Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Poverty and nutrition
The relationship between crime rates and poverty
The relationship between crime rates and poverty
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Poverty and nutrition
Hungry Children
The United States is known as a the wealthiest country on the planet. There are many poor people in this country that can't afford to buy food for their families; many are homeless. “While hunger affects people of all ages, it's particularly devastating for children even short-term episodes of hunger can cause lasting damage" (“Child Nutrition Programs"). Child hunger in the United States is caused by poverty, unemployment, food insecurity, and food shortage; however there are many solutions to this problem like FRAC strategies, food banks, summer feeding programs, and backpack feeding programs.
Poverty is one of the main causes of child hunger. Most people that live in poverty can't afford to buy food. All the money they have goes to housing bills. The effects of poverty are Families are homeless, parents don't have an education, health care is too expensive, violence is common, and children don't get a good education. Homelessness is an effect on poverty. There is a lack of housing in the United States that people can afford. Even a minimum wage job isn't enough money to supply housing and food for a family with children. "Cuts in federal assistance for housing programs and social services have coincided with the rise in homelessness in the U.S." ("Overview of Homelessness"). It has become increasingly hard for people to get housing. Being homeless is hard on kids, because it is hard for kids to do well in school; they have to move a lot more than the average kid. School is interrupted; causing them to fall behind even having to repeat a grade. The long-term affect is having learning disabilities ("Children and Hunger"). Kids run away with nowhere to go; because they are being abused.
Kids may ex...
... middle of paper ...
...., n.d. Web. 5 Dec. 2013. .
"Overview of Homelessness In America." Homelessness In America. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Dec. 2013. .
Rising Child Poverty Pushes American Dream Out Of Reach for Many." Fox News.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Dec. 2013.< http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/22/demographic-shift-puts-american-dream-out-reach/>.
“Rising Poverty, Widespread Unemployment: America’s Economic Pain Brings Hunger Pangs.” Global Research. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Dec. 2013.< http://www.globalreasearch.ca/rising-poverty-widespread-unemployment-america-s-economic-plan-brings-hunger-pangs>.
"The Growing World Food Shortage." World Food Shortage and How ADRA Is Fighting It. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2013.< http://www.adra.org/world-food-shortage.htm>.
As per the State Housing Authority, the issue and trend of homelessness has changed particularly throughout the most recent three decades. Public homelessness first turned into an issue in the 1970's and now it is normal to see individuals congregating before sanctuaries and thinking about park seats. Soup kitchens are generally stuffed to limit. Safe houses have multiplied their ability since 1993 and they dismiss individuals consistently because of absence of cots (Kenyon 1991). During 1987, Congress passed the Stewart B. Mckinney Homeless Ass...
Tunstall, L. (2009). Homelessness: an overview. EBSCO Publishing Service Selection Page. Retrieved February 5, 2011, from http://web.ebscohost.com/pov/detail?hid=119&sid=d5f751fa-0d0d-4ed1-8deb-483e701af50c%40sessionmgr111&vid=3&bdata=Jmxhbmc9ZW4tY2Emc2l0ZT1wb3YtY2Fu#db=p3h&AN=28674966
Homelessness in the United States has been an important subject that the government needs to turn its attention to. There has been announced in the news that the number of the homeless people in many major cities in the United States has been increasing enormously. According to United States Interagency Council on Homelessness reported that there was an estimation of 83,170 individuals have experienced chronic homelessness on the streets of the United States’ streets and shelters on only a single night of January 2015, which is a small decrease of only 1% from the previous year (People Experiencing Chronic Homelessness, n.d.). The United States must consider this subject that most of the people underestimate it and not pay attention
Although most people know what homelessness is and it occurs in most societies, it is important to define because the forces of displacement vary greatly, along with the arrangement and meaning of the resulting transient state. The Stewart B McKinney Homeless Assistance Act of 1987 defined a homeless person as “an individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence or a person who resides in a shelter, welfare hotel, transitional program or place not ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation, such as streets, cars, movie theaters, abandoned buildings, etc.” Resent surveys conducted in the U.S. have confirmed that the homeless population in America is extremely diverse and includes representatives from all segments of society, including: the old and young, men and women, single people and families, city dwellers and rural residents, whites and people of color, employed and unemployed, able workers and people with serious health problems. The diversity among people that are homeless reflects how difficult it is to generalize the causes of homelessness and the needs of homeless people. Robert Rosenheck M.D., the author of Special Populations of Homeless Americans, explains the importance of studying homelessness based on subgroups, “each subgroup [of homeless people] has unique service needs and identifying these needs is critical for program planning and design.” Despite these diversities, homelessness is a devastating situation for all that experience it. Not only have homeless people lost their dwelling, but they have also lost their safety, privacy, control, and domestic comfort.
