Poverty in the United States of America - Essay Example

Poverty in America One comes across the term ‘poor’ and what is the first thing that comes to mind? People deprived of their basic rights, hardly earning enough to support themselves, let alone supporting their families, or even earning at all. Not having a decent meal once a day, wearing shabby clothes and having no place of their own that they can call home and go home to at night. In the United States of America, people who have their annual income, without paying taxes, lesser than the amount of money required for running a house (called the poverty threshold). The income does not include benefits such as food coupons, discounts or health insurance provided by their employer (National Poverty Center). John Iceland wrote an accurate account of the poverty in the United States of America. In his book ‘Poverty in America: a Handbook’ he suggests methods in which the poverty can be decreased by redistribution of wealth without making the condition worse for the poor people who already are in a bad condition. He clears the misconception that the poor people in America are just lazy African-Americans. He says that poverty is inflicted on the poor people not only due to their own shortcomings but also due to social bias, injustice in income due to their poverty and having more members in the family than they have the ability to support. There are many methods of measuring poverty – some relative and some direct. Iceland promoted the concept of quasi-relative method of measuring poverty (Iceland 21-23). Poverty in a specific area depends upon the economy of that place. Increase in economy decreases poverty and improves the living conditions of the poor people. But if that economy is not divided equally then unequal amounts of income are received by different people on the same level, depending upon their influence. More children being educated and the advent of technology has caused the economy to grow but even with that inequality increased in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Low waged workers lost their jobs to students who had attended college. Manufacturing jobs were taken over jobs requiring great skills and were related to decrease in income. Typists were gradually replaced by people who had know-how of high technology gadgets. More engineers were demanded by companies. Workers working on minimal wages were sent to other countries. In addition to that the working conditions have gotten worse for people working on low wages because of the decrease in the number of unions (Iceland 80-82). Social groups wanting to get more and more benefits, blocking others’ path to access the resources and opportunities based on racial and sexual bias result in the division of society into different social classes. Minorities often don’t get a shot at good jobs due to this. Some employers also discriminate on the basis of gender and sex while hiring new employees. People living separately also constitutes to the low hiring rate. Blacks suffer from poverty twice as much as the rest of the Americans do (Iceland 81-82). Women play an important role in contributing to the decrease in poverty of a household, as only 16% of the families have employed fathers. Half of the children spend a good portion of their early years with only one parent. Yet females are more poverty stricken because of lack of resources available and head most of the single parents’ families. Blacks and Hispanics face more unemployment due to racism and lack of education and are likely to be taking care of the family (Iceland 88-90). The economy has grown over the past years but the question remains why the poor are still poor and maybe even poorer. Poverty depends on three things in general. Increase or decrease in income, economic bias and number of family members. If the growth in economy is unequal, then it will affect the income of the families which is a negative impact of the growth in economy, as the poor got poorer comparatively and they were not able to enjoy the growth in the economy. However the size of the family does not affect the rate of poverty as much as the economic injustice does. More and more females are getting educated and entering the professional world but in spite of that they are facing bigotry (Iceland 81-83). People are generally under the impression that the blacks are poor by default. This causes more discrimination on individual as well as on a higher level such as business, politics etc. This is because the media portrays the poor to be black and unemployed. Due to this people are biased against the poor and are not willing to pay taxes to the organizations who work to improve the living conditions of the poor people like Medicaid and section 8 housing. It was analyzed that married couples were better off financially than single mothers running the entire household. Foreigners without citizenship also faced poverty. Statistically speaking, a large portion of the population has suffered poverty at some phase of their lives or the other. People work hard and improve their standards of living gradually but more than half of the people are unable to do that and are stuck like that which becomes harder to leave as the time passes without any change in their financial condition. White males improve their condition way faster than black women. 90 of the black children are permanently poor. Poverty, generally speaking, does not decline in families and is passed on to the next generation. This phenomenon has been explained on the basis of social researches. Children of poor parents do not get the attention or money from their parents and due to that they are not able to supply the same to their own children thus passing the poverty to the next generation. Other than that, it is quite hard for poor parents to find a place to live in a good neighborhood where they can send their children to a good school and the children are deprived of education which does not give them a chance to get jobs and raise the standard of their living. Growing up poor contributes to poverty more than family structure does (Iceland 14-17). Areas where more than 40% of the population is poor are considered poor neighborhoods. The buildings there are in a bad state and not being taken care of and there are a large number of empty spaces which can be utilized for construction. Rate of poverty is higher in urban areas than rural areas. According the survey done by the United States Census Bureau, change in poverty in people 2011 was just 1% with 0.3 as a margin for error in New York and in New Jersey it was 0.1% with 0.4 as a margin for error (United States Census Bureau). People who are poor and living in rural areas suffer more than urban dwellers. They are shunned by the society and deprived of good education and social benefits. Many poor people living in ghettos are employed in low wages jobs which do not require a lot of high end skills. These neighborhoods are not occupied by people in exactly similar conditions and are not much different from the others and are not completely cut out from the rest of the world. Job opportunities in the big cities were the most significant factor to measure the rate of poverty in poor neighborhoods and ghettos but separate residence also played a role worthy of notice (Iceland 52). In order to eradicate poverty from the society some steps will have to be taken. Quasi-relative methods should be employed as the official method of determining poverty. Inequality from the economic system should be removed and everyone should get equal amount of income so that the poor people get a chance raise their standards of living. People looking for jobs should not be judged on the basis of race or sex and should be refused the job solely on the basis of their incompetence and lack of skills. Promoting democracy and setting up organizations that work for the welfare of the poor like Medicare and Social Security will help in decreasing the poverty in the United States of America. And lastly, people who have a high position in the society should know the source of their income and how it comes to them. It will help in the better understanding of the condition of the poor and will stimulate them to help the poor (Iceland 21). I would like to request the relative authorities to promote the establishment of a just economic system and help the establishments which are already working on improving the conditions of the poor like Medicare, MedicAid, food stamps, and Social Security (Thomas C. Fox) REFERENCES: Iceland, John. Poverty in America: a handbook. 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. Print. "National Poverty Center | University of Michigan." National Poverty Center | University of Michigan. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Dec. 2012. . "Poverty Main - People and Households - U.S. Census Bureau." Census Bureau Homepage. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Dec. 2012. Fox, Thomas. "Poverty in America | National Catholic Reporter." National Catholic Reporter | Home | National Catholic Reporter. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2012. . Read More