The Myth Of Poverty In America

Poverty is defined as a lack of money, goods, or resources needed to survive. Poverty is not only confined the United States; it is an issue found all over the world. Actually, when you think about the United States, you think of it as a high-income country. It is a country filled with opportunities, jobs, and freedom. So why is