In the year 2015, around 40 million U.S. citizens were food insecure (Randall para. 3). Food insecurity can be defined in paragraph 3 by “[having] difficulty at some time during the year providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources. This 12.7% of American citizens also contains another group - children. Aged 10-17, 6.8 million adolescents struggle with a food insecurity. There have been several years of cuts to the social programs designed to help these people, along with the Great Recession continuing to leave an impact on the U.S. economy (para. 6). Under the Obama administration, $8.6 billion was cut from the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as Food Stamps. From 1993-2001 under the Clinton administration, former President Bill Clinton’s administration “gutted the welfare system” (para. 15). Because of these budget cuts, the families who rely on food assistance from the government have been allotted less throughout the years. From a sociological perspective, the concepts of sociological imagination, class stratification, and social location are in effect when it comes to child hunger in the United States. Being hungry is an issue larger than any one individual can control.
Rising Child Poverty Pushes American Dream Out Of Reach for Many." Fox News.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Dec. 2013.< http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/22/demographic-shift-puts-american-dream-out-reach/>.
Even though closely related to poverty, not all that have food insecurities are in poverty. Often it is the working poor that are hit the hardest. The working poor are a group that, despite having a job, their income is too low to meet their needs or that of their family. Most of the working poor (56%) live in families with children, so the poverty of these workers affects many others as well (Problems Facing the Working Poor, Kim 1999). Many lower to middle class families will temporarily struggle with food insecurity at various times during the year.
Poverty is a prevalent issue that many Americans face and it has been a serious problem over centuries. Every year there are people at risk of hunger. Combating poverty is not an easy task; there are many underlying issues that need to be addressed. Fortunately there are policies in place to assist with in decreasing the negative effects of poverty; however, some of the policies may cause people to become more dependent on government assistance. As a result it may cause a rise in taxes to support these policies and programs. Poverty is very common and widespread around the world. Unanswered questions that arise in regards to poverty are what can be done to resolve it, what are the causes of poverty, and is it possible to eliminate poverty entirely. Based on research and my personal experiences, government aid and housing are some resolutions to decrease poverty.
middle of paper ... ... The FRAC believes that even during the recession, the United States could have ended hunger, however it is not practical to do so if the nation’s economy does not regain strength and starts to grow again. To provide people with jobs that have good wages and benefits to support families would need fiscal and monetary policies that restore and sustain growth. Works Cited Weeks, Jennifer.
McNamara, Robert Hartmann. "Homelessness." Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Social Issues. Ed. Michael Shally-Jensen. Vol. 3: Family and Society. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2011. 1024-1031. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 2 May 2014. .
One of the main causes of poverty is a lack of money. There are some families that do have at least one person employed in the household but the money earned is not enough to provide for the family. Tough decisions such as paying rent buying groceries become a daily challenge for struggling households. Those living in households headed by people with no high school degree are the most likely to enter poverty. Limited options in the job market make it hard for those without degrees the ability to find jobs that will pay above minimum wage. Many Americans earn less than the nation’s median income which hinders most Americans from living a life free of hunger. Children who grow up in poverty suffer more persistent, frequent, and severe health problems than do children who grow up under better financial circumstances. Children of poverty are at an extreme disadvantage and cycle ends up repeating itself until the pattern is somehow
“Why are people homeless?” National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH). Web. July 2009. February 15,2011.
Everyone knows what the word poverty means. It means poor, unable to buy the necessities to survive in today's world. We do not realize how easy it is for a person to fall into poverty: A lost job, a sudden illness, a death in the family or the endless cycle of being born into poverty and not knowing how to overcome it. There are so many children in poverty and a family's structure can effect the outcome. Most of the people who are at the poverty level need some type of help to overcome the obstacles. There are mane issues that deal with poverty and many things that can be done to stop it.
Overview of Homelessness in America. Homelessness in America. National Student Campaign Against Hunger & Homelessness, n.d. Web. 23 Feb. 2014. http://www.studentsagainsthunger.org/page/hhp/overview-homelessness-america.
We as Americans are extremely lucky. We live in a big country with many resources and almost all the luxuries we ever wanted. On the flip side, in America there are also many people who do not have these privileges. The lower class is a struggling class. For many years, people have been trying to pull themselves up from the lower class and the majority does not succeed. Childhood poverty is a large problem in the U.S. It is said that the poorest people in the United States are the children of the lower class. Childhood poverty could lead to a number of problems such as hunger, violence, physical and mental disabilities, educational problems, homelessness, family stress, sickness, and too-early parenthood. The sad truth is that living in poverty lowers a child’s chance to grow into a healthy, well-adjusted adult who will contribute to society.