...Poverty: Who are the poor in the United States? When most people think of the United States they think, the land of the free and the place were dreams come true. Living in the US, there is no limit for advancement and opportunity. No man, woman or child should ever go hungry or want for anything. Here in the US we have more cars on the road and more skyscrapers in large cities than anywhere. In small towns, there are wheat fields and cornfields for miles and miles. As an American living in the US, when we think of poverty we think of countries like India where women wash their clothes in ditches alongside main roads in Mumbai. In countries like Africa Ethiopian men, women and children may go days without a meal, sometime weeks. Examining third world countries and their poverty level, does it cross our minds that poverty really exist here in the United States? Poverty levels in the US do not compare to the poverty level in third world countries. Poverty in a third world country is measured in the terms of absolute poverty, where a person lives in conditions he/she does not have the means to meet the basic needs in life. Their living conditions could be life threaten. Here in the US, poverty level is measured in the terms of relative poverty. According to the article reviewed by Thomas J. Corbett entitled “Poverty” (2008), “Relative poverty is the condition of having fewer resources or less income than others within a society or country, or compared to worldwide averages....
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...How to reduce poverty in the United States Kimberly Woods HUM/114 March 9, 2015 Amanda Freeman How to reduce poverty in the United States Poverty in America Poverty in the United States is getting worse each day and not enough is getting done about it. There are people who want to help the poor, but no one knows exactly how to help them. Those who are against poverty agree that something needs to be done, but they do not know how to go about getting things done. A primary reason for people not taking action is because of lack of information that is provided about issues on poverty. Issues about poverty is not stressed enough by the media to keep America informed on what the country is going through with this problem. Poverty in America is being blamed on the system and the individual affected. The poverty line equals roughly three times the annual cost of a nutritionally adequate diet. It varies by family size and is updated every year to reflect changes in the consumer price index. In 1990 the poverty line for a family of four was $13,359(American Progress.org) There are many ways that poverty could be reduced in the United States. More jobs need to be created and minimum wage needs to be increased. Work schedules need to be more flexible especially with single parent families. The criminal justice system needs to make work available for inmates being released so that they may start over in life(American Progress.org) If the government would listen to the citizens...
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...Poverty affects the whole world and is payed little attention too. Poverty is a problem the world has been aware of for a long time but now is when we need to work together to solve it. I will mainly be focusing on poverty in the US since that's so close to home. What we need to realize is that poverty exists everywhere. If the US focuses on the problem at hand we will realize how we can strive to end poverty. When many of US citizens hear the word “poverty” or “poor” they immediately think of other countries. The Census Bureau has listed that one in five children in America are using food stamps. Huffpost gives us the information that food stamps enrollment sees new highs last year when the year before that is dropped due to improvements in...
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...Poverty and Children in the United States Patsy Fox Soc 120 June 26, 2011 Barbara Romero Poverty and Children in the United States The United States is one of the richest nations in the world, and yet millions of Americans live at or below the poverty level and many more struggle each month not to fall into this category. Unfortunately, the number of children in our society that are living in poverty is increasing daily. Many of these children are from single-parent homes where the parent is not working or have become disabled. Early parenthood is also a big contributor to this situation. Poverty in the United States is largely due to low family incomes and the declining job market. Poverty can best be described as the lack of resources to meet the basic needs of healthy living, or not having sufficient income to provide food, shelter, and clothing for oneself or one’s family. The causes of families finding themselves in this type of situation are continuing to grow on a daily basis. In today’s economy, often people find themselves losing their jobs and living in areas where job opportunities are slim at best. Lack of education can also limit the opportunities that are available to an individual. With the economic downturn that we have experienced, many American’s are faced with the loss of long time jobs when factories and business close suddenly. Many of these individuals may find themselves completely unprepared for today’s job market because they have been in their...
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...The question of how we can reduce poverty in the United States is easy to answer but very hard to implement. The easy answer in my opinion is education. The implementation is the hard part. Yes, education is the answer to reduce poverty in United States, but education alone cannot eliminate poverty. Poverty has many causes and education can break the cycle of uneducated parents who are limited in their job choices and binded by their lack of experience in providing for their family. This usually causes a deadly cycle of kids and their kids falling into the same category of not being able to provide for their families. Just because a family is stricken by poverty does not mean that the family does not have a desire to conquer poverty. The family is usually just not equipped with the proper education to know how to succeed. As mentioned before, the hard part is the implementation of getting the correct people educated. I think the best way to do this is have national government that is split into four regions and have a competition of getting their region educated. This will eliminate the local prejudice among state and local governments and allow for everyone to be treated equal. Maybe this can be put into place and the next generation could be in situation of less poverty. * Critical thinking has allowed me to question myself and create a solution for the problem of poverty. This differs from my former thinking of just searching the Internet and getting someone's else opinion...
