Women In Poverty In The United States

Family homelessness, accompanied by increased rates of unemployment and absence of affordable housing, developed as a major social and public health problem in the 1980’s. This was largely due to “economic conditions in

     To be homeless is to not have a home or a permanent place of residence. Nationwide, there is estimated to be 3.5 million people that are homeless, and roughly 1.35 million of them are children. It is shown that homeless rates, which are the number of sheltered beds in a city divided by the cities population, have tripled since the 1980’s (National Coalition for Homeless, 2014). Worldwide, it is estimated that 100 million children live and work on the streets. Homeless children are more at risk than anyone else, and are among the fastest growing age groups of homelessness. Single women with children represent the fastest growing group of homeless, accounting for about 40% of the people that are becoming

Homelessness affects upwards of 3.5 million Americans annually and has been a historical problem since the 1700’s (Cronley, 2010). People who are homeless do not always choose the situation they find themselves in, but to be more precise, are the victims of a social system that neglects to help them with they first become at-risk of becoming homeless (Edison-Brown). According to the Joint Studies for Housing Studies (2017), almost thirty-nine million American households are living in homes that they have difficulty meeting the required funds to pay for monthly. To illustrate, a person who has a rental home, on average, needs to earn $21.21 per hour to afford a two-bedroom home in the United States (Family Promise, 2016). The poverty line for a family of four is at $24,300, and for someone to achieve that line, they need to be earning at least $11.70 per hour

The common profile of a homeless family is headed by a single mother, in her 20’s with an average of two children, of which one or both are under the age of six. Homeless mothers tend to be poorly educated, unemployed, and lacking the skills necessary to become employed. There is an equal representation of Caucasian (47%) and African American (47%) homeless mothers. These women commonly described their lives as ““… a remarkably constant stream of distressing and spirit-breaking encounters, beginning in early childhood …” including experiencing physical and/or sexual abuse, constant crisis, stress from persistent poverty, violence in the family and community, and isolation. Most of these women grew up homeless and spent their childhood in foster care making them distrustful of the system.

Equal pay is a problem on a global scale. Over 145 countries have a documented pay wage gap (Werft). One would hope the United States would have the smallest wage gap, but in 2016, the United States was in only 45th place in the smallest wage gap (“Rankings”). In fact, most women in the United States only make $0.77 compared to a whole dollar they should earn. The state with the worst wage gap is Louisiana, with only, on average $0.69 for every man’s dollar (“Rankings”). One in three of the 15.2 million families headed by women have fallen below the poverty line, leaving their children to suffer in poverty

Simultaneously, the gender pay gap has financial effects not just on the women, yet their families too. Studies have shown that American families with children count on a women’s earnings as a massive part of their family’s income, and many are the head of the household. Data demonstrates that “seventy percent of mothers with children under 18 participate in the labor force, with over 75 percent employed full-time. Mothers are the primary or sole earners for 40 percent of households with children under 18 today, compared with 11 percent in 1960. Women’s participation in the U.S. labor force has climbed since WWII: from 32.7 percent in 1948 to 56.8 percent in 2016” (Dewolf). Now women make up more than half of the U.S. workforce, the gap in earning deciphers to $7968 per year in median earnings for a high school graduate, $11,616 for a college graduate, and $19,360 for a professional school graduate. By and large, this gap effects hundreds of millions of women and their families, and lag them back hundreds of thousands of dollars throughout their life.

The image of homelessness has changed since the Great Depression, when many homeless people were elderly and white. Today a growing number of women and families, including young children, are homeless because of insufficient housing and resources (Bassuk & Rosenberg, 1988). As the number of homeless people has continued to rise over the past decade, homelessness has become a central feature of life in America.

