Social Work And Social Welfare

1981 Words4 Pages

Social Work and Social Welfare

Poverty

8/15/2016

Kerstin Rise

Abstract
Views on poverty
Definition of poverty
Americas poor
Political factors
Programs available
Legislation and law
Economic factors

Poverty is one of the oldest problems facing this country. Many people are affected by poverty. What makes this so controversial is that it seems that nothing has changed over time. Regardless of the programs available, we still battle poverty and with the economic downturn, and things to come are not looking better.
The definition of poverty is that the household income is inadequate as judged by a particular standard. To gain a better understanding though we first have to consider what a family consists of. Is it just the blood-related family such as parents and children or do we count elder family members as well? How about roommates or foster children that live in the same household? Income also has to be defined as to what counts as household income. Is it just the earnings of a job or do we count in monetary gifts from employers and the government? Does bartering items or services in return for food or money can also be considered as income? These are all questions we have to define. The US government came up with two definitions as to how who is seen as poor and impoverished. The first term used is called “relative poverty.” The government says that after the family size is adjusted, the lowest one-third, one-fourth or one-fifth are the poor. The market basket is the second concept used in measuring poverty. Molly Olshansky came up with the idea by calculating the cost of a minimum nutritional diet with the household size. She concluded that one-third should be spent on food, and the other two-thirds should ...

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...ortunately though we are still unable to extinguish the problem after all. now more than ever with terrorism treads and the unrest in the country, we have to work to come to better solutions and manage to get the economy back up to rid ourselves of the inequalities we have to deal with at the moment.
In conclusion, we still battle poverty and even though better programs are available, the stigma of being poor causes a great concern among those that are affected by the situation. We have to work on getting our economy back on track and establish working conditions that allow people to provide for their families. We also need to establish a better health system to help those with mental illness to get the help needed to escape from poverty and homelessness and also have to provide better education for our youth to have a chance to flourish and break free from poverty.

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