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...thinking you learned in this course. • How can we reduce poverty in the United States? • Will receiving a college degree improve your career opportunities? • Has the United States peaked as a world power? Write, once you have answered the above question, a reflection of the process of critical thinking you used in forming your response. Include the following in your reflection: • How does the process of critical thinking you used relate to or differ from the process you used to find content for your answer? • How can you use critical thinking in other areas? • What steps can you take to ensure that you continue to use critical thinking in the future? In today’s society, poverty has become one of the most concerning problems in the United States. Poverty effects millions of people each day averaging at more than 16% of the population, that struggle to get by that are not able to provide food and shelter for their families. The Census Bureau reported” in 2013 “More than 45 million people, or 14.5 percent of all Americans, lived below the poverty line last year” (Gongloff, 2014). Poverty has become a big problem in the united states with raising rates of unemployment “. It was recorded in 2013 that about “14.7 million (19.9 percent) children under the age of 18 were in poverty.” (Aspe, 2014). One of the things that our government can do to reduce poverty levels would be to create more jobs since that directly impact our poverty rate and has influenced unemployment rates...
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...How tax strategies impact on the Social Economic Problem? We are going to highlight some social issues and whether the tax strategy is effective in dealing with the issues. The issues discussed include the issue of urbanisation on vacant land, child poverty, inflation and unemployment. Issue 1: Tax Penalty: Eliminate Land Speculation and Vacant Land to avoid Poverty The urbanisation level of 56.25% in South Africa has recorded the world highest level in 2001. The “Apartheid City was a political economy of space which was based on two policies, i.e. racially-based spatial planning and development for some at the expense of others”. Cities were purposely designed to push poor black citizens to the margins of the city. Thus, the black population were materially distanced from advantages normally associated with city life”. With the abolition of Apartheid in 1994, the new government made a commitment to redress these imbalances and inequality and to create cities that are more equal, inclusionary, productive and sustainable. Although 1.6 million houses have been provided since 1994, they have tended to enforce traditional apartheid planning where the poor are still located on the periphery, far removed from employment and economic opportunities. This has resulted in increased urban sprawl and de-densification. Furthermore, the subsidy on public transport was more than double that spent on housing subsidy but the house prices has increased by an average of 20% per year. Land...
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...Kenny Joseph Sr.Rita English-81 12/18/13 Research paper The poor people in the United States have a claim on the more fortunate people in the country. There are many people who are less fortunate and it affects many people in the country. In the United States poverty is greatly increasing especially in the east coast like Brooklyn, New York. It is one of the poorest places in New York State. They have an estimate of 414 individuals living In public spaces or who are homeless according to the homeless outreach population estimated.(Nyc1) The majority of streets less were male ranging in from 21 to 55 and older. Brooklyn outreach rooms have an average of 1157 contacts which are people who go to these homeless shelters and talk to the homeless because the homeless people usually don't have anybody(Nyc1). They can be the loneliest people in the world and the people who go to have a conversation with street homeless people every month could be the thing that brightens their day. The people that they talk to are on average 54 years old and are place into a shelter or a drop in center. These shelters provide food, warmth, and medical care for those who need it. During the winter it is the best thing for the homeless in Brooklyn to do to try and get into one of these homeless shelters in Brooklyn. It could be the thing that saved them from doing something stupid like breaking into somebody's home just for warmth and they end up getting...
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...Addressing Public Policy in Regards to Poverty Abstract This paper explores two published articles that report on results from research conducted on poverty in America and various ways in which to address the problem. Each article brings up various stats and studies in which poverty has been research and certain programs and ways in which we can help improve the issue. Haskins (2015) focuses more on the welfare program and how it was reformed for women to provide an incentive to work and Kearney, Harris, and Anderson (2014) focuses more on improving the education of the youth. With information provided by the authors listed above I have compiled a paper addressing the issue of poverty and what programs I think would help Americans improve the life of the needy which in turn would help stimulate the economy. While the United States has made improvements in social policy in regards to addressing the issue of poverty in America, it is still a glaring issue that has yet to be conquered. Research provided by Haskins (2015) shows a decline in poverty in three important groups among Americans: children, children in female-headed families, and the elderly. The latter of the groups has a distinct rate of reduction compared to the others and this can be attributed to the Social Security program. The majority of the elderly in America receive a monthly stipend from the government that is usually adequate enough to keep them above the poverty line. Progress for the other two groups...
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...that encouraged peace, justice and overcoming poverty. Wallis created an organization called: Call to Renewal, with the assistance of affiliated churches and religious organizations that worked directly with poor people. Jim Wallis is a credible source and a great person to write about the devastation and hard truth of what Hurricane Katrina revealed. In this, article the author Jim Wallis wrote about how Hurricane Katrina destroyed cities, lives, homes, and the confidence of millions in the government. Hurricane Katrina exposed the true living conditions of Americans who deal with the difficulties of survival daily. The pictures and media coverage of New Orleans grabbed the attention of many Americans. It gave Americans a clear picture of who was suffering the most. It revealed who all was left behind, because they did not have the resources to evacuate. The men, women, and children left behind were poor and black. They did not own vehicles nor did they have extra cash to assist with the evacuation process. For the first time in years, the media was reporting on poverty. They disclosed to Americans that New Orleans had an overall poverty rate of 28%. eight four percent of them being African American, and a child’s poverty rate of 50 pThe annual United States Census poverty report came out during Hurricane Katrina; it showed that poverty had risen for the fourth straight year and that 37 million Americans were stuck below the poverty line. People that fit this category was some...
