Poverty Essay

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Poverty is not having the money to meet a human’s basic needs. It’s the lack of shelter and education. It’s having poor health because you don’t have the money or transportation to access a doctor. It’s parents not being able to send their kids to birthday parties, or on school field trips (WhatisPoverty.com). There are two horrible types of poverty. The first type is absolute poverty. This type is extremely life threatening. It is when a person does not have the necessities to survive like food, water, shelter, and sometimes even clothing. Undeveloped countries in Africa, and Asia have a high percentage of this kind of poverty. These people often get less than $1.25 a day. The second type is relative poverty. This is when a single person or a whole family doesn’t have as many resources or as much money as the people around them. It is comparing where you live, how much money you have, etc. to the other people in your society. Poverty is not always obvious, you don’t have to be homeless to be in poverty (Lusted 8-10).
Poverty has many causes. In some third world countries, poverty is very widespread because they do not have enough resources to provide basic needs for their population. In those countries there is not enough safe drinking water, and they do not produce enough food to feed all of the people that live there. In countries that aren’t as desperately poor, there are still large numbers of people living in poverty, because those countries don’t have enough job opportunities that allow the poor to make enough money to pay for the food and shelter that they need. Even in more advanced and modern countries, people can fall into and have a hard time getting out of poverty, because they don’t have access to an adequate edu...

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...vidual people. There are homeless people that work two minimum wage jobs that still are not able to afford rent for an apartment. This tragic issue is mainly caused by the price of renting apartments, which has become more and more expensive over the years. Many landlords require a deposit and first months rent in advance, so people with a low paying job may struggle to come up with the money to rent an apartment. Even after the apartment is rented they still have to pay for food, healthcare, education, etc. Homelessness is also very life threatening. Winter especially can severely harm people. The exposure to cold air can kill a human very easily. Getting a job could also be an issue because they are most likely not educated and don’t have an address which is normally required to get a job. Homelessness can not only injure people, but can kill them (Lusted 40-43).

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