A homeless person is defined as someone “who lacks a fixed, regular adequate night time residence or a person who resides in a shelter, welfare hotel, transitional program or place not ordinarily used as regular sleeping accommodations, such as streets, movie theaters, cars, abandoned buildings, etc.” (Cone, 2008, p. ). Homelessness is a growing problem in the United States that affects the psychological and physical aspects of its victims. Two of the fastest growing subpopulations of the homeless are single mothers and families. The word homeless implies being extremely vulnerable and

People often think that homelessness only affects men and women but in reality homelessness also affects families “It is estimated that 3.5 million Americans experience homelessness every year. Among this group, 17 percent are single women and 30 percent are families with children” (Finfgeld-Connet, 2010, p.1). It is said that women along with their children are among the fastest growing homeless population and not only does it impact women but it also impacts their children significantly.

The issue of chronic homelessness is not just a political or academic debate but has become evident from men and women living without homes in the streets of America. Homeless men and women

According to The National Organization for Women, women only make 77 cents per dollar a man makes, this can cause women to stay in unhealthy and abusive relationships because they are financially depended on their spouse or boyfriend. There is a 9.4% pay gap between men and women, this causes many women to feel angry and that there is a social injustice that they want to change. Women do the same work as men and only earn 77 per dollar simply because she is a woman. This results in women making thousands of dollars less than a

Poverty has increasingly become a noticeable issue worldwide over the past couple of decades. With the middle class steadily decreasing, considerable amounts of people are becoming part of the lower class, and even more of our world’s population are beginning to live in poverty. It is important to understand there are different definitions of poverty, and that is largely determined by what each country’s government determines as the cut off of poverty, otherwise known as the ‘poverty line’. Although some people could live above the poverty line, and still be struggling financially, it goes unrecognized by most research collection. However, what was initially noticed around the 1970’s is that there was a significant rise in women’s poverty statistics. More female-headed households were living in poverty, and a majority of those women belonged to a minority. This recognizable trend has been deemed the ‘feminization of poverty’, which according research is not only a growing problem in North America, but several other countries around the world. Information gathered about this issue in the United States shows that female-headed households is by far the fastest growing type of family structure, and due to the fact there is a growing poverty level amongst this group, it now means that approximately half of the all the poor in the United States live in a women-headed family and household. (Gimenez, 1999, p. 336) The biggest question when is comes to this particular topic is why?

Two contemporary social problems of interest are transitional housing needs for homeless mothers and domestic violence in the African American community. Fischer (2000) wrote homeless families face the economic and personal challenges of sparse employment opportunities, child care and nutrition needs, compounded by the loss of adequate housing. Those with the greatest risk of being unemployed and of becoming long term welfare dependent are teen mothers (Fischer, 2000). In addition, depression and the loss of self-confidence are direct results of being homeless. Homelessness destroys self-esteem and promotes hopelessness.

Homelessness has become a serious problem in today’s society. Despite the organizations that help multitudes of homeless people, homelessness is continually increasing. In recent years, America’s culture has been changing due to economic, political, and social issues. These issues have caused a lot of stress on America resulting in abject poverty in several cities. Poverty is not nationwide, but if dealt with lightly, the affects can be catastrophic. Homelessness is increasing more than ever, and research proves that changing culture contributes to rising amount of homelessness.

Poverty is an issue that is faced by multitudes of people around the world. Poverty itself is defined as, “the state of being poor” (Merriam Webster). According to Sara S. McLanahan, of Princeton University, “In the United States, poverty is defined as not having enough income to pay for basic needs, such as food, clothing and shelter. Poverty is a family attribute. In other words, if a family is classified as poor, all the members of that family are also poor” (McLanahan, n.d.). The U.S. Census Bureau, in 2013 shows, “there were 45.3 million people in poverty” just in the United States (U.S Census Bureau, 2013). From those living in poverty, in the same year, “the ratio of the female poverty rate to the male poverty rate was 1.2---women were 20 percent more likely to be poor than men” (Mykyta, 2013, p. 2). Also, “of all people categorized as in poverty in 2011, approximately 56 percent were women” (Mykyta, 2013, p. 2). Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, director of the Human Development Report, portrays a simple truth, “women are poorer than men” (Fukuda-Parr, 1999, p. 99).