Poverty in America

Pages 6 (1506 words)
Download 0
Dubbed as the most powerful and one of the wealthiest nations in the world, the United States (US) continues to enjoy the benefits of being classified as a first world country. In this regard, it boasts of higher standards of living than most countries. However, despite its economic status, poverty is a reality that persistently haunts the US.


These figures imply that there are about 37 million people well below the poverty threshold as at end-2004.
In view of the above, steps on how to alleviate poverty in the country must be efficiently programmed. In order to address the heart of this matter, legislators and private sector should have an understanding of key issues regarding poverty and the poor people in the US. The lives of those people bordering or below the poverty line are controlled by myriad factors which should be taken into consideration. This paper provides an overview of the profile of poor people and discusses how economic and social factors such as availability of job opportunities, prevailing wage levels, single parenthood, level of education, housing, health, mental illness and substance abuse among others affect the poor in America.
The poverty line is defined by the Census Bureau as a threshold level of total money income, which includes wages and salaries, self-employment income, interest income, social security and welfare benefits, alimony and unemployment compensation, received by all family members on an annual basis. The threshold set varies depending on the number of adults and children in the family.
As at end-2004, a family with two parents and two children required $19,157 to be above poverty line. ...
Download paper
Not exactly what you need?

Related papers

Poverty in Texas
One such example is of Texas which is under the territory of United States of America. It is analyzed that around 3.8 million people living in Texas were below the poverty line specified by the government in 2006. And if the previous records are analyzed it can be said that the rate of poverty is going to increase further in the recent years (Center for Public Policy Priorities 2008).…
7 pages (1757 words)
Poverty in The United States of America
The federal government of US has taken some major steps in order to address the problem of poverty. From its initial stages back in 2001, it has come up with many plans that include the progressive income tax, public assistance programmes and economic development programmes. (infoplease.com, 2007)…
3 pages (753 words)
Poverty and wealth in South America
Nowadays, universal individual views on what constitutes poverty wealth, as one might suppose, variety extensively. In a few examples, people grasp the view that poverty is usually a need of food, shelter or clothing. In further cases, people consider poverty consists of lack of appropriate sanitation, nutrition, utilities, and/or heath care.…
3 pages (753 words)
Child Poverty in the United Stated
We have read several articles that address the question of child poverty in the United States. In order to begin to try and gain a critical perspective on this big issue, I will be discussing some of the issues these articles failed to address, in what ways the recommendations they make are unrealistic, and what obstacles exist in the implementation of those recommendations. I will also consider…
3 pages (753 words)
Attacking Child Poverty
However, the rapidly increasing rate of childhood poverty in the USA is breaking with stereotypes of the situation. For example, regardless of ethnicity, White, Black and Latino figures are increasing at a similar rate (Sherman, , p.2). Also, there appears to be more incidence of childhood poverty amongst suburban and rural children than those in metropolitan areas (Sherman, ).…
3 pages (753 words)
Murky Waters : Nihilist Black America
Finally, I will evaluate the success of these arguments, with the goal of understanding the role of class in contemporary African American racial relations. I will conclude that while West's notion of nihilism as an underlying cause is an appealing one, it is impossible to determine a causal relationship between the many different problems facing the lower class African American community.…
5 pages (1255 words)