Cause Of Poverty In America

885 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Causes of poverty in the USA

Essay3: Causes and Effect What are the causes of poverty in America? How do governments end poverty in America? What is the way to fight poverty? Poverty is one of the biggest problems for low income working families those who earning less than twice from the federal poverty line. Also, poverty levels in United States have usually increased. According to the 2011 U.S. Census Bureau, around 16% of American lived in poverty. The number of low income working families rise from 10.2 million in 2010 to 10.4 million in 2011, representing nearly one third of all working families. The causes of poverty in America are poor economy, lack of education, Drug use, and single mother.
One cause for poverty in America
Almost, half of poor people around United States are uneducated. They cannot afford to read, and write. Again, many people from the lower class simply cannot afford to attend college and earn a degree. Therefore, the poor parents who are responsible for children do not care to send their children to school, but they prefer sending them to work to help the family with the living expenses. The only jobs for uneducated person can get low paying salary with no benefits. This cause can put a family into poverty line. Between year 2007 and 2011, the working families who are low income increased from 28 percent to 32.1 percent. As of the year 2008, the average earnings for someone with just a high school diploma were about 20,090 early which are just under the poverty line for a family of three. That cause leads to high rates of unemployment in
Drug and alcohol addiction affects about 20% of the homeless population. Drugs can become so addictive that it will dominate the life of the user. Therefore, some people dump all of their money into their habit. For example, a gram of cocaine sells for about $100. If a person were to use a gram per day, they would spend $700 per week on their habit. That is more than most Americans make per week. For those who use heroin, their habit could cost them thousands of dollars per week. The cost of alcohol can be significant as well, especially in high poverty areas. As well, money spent on alcohol and a heavy drinker could also suffer from poor economic effects. These include lowered wages because of missed work and decreased job efficiency, lost employment, increased medical expenses for illness and accidents. Based on these examples it is easy to see how drug and alcohol abuse could drive users and their families into poverty or

Show More
Related

  • The Glass Castle Stereotypes

    1391 Words  | 3 Pages

    Poverty in America is a very complex issue that can be looked at from many directions. There are a plethora of statistics and theories about poverty in America that can be confusing and at times contradicting. It is important to objectively view statistics to gain a better understanding of poverty and to wade through the stereotypes and the haze of cultural views that can misrepresent the situation.The official poverty line in America begins with a person making at or below $12,060. To calculate the poverty line for a family, an additional $4,180 is added to the base of $12,060 for each additional member(“Federal Poverty Level Guidelines”). According to the last U.S. census, over 45 million or 14.5% of Americans are at or below the poverty line(Worstall). At this level, the U.S. poverty level has not changed much from the 1970s when the government began a “War on Poverty.” However,

    Read More

  • The Logic Of Stupid Poor People

    796 Words  | 2 Pages

    Poverty is a complex and growing problem in the United States. As of right now there is no solution. There are proposals and acts, such as Obama Care, that were enacted in an attempt to help people in poverty, and there are so many organizations, such as Habitat for Humanity and The Hunger Project, that try to aid people when they start to lack the necessities, like food and shelter. College students are graduating college with a large amount of student loans and no way of paying them off, people are being evicted from their homes, and employees are being laid off. The unemployment rate in the United States in 2015 was five percent, that’s about fifteen million people. It’s becoming difficult for people to find jobs, therefore making it hard for people to get back on their feet and start living a comfortable lifestyle. Poverty in the

    Read More

  • Temporary Assistance for Needy Families

    2218 Words  | 5 Pages

    Before we can explain the causes of poverty, one must first define what poverty is. If you were to ask someone for their definition of poverty, you would get several different definitions. There has been much conflict in the United States over defining poverty, but according to Diana DiNitto (2007), poverty can be defined in six different ways. Poverty as deprivation, inequality, lack of human capital, culture, exploitation, and structure are the six different ways. When a family or individual does not have the adequate amount of income to meet all of their basic needs, they are described as being deprived. Poverty as deprivation explains that a family or individual is deprived when they are living below the standard of...

    Read More

  • The Position Of Poverty In America

    712 Words  | 2 Pages

    Morosely, people hitting poverty level are truly given zero opportunities to advance their education. In America, it 's not common that the A+ education is given to you. It 's not entirely easy to land the greatest job ever with just a high school diploma. But, the cost of college has made the difference between having a job that pays well, and having a job that pays immensely for people living in poverty. Poor people are frequently unable to pay for housing, food, childcare, health care, and education. The cost of living per month for a single, childless person in America is $2,372. Galbraith stresses importance of improving housing across the nation.(Galbraith 405) With unemployment rates remaining high, jobs are hard to find in the current economy. Even if people can find work, this does not automatically provide an escape from

    Read More

  • African American Sociology

    1392 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Poverty in America

    922 Words  | 2 Pages

    People in America often suffer from poverty and the treatment that comes with it, throughout their everyday lives. The question raised is why are poor individuals dehumanized by high structures of power? Some people with a higher income feel like they have a choice and a real recourse to justice rather than a lower class individual. They also believe that they are entitled to the world and their opinion matters because of their financial status versus someone who doesn’t have material things. Lessin’s and Deal’s film , Natasha Trethewey’s Memoir, and Bell Hooks’ excerpts, depicts that the poor are often dehumanized and neglected by structures of power, such as the government and media, because of their lack of money and education, however some of structures of power are ignorant to how the lives of poor people really are.

