Problem Of Poverty In America

Poverty is a serious problem in society today. Many people are living in poverty, unable to meet basic needs and working more than forty hour weeks. It’s difficult to distribute aid when there aren’t the resources for everyone living in poverty. Many single women raising children are in poverty, along with homeless veterans, and anyone who is disadvantaged because of their race, gender, religion, etc. A poverty line was actually created in 1955 to determine who was in poverty. It was based upon the fact of people spending 1/3 of post-tax income on food. Obviously food is an important necessity to everyone, but there is also proper housing, education, healthcare, and clothing that will most likely dissolve the rest of the 2/3 of post- tax

income. Therefore, those in poverty are never saving any money to help them down the road for possible furthering of education or more security. Those in poverty will continue in poverty unless something changes.

I think people fall into poverty due to the way they grew up. Someone may have grown up in poverty and therefore did not have the resources to finish education because they had to work for the family to help pay for basic needs. They may have not been able to go on to college because they immediately needed some income to buy food for the week. I think a lot of poverty is based on the individual’s background. If they grew up in a poor family, it may be nearly impossible to change their future because there are no resources. Also, different ethnicities or races may not receive funding or lack employment because of racism. Women are more likely to be in poverty raising children alone because they work many part time or full time jobs to send their children to school or college. The low income or discriminated families may not have jobs that pay benefits because they have limited skills and education. Once stuck in a situation like poverty, it’s difficult to pull yourself or family out of it without assistance. Many don’t mean to live in poverty, it’s just that the lack of education, skills and discrimination only allow them to work endless hours at a minimum wage jobs.
I think poverty is sometimes overlooked because many people assume and expect them to pull themselves out of it. Watching people spend every penny they earn to feed themselves and family is difficult because they are never able to save anything, resulting in the cycle of oppression that they cannot get out of. Those who don’t live in poverty expect them to pull themselves out of it and work an extra job and they will start seeing results. It doesn’t always work for everyone that way. Not everyone is offered the opportunity to get out of the poverty level even though they want to.
Not only do may people grow up in poverty and are not able to recover and get themselves out of it, there are people who have mental illness’ and physical disabilities that don’t allow them to work a full time job or limits them to only certain types of work. This isn’t equal because of their illness or disability they are only able to work minimum wage jobs and not make a living to pay for expensive medical bills.
A lot of people living in poverty depends on social class, race, gender, ethnicity, and English speaking workers who are usually given the rotten end of the deal. Many of them work long, stressful hours that doesn’t even allow them to meet basic needs or necessities.
Poverty may also be caused by the type of jobs people are working.

They may work in low paying jobs that often lays off their workers who then can’t find other work and look to the government for assistance. Those living in poverty may work factory jobs that are so insecure that one week they will have forty hours plus overtime, and the next they won’t work for three weeks straight. Then they are looking to get on unemployment for three weeks because they have a car payment, mortgage payment, insurance and a huge medical bill to pay for. The job insecurity in certain businesses can be caused by economic instability. The worker of the company doesn’t know if they will be receiving work for the week or not. It is stressful and frustrating to those in poverty working for these types of companies that offer little stability for their

employees

Another opinion I have on why people are in poverty is because of the minimum wage that they are being paid.

Although they may only have limited skills, it means that they should at least be able to work enough and be paid benefits on minimum wage to make it over the poverty line. A lot of poverty has to do with the government, economic and social requirements of how people are placed into each social class. The government controls what the minimum wage will be and therefore those working those jobs aren’t even able to make it over the poverty line if they are single working families.

Certain strategies could be for social workers to help change the stereotype of those who fall into poverty and help them receive helpful resources. People can advocate for the poor and for the government and laws to raise the minimum wage to help families that are single parents, have limited skills at least make enough to be above the poverty line and receive proper benefits for healthcare, and other

assistance.
Helping those with insecure jobs and limited skills help find decent and secure jobs could help address the cause of poverty. That seems more like a temporary fix because nothing is guaranteed in the world of work. A more effective change would be lobbying and inform and educate the government how people are living in poverty and what changes could help them to meet basic needs.

The individual can effect positive change by forming groups and advocating for those who are being discriminated against. Individually people can help those in need and provide some basic assistance to help people out of poverty. Groups may be more effective because they are more influencing and intimidating when many people come together to stand for an important cause. They could advocate for those in poverty by lobbying, joining in as a candidate to raise minimum wage and not discriminate against race, ethnicity, gender, religion. That could possibly help people in poverty secure better jobs that could help advance them into saving enough money to go to college and further their education to better themselves if they are just given the chance to make more than the minimum wage.
Poverty is kind of pushed to the side and not many people actually understand it. Those who aren’t in poverty expect those who are to just pull through it and work a few more jobs. That is more of a temporary and not a secure fix to the whole population of those living in poverty.