"Ways To Improve College Education"! Why College education is so important? America's colleges and universities are in crisis. They cost far too much: America spends thousands more per post-secondary student than any other OECD nation. For all that money, we achieve outcomes: 42 percent of students who enter a four-year institution fail to leave that school with a degree within six years, and studies find that many students' improvement in thinking skills is insignificant or nonexistent.
What is the working poor? There are 10.4 million low income working families in the United States. 47 million people, include 23.5 million children live in low-income families (BLS, 2010). The working poor represent the working population with a disposable income that does not cover basic living necessities, such as food, housing, and utilities. According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2011), more than 146 million Americans live at or below the poverty level.
* As standards of living increased and childhood came to be seen as a special period , therefore sizes of families were limited. * Attitudes to women's roles changed dramatically meaning more women chose to have careers instead of having children or having less children so they could work. CHANGES IN THE FERTILITY RATE * The fertility rate generally refers to the number of children that women of childbearing age have in any one year. The rates have declined over the past of 100 years. * In 1990 there were 115 live births per 1000 women aged 15 to 44 compared to only 57 in 1999.
There was a bill passed by the United State Senate which increased the minimum wage to $7.25 in 2009. Although the minimum wage has increased, a family of three who earn minimum wage would still fall below the federal poverty level. A full time minimum wage earner, based on a 52 week
The census data for 2006 shows that 36.5 million Americans or about one in eight lived below the federal poverty like of $20,614 in income for a family of four. More than a third of them are children, and 3.4 are 65 and older. While the poverty rate continues to rise, the number of children without health care insurance continues to rise with it. Billiteri, J. Thomas (2007, September 7) Domestic Poverty ( Vol. 17, Issue 31).
The median average income for married couples with children was three times greater and, for the relatively few single-father families, nearly one and a half times greater. Well over a third (38.5%) of single-mother families lived below the poverty threshold. This is more than four and a half times the rate for married couples with children and also considerably higher than the rate for single-father families. About half the single-mother families below the poverty threshold were in “extreme poverty,” i.e., had incomes below 50% of the threshold. Women were a large majority (79.6%) of the adults with children who were in emergency shelters.
Not only do Americans work more hours but also they get the least amount of vacation. “They put us Americans at 1,841 “average” hours a year and the Germans at 1,473 hours in 2000 – and then put us at 1,804 hours a year and the Germans at 1,436 hours in 2006” (New York Times). That means that Americans work a total of 368 more hours than Germans in 2000, and exactly the same in 2006. There has been a decrease in hours worked in America, but we are still working more than Germans. 368 hours turns into fifteen and one third days.
With the economy in the shape it is, it makes those full-time jobs seem like only part-time jobs. “We are spending more money fighting poverty than ever before, yet poverty is up,” said Michael D. Tanner, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. “Clearly we are doing something wrong.”( Poverty Stats Show the Damage) Specialists say the government needs to rethink their calculations of poverty. According to Carol Morello’s article, “Poverty Stats Show the Damage,” about 44 million Americans (one in seven) lived in homes at the poverty level. For a family of four that level is $22,000 annually or less.
Individuals/Families below the Poverty Line Angela Valentine PSY 490- Social Science Capstones Instructor: Raqota Berger 5 March 2012 Poverty is an urgent problem that has existed for a very long time in the United States and many other countries. It undermines the dignity of men, women and children, and deprives them of human rights and leads to their marginalization. According to statistics, there are 15.1% of Americans living below the poverty line (Census Bureau, 2011). This percentage is the highest it’s been since 1993. Low-income families usually include three or more children, family members with low education levels, the unemployed, young people, students in universities that have not found work, and residents of small towns and rural settlements.
Forty two percent of all families below the UK poverty line contained no working members(CPAG, 2009/10). This shows that a lot of poor people do not work. Low Paid Work is another cause of Poverty. You find people working, but their earning is not enough to support their families. The cost of living keeps getting higher and higher.