Poverty can be defined as the state in which a person or family is considered extremely poor. A report provided by the World Bank, stated that the poverty line was a dollar per day. In order for a family to be considered poor, they must follow the poverty threshold. HFF states that a family of four must have a monthly income of 1,863. As I tried to budget a family with that income, I found it quite difficult as it seemed impossible for this family survive without sacrificing housing, groceries, and utilities. If this family were to live in a motel or some form of low income housing they would still be affected by the loss of their income. Food and transportation cannot be seen as a fixed rate because the prices vary monthly. Also, the poverty threshold is the same for everyone across the country, even though the cost of living determines on where the person lives. Unless this family is granted some form of assistance, it will not be realistic for a family to successfully live off this amount per month. Personally, as a single individual, it hard for me to live off one thousand dollars per month, so I could only imagine a family of four successfully surviving off this income.
In the movie, Hard Times Generation, it focuses on children who are living in motels with their families in a town a few miles outside Disney World. One surprising fact that I learned from this movie is that the percentage of children in poverty is higher than adults. A lot of these families were not in poverty for the reason that they didn’t want to work, but because of the recession that toke a hard hit. Some of children seem to self-blame for the reason of their family in poverty.
The book references several theories and perspectives as to why poverty exists, but main one that stands out is conflict theory. The conflict theory explains that there is a struggle for power between the different