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...I decided to focus on the poverty in America. I have done a lot of research on this subject and have been very interested in what is being done about the poverty level in this great country we call the United States of America. As it stands to today, as a our nation is getting poorer and poorer. I started and ran a successful housekeeping business. I started this business because I was jobless after being honorably discharged from the United States Marines Corps. As a result of being unemployed, my focus on our nation as whole was in regards to poverty was magnified. Since I was a struggling citizen, I wondered how many more of our countries citizens were considered poor. As my business took off and I needed to hire more people to satisfy the demand my company was incurring, it struck me more vividly that there were a lot of unemployed people in the city in which I lived and conducted business in. As I followed news reports and articles in the newspapers along with televised presidential debates I found that there is plenty of statistical data that illuminates the fact that we as a nation are getting poorer. According to a special report from the United States Census Bureau, 46.2 million Americans are now living in poverty. The number of those living in poverty in America has grown by 2.6 million in just the last 12 months. This marks the largest increase that we have ever seen since there have been this type of reporting as been conducted which dates back to 1959. Moreover...
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...Representative for Wisconsin. Back in 2012, he was selected as Mitt Romney’s Vice President in the presidential election but lost to Barrack Obama and Joe Biden. Along with being a well-known political figure, he is a part of the Catholic faith. In the article “Preferential Options” we see Ryan’s experiences with the poor, his suggestions on poverty, and how he integrates Catholic beliefs and values into his decisions. Ryan has visited a variety of different places across the United States that are struggling with poverty. Although everyone comes from different backgrounds a common barrier links them all together. Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio stated that “The poor must not be perpetually marginalized, we must integrate them into our community” (America, 2014). Based on Cardinal Bergoglio statement, in order to allow more opportunities for the poor in this country, we must accept them into our families and communities and allow them to grow and learn to become equals in society. By accepting the poor as part of our communities we are helping them find work and become financially stable. Paul Ryan references two mutually exclusive Catholic Social Teaching principles, solidarity and subsidiarity. Ryan states, “Our goal, then, is to foster a healthy economy, one that promotes the most talented and protects the most vulnerable” (America, 2014). He believes that by accepting the poor into our communities, helping them find jobs, and becoming financially stable will ultimately benefit the...
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...“If we intend to provide a better life, and a better world, for future generations, we can't ignore the quality of the environment we leave them.” A simple, yet meaningful quote written by John Kasich, captures one of the leading causes to our failure as the older generations, especially when it comes to the issue of poverty. Poverty is defined as the general scarcity, dearth, or the state of one who lacks a certain amount of material possessions or money. It is a multifaceted concept, which includes social, economic, and political elements and becomes self-replicating. Nicholas Kristof, a well-known columnist for the New York Times, writes many opinion pieces on this issue. Kristof has been writing about poverty since the beginning of his career with the New York Times. Kristof is prompted to write about poverty because his main focus includes human rights, women’s rights, health, and global affairs. He has written columns on the issue of poverty dating as far back as 2001. He not only writes of the...
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...Week 3 Case Study 3.3 Poverty in America Stacey Curry Business Ethics Upper Iowa University Professor Kalai McHan TRY TO TURN POVERTY TO POSITIVE In the time of the Great Depression back in 1930’s, where a time where four million Americans had fallen into poverty. Then in 2008 the economy experienced a serious economic meltdown crisis and recession, at this time 44 million adults now live below the poverty line officially defined as an income below $10,830 for a single adult or less than $22,050 for a family of four (Shaw, 2013 p.132). The economy today in my opinion, where poverty is still a huge impact due to the cost of living going up but the income is not changing and it appears people are digging themselves into bigger holes. There are times I feel bad for a lot of people in this world and I wonder a lot how is it going to be when my kids grow up, has me thinking are they going to be able to take care of their families and not have to struggle. The young kids this time in day, especially for my kids I advise them all time to please get a college degree not just a high school diploma and pick a great career. The existence of poverty doesn’t imply that our socio-economic system is unjust, what is causing the socio-economic system is lack of education in the schools, divorces, single parent households and disease’s. The concertation of poverty groups doesn’t matter at all, the ethnicity of the religion or race, has nothing to do with poverty. The Americans have a different...
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...and heavy eyes, and for the rest of the evening and into the night you slept on a pillow of dreams. This is in essence the American dream is it not? To have the basic needs that to some may come as a surprise, many Americans do not have. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, “In January 2014, there were 578,424 people experiencing homelessness on any given night in the United States” (National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2015). Many people would be in agreement that the above noted agenda is fairly normal; shelter, food, clothing, education, and family are all blessings and amenities that we take for granted but nonetheless are things that every individual deserves to have. Unfortunately, these are things that many people must suffer without. Scholarly research that spans over the course of two decades has continually and firmly established the emergence and persistence of indigent and homeless individuals in the United States. Our growing understanding of homelessness comes from literature that emphasizes characteristics of the homeless and the factors that can be held responsible. Unfortunately, this research indicates that homelessness is a product of the individual or his or her characteristics and not due to structural or community circumstances. If the literature where to...
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