    Read More

  • Poverty and Classism

    758 Words  | 2 Pages

    One of the main causes of poverty is the lack of education. The U.S. education system denies students in poverty the opportunities and access it affords to most other students. Without good education, most people would encounter challenges in finding income-generating work, especially when there are few employment opportunities during an economic downturn.

    Read More

  • Poverty in America

    680 Words  | 2 Pages

    The sociological approach toward social problems is different from many social science studies. Sociology connects with social problems which are local, or global; as well as, social problems discovered in individuals, and groups. Equally important the sociological study measures the effect of people and society. “As a social science, sociology offers an objective and systematic approach to understanding the causes of social problems.” (Leon-Guerrero, 2011, pp. 5-6) Unfortunately some social problems remain more significant than other social problems. Subsequently due to the danger and, or seriousness it may cause to some, or many people in society. (Crone, 2011, p. 7)

    Read More

  • Effects Of Poverty In America

    3182 Words  | 7 Pages

    “Because of racial segregation, a significant share of [minority] America is condemned to experience a social environment where poverty and joblessness are the norm, where a majority of children are born out of wedlock, where most families are on welfare, where educational failure prevails, and where social and physical deterioration abound. Through prolonged exposure to such an environment, [minority] chances for social and economic success are drastically reduced,” (Quillian, 2012). Poverty in America has always been a widely discussed and politicized topic. Through the War on Poverty, welfare, Medicade, food stamps, and free and reduced housing costs poverty has changed very little. I hypothesize that my data will show that since 1990, minorities have consistently been poverty stricken compared to that of their white counterparts.

    Read More

  • The Stigma Of Substance Addiction

    1623 Words  | 4 Pages

    When we view substance use disorders, alcohol is the most widely used drug within the United States and 11 percent of workers have drinking problems (Frone, 2006). Over 20 million people used illegal substances in 2006 and 7 million people abused prescribed medications. Of the 18 million drug abusers, 18 years or older in 2006, 13.4 million (74.9 %) were employed full or part time (SAMHSA, OSA). These addiction problems have an expenditure of $276 billion dollars per year with most of this cost from loss of productivity and health care (H. Harwood, D. Fountain, and G. Livermore, 1992).

    Read More

  • Why is there so much poverty in the United States?

    989 Words  | 2 Pages

    The question “Why is there so much poverty in the United States?” has such a broad spectrum of issues. There is no simple cure or single cause of poverty. According to statistics from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, “the 2011 Poverty Guidelines are $10,890 for a single member household and $22,350 for a family of four” (par 13). In addition, “families’ incomes that fall below the threshold given, means that every individual in the household are considered to be in poverty” (par 13). Poverty is too complex an issue to be the result of just one problem, but we can narrow down the subject, to show the effects of how the lack of education can diminish our countries resources and how that has a ripple effect on future generations. Without an education, people receive lower pay; there is an increased rate of crime, and a higher reliance on state and federal aid, which is draining economically.

    Read More

  • Rational Addiction Model Essay

    951 Words  | 2 Pages

    Since addicts are rational, their decision of consumption should follow the rule that benefits exceed cost. It has already been discussed that the internal cost of drug use is long-term health problem and the benefit is individual’s immediate gratification. Addicts rationally decided to consume drug, while they ignore the concern of external cost. Economists propose the welfare economics framework as a tool for identifying the social costs of illicit drug use, which provides a rationale for enforcement intervention. The framework put forward two main external costs, health care costs and crime costs, which might be ignored to take into account when people are making decision of consuming

    Read More

  • Society Treat Substance Abuse

    355 Words  | 1 Pages

    In “Why Shouldn’t Society Treat Substance Abusers?” Alan I. Leshner argues that drug addiction needs to reduce in America. This means that the drug treatments for who needs it must be available in our culture’s policies. The fact of the matter looks as if America has offered help to those who need it, but the programs, which have become too expensive, do not allow for people of the working class to afford it. On average, these addicts, who seek help to get clean spend up to “$110 billion a year” (Leshner). So economically, they would become more affected while getting help, rather than if they would not have received help.

    Read More

  • The Negative Effects Of Poverty

    1313 Words  | 3 Pages

    Poverty is an undeniable problem in America. In 2014, 14.8 percent of the United States was in poverty (“Hunger and Poverty Fact Sheet”). There are more people in the United States than it seems that do not have their basic necessities. In an

    Read More

  • Substance Abuse Social Problem Essay

    1792 Words  | 4 Pages

    Perhaps most substance abuse starts in the teen years when young people are susceptible to pressure from their peers. One of the main concerns when dealing with substance abuse is the long term problems with substance such as addiction, dependency and tolerance. The physical state of an individual, who is addicted to a substance, will deteriorate over a long period of time. This is due to the chemicals that are being put into an individual body. One of the most important aspects of the effect of substance abuse on society includes ill health, disease, sickness, and in many cases death. The impact of substance abuse not only affects individuals who abuse substances but it affects our economy. Our government resources are negatively impacted by individual who abuse substances. According to (Lagliaro 2004) the implication of drug users extend far beyond the user, often damaging their relationships with their family, community, and health workers, volunteer and wider

    Read More

More about Cause Of Poverty In America

Open Document