Analyzing Poverty in America The purpose of this article is to define and identify what “poor” really means. According to the census bureau, 35 million people were considered to be poor in 2002. Poverty is understood to be defined as not being able to provide the following: clothing, reasonable shelter, and food. In America most of the people who are considered to be poor, would actually be in good living conditions just a few generations ago. This article goes back and forth in many different aspects as to what and who are considered to be poor.
One in five children in the UK live in poverty. Worklessness and low paid jobs are factors. Worklessness is associated with lone parents 45% of poor children live in a lone parent households. Due to loss of an income from the nonresident parent, childcare costs; the lone parent struggles to balance work and home life leading the lone parent to rely on benefits. While 58% of families below the UK poverty line contained at least one working parent, benefits available still do not bring them above the 60% median household income.
Apart from the main direct cause like unemployment, poverty in our society today is the low paid, lone parents and children. However poverty can have a great impact on a child’s life. The people as well as the children who are poor could suffer greatly from problems such as social exclusion, employment, education, mental and physical health and social interaction. This is one fact why child poverty is a direct result of adult poverty, however unlike an adult, experiencing poverty as a child can have lifelong consequences in the future lifespan if they are not helped early age. Poverty is measured in two ways, namely absolute and relative poverty.
It is very easy for us to look at someone who is impoverished and assume that they are to be blamed for their own poverty. That is not always the case. Millions of Americans are living in poverty. Some are ill, some are unemployed, and some people have devoted too much of their time attempting to better society, as opposed to bettering their own life. We live in a very ethnocentric society, meaning that we look down upon those of a different culture and tend to assume the worst of them, (Leeder, In Class 1/16/13).
In this paper, we will discuss these characteristics and reasons. There are two types of poverty. The two types of poverty are situational and generational poverty (“Urban Ventures”, n.d.). Situational poverty describes poverty that occurs due to a significant change in life status, such as job loss (“Urban Ventures”, n.d.). The difference in situational poverty and generational poverty is that in situational poverty, the people experiencing poverty continue to have hopes that they will recover from the change that occurred (“Urban Ventures”, n.d.).
The writer, describes the lives of America’s low wage earners and families living in or near poverty line, interviewing many individuals and narrating their stories in great details. Poverty in America knows no ethnic or racial boundaries, tycoons and organizers profit from cheap labor to stay in line of work. The
Their lives would mainly consist of making very little money to support themselves and or families, paying bills and buying necessities for life. Getting sick would very often be a daily occurrence due to a poor standard of living. Hygiene and long-term health would deteriorate due to poor diet and unclean, animal infested living conditions causing their life expectancy to drop. They would have many daily struggles. On the other side of the spectrum, people in the rich parts would be living decadent, lavished lifestyles.
Single parents have a lack of funds to support their children’s needs. There is a certain amount of social stigma pointed towards children living in poverty, and it’s these children, who, not only have to deal with that stigma and embarrassment, but, also they are dealing with the dramatic health consequences as well. There are a number of strategies in place to end child poverty. Improving social mobility and promoting work are high on the agenda, along with services to help promote the most vulnerable and hopefully, this in turn, will eradicate child poverty for good. There are a number of causes to child poverty in the UK.
In “What is Poverty?” Theodore Dalrymple argues that poverty has been redefined. In traditional poverty, poor people’s income levels are low, they are starving, or the medical care is not enough. However, this kind of poverty does not exist in industrial countries like England because of the welfare state. The welfare state redistributes wealth, provides free medical care and free houses for the poor. According to the author, this causes moral poverty.
In the past, poverty was determined by a lack of items essential to survival. "Whether it be directly through starvation, or indirectly through sickness brought on by insufficient nourishment, poverty must necessarily lead to the extinction of the physical life” (Iceland, 2006, Ch.3). This definition made determining who was living in an impoverished state very ease; howver, as the times changed, so did the definition of poverty. Today, there is lots of pressure to determine an exact line for who is deserving of government aid, and who should be expected to fend for themselves. The definition of poverty that was effective in the past, is now defined as Absolute poverty.