A Summary and Analysis of Peter Katel's Child Poverty - Essay Example

Considering that children are the most vulnerable age group, they receive much of the government’s attention and money. However, as welfare programs and monetary allocation seem insufficient in alleviating the condition of children, questions on whether increasing the budget to address poverty-related concerns arise. Relatively, investigations on the root cause of child poverty in America arise. Child poverty is one of the most controversial issues today because such a social disease has a tendency to give birth to a new generation of poor people.

Consequently, the primary aim of this paper is to explore the issue of child poverty in American, taking primary concern on its cause, effects, and prospective solutions. To give a starting of the arguments presented in this paper, this paper studies the article “Child Poverty: Are Out-of-Wedlock Births the Root Cause?” written by Peter Katel. Primarily, the article investigates out-of-wedlock pregnancies as the root cause of child poverty. Having read the article, I propose that although most out-of-wedlock pregnancies seem to cause child poverty, it is not the root cause of the issue.

Instead, the inability of single parents to support their children is causing the augmenting rate of child poverty in America. Article Summary In the article, Peter Katel studies whether “out-of-wedlock” pregnancies cause child poverty in America. Throughout the article, the author cites the arguments of two US parties, the Liberals and Conservatives. In explaining the two sides, Katel (2011) mentions that the Liberals argue that the cause of child poverty is the inefficiency of the government to provide sustainable jobs to the people while the Conservatives defend that child poverty is a result of out-of-wedlock pregnancies and “parental behavior” (pp. 904-05). Further, the Liberals defend that the government should focus on developing the employable skills of parents and providing more jobs for the people while the Conservatives argue that, as the government has allocated enough funds for such programs, it is the responsibility and initiative of the people to use the programs available for them.

Throughout the article, Katel cites different programs that elicit debate among the Liberals and Conservatives. Specifically, one of these programs include the Food Stamp Subsidies. Arloc Sherman, a researcher and critic at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said that the unemployment rate influences the budget allocation of food stamp subsidies; food stamp subsidies increase when “unemployment rate soared” (as cited in Katel, 2011, p. 906). In 2006, for instance, the government expenditure for food stamp subsidy increased by 82 %; this is also the time when the unemployment rate increased “from 4.7 % to 9.1%” (Katel, 2011, p. 906). In considering this issue, the Conservatives argue that the extensibility of the budget allocation is due to the increasing demands of the people while the Liberals assert that the situation is due, primarily, to the unavailability of sustainable jobs.

In this case, it is clear that unemployment causes the increasing demands of people. The inability of parents to support their children influences the worsening condition of children; children would have to live by the