The American Dream: Poverty In The United States

The American Dream is the ideal that every United States citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative. “Poverty is the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor” (Collins). Poverty is much more than not having sufficient money. The World Bank Association explains poverty in this way, “Poverty is hunger. Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not having access to school and not knowing how to read. Poverty is not having a job, is fear for the future, living one day at a time. Poverty has many faces, changing from place to place and across time,

The number of people in America today who live in a state of poverty is unreal and the American Dream is becoming harder and harder to achieve. One in six Americans live in poverty, about 46.7 million people (Poverty USA). About 21,000 people across the world die every day due to hunger related causes, one person every four seconds. The majority of these deaths are children. 48.1 million Americans live in food insecure households. The national average of household food insecurity is 14,3 percent. Fourteen states display significantly higher rates than this average. Mississippi displays 22.1 percent, Arkansas 19.9 percent, Louisiana 17.6 percent, Kentucky 17.5 percent, and Texas 17.2 percent (Feeding

Poverty is one cause, but people’s values are another. In today’s world, our values have changed greatly and we are pricing ourselves out of living. We lack work ethic and people are never satisfied with what they have. For many, the American Dream has become being a millionaire and living in a mansion. Often too many people are wanting that, when in reality they already have what used to be the American Dream, shelter, clothing, and food supply. It is up to us to make the most of that. The world faces great problems, but collectively we are not helpless in the face of forces outside our control (Atkinson). The future is very much in our hands.

Income inequality has been growing for decades. Over the last thirty years, the wages of the top one percent have increased by one hundred and fifty-four percent, while the bottom ninety percent has seen increase of only seventeen percent. “As the rungs of the economic ladder move further and further apart, conventional wisdom says that it will be much more difficult to climb them” (Roberts). As problems and situations build up against the middle class and the poor, the chances for upward mobility, the American Dream, will