with the economic reform the United States has been going through for the past five years, about 14.5 percent of Americans are still living under the poverty line.

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

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.

What is poverty? Is it material deprivation or social exclusion? It can be both. Poverty is defined as a state of having very little or no money, goods, or means of support. Having a poverty line can be difficult because standards of living change, and so do people’s perception of what poverty means. It is also difficult to measure poverty because what it takes to get along or make ends meet can be different in many communities and can also reflect individual opinions as much as actual needs (Iceland 2006).

Poverty is among us. Regardless of where you go, you will see a person holding a sign that most likely says “anything will help” meaning that they are asking for any spare change you have. One thing I knew is that junk food is much cheaper then the healthier foods therefore it was always the first, and easy choice. However, in the article, Child and Family Poverty in Ontario (Best Start, 2010, pg.35) what about children that have dietary needs? This information has made me realize that those families have it even harder. According to Canada Without Poverty (2017), in Canada, there are 4.9 million people living in poverty, and 1.3 million are children. That is a lot of children living in poverty who are not getting access to healthier foods, opportunities to extra curriculum activities, and adequate clothing. Poverty can also affect parenting styles as well. According to A. Driscoll, N.G. Nagel (2010), a parent in a low-income family compared to a parent in a high-income family have different approach to parenting. Parents that are able to live freely without thinking with their funds are going to next are able to use that time and energy towards their children.

In the twenty first century, the most pressing issue swaying the practicality of global cumulative development and prosperity, is poverty. For, in the world, still more than a billion of people live below US$1.35 per day, while about 1.75 billion suffer from multidimensional poverty with lack of health safety, economic opportunities, education and living standard (Cook: 2013; Dauda: 2017). Looking back to history, there were also about a billion of people in the world living in miserable destitution 200 years ago. The difference, obviously, lies in the rate of world population, which accounted for about four out of five people in the past compared to one in five in the present (Ravallion: 2016). Previously, poverty was viewed as simple as a low-income status that mostly resides among the rural people. Sender (2003) goes even further encompassing the established definition of ‘poor’ being usually farmers, self-employed, smallholders and female-headed small farm households. But relentless researches in years have discovered that the ‘poor in the urban areas are more severely poor than the poor in the rural areas’ (International Institute for Environment and Development & United Nations Population Fund [IIED & UNFPA]: 2008; Boateng: 2006 & 2017). And the dimension of poverty expands to deprivation of various aspects of human development; even ‘powerlessness and voicelessness, and vulnerability and fear’ (World Bank: 2001). However, apart from treating poverty as a