There are two main reasons that American children are poor: Their parents don't work much, and fathers are absent from the home. In good economic times or bad, the typical poor family with children is supported by only 800 hours of work during a year: That amounts to 16 hours of work per week. If work in each family were raised to 2,000 hours per year the equivalent of one adult working 40 hours per week throughout the year nearly 75 percent of poor children would be lifted out of official poverty. Father absence is another major cause of child poverty. Nearly twothirds of poor children reside in singleparent homes; each year, an additional 1.3 million children are born out of wedlock.
The lack of motivation caused by years of not having a job and watching your family suffer in poverty is a condition that not too many of us are familiar with. “Native American Poverty,” by Tom Rodgers justifies the allegations that a large percentage, about 25%, of the Native Americans live in poverty. “According to the US Census Bureau, these Americans earn a median annual income of $33,627. One in every four (25.3 percent) lives in poverty and nearly a third (29.9 percent) are without health insurance coverage.” The lack of money has become a huge component in the dismemberment of the culture that the Natives so lavishly submerged themselves into, and the picking up other undesirable traits such as drinking. The
The average utility bills are about two-hundred and fifty dollars a month. Now, this person has about two-hundred and fifty dollars to four-hundred and fifty dollars. That’s all they have left for groceries, gas, child care, and healthcare. Many American households are living in poverty, when the head of household is working full-time at minimum wage. However, many people believe that an increase in minimum wage would jeopardize the workforce.
Men struggled to maintain and find jobs to support his family, and women struggled to put food on the table and care for her children with the little or no money that the men brought home. Many schools were forced to close down because the lack of money to stay open, three million children between seven and seventeen had to leave school and almost 40% young people between the ages of 16 to 24 were not working nor in school. Many children
Jeff Doyle Sundol WRC 1013-11 1 Nov. 2010 Are Poor Americans Actually Poor? The number of Americans in poverty today is rather shocking. There are currently thirty-seven million Americans who are classified as being "in poverty" (Rector 2). Many Americans are classified below the line of poverty, but in retrospect to the rest of the world, Americans seem far from poor. America is considered to be upon the most prominent and successful nations in the world; so, why is over a tenth of our population deemed as "poor" by our government?
Dana, 24 yr old single mother of two children finds herself in need of help with her living condition. Her options are rather limited in her being a mother with minimum skills and education. She currently works as a waiter earning minimum wage and tips of 150 dollars a week. She is desperately in need of public assistance. Public assistance will not be enough to cover her total annual expenses.
Minimum wages and poverty: will a $9.50 federal minimum wage really help the working poor? Southern Economic Journal, 76(3), 592-623. The Associated Press (2013, November 6). One in six Americans lives in poverty, new census data reveals — much higher than official rate. Retrieved from
It is not alright that there are 45.7 million people without insurance, while political leaders and almost everyone is insured. According to Dr. Sara Collins, an economist, and Vice President for Affordable Health Insurance at the Commonwealth (2010), “Nearly two-thirds of the 45.7 million uninsured people under age 65 have incomes that are less than 200% of poverty, or about $44,100 per year for a family of four” (p. 3). As you can see, these are people who are working, but do not have the proper health care insurance that their family needs and should have access to. There is no doubt that the system needs to be
The Central African Republic has the second lowest level of human development in the world. Out of the 4.9 million people that live in CAR, 2.5 million are food insecure. No human on earth can survive without food and residents of CAR are struggling to feed their families a healthy meal. When food is available, the prices skyrocket so much that almost nobody can afford to feed their families. Subsistence farming is used in the Central African Republic to make ends meet.
The Issue of Poverty and Hunger By: Nolan Kibit Lit III 2nd Hour One in seven people die of hunger, and 2.2 million children die each year because they are not immunized .Many people do not know how large of an effect poverty has on the health crisis that we face. Poverty is an important global issue because it plays a role in the estimated one billion people who lack access to health care systems. Health issues are a main concern for countries with high poverty populations. Poverty effects the way we act and live, and our health effects the way that we behave in the real world. Poverty effects our health in many ways including mental health and diseases, access to vaccinations, malnutrition, and attaining adequate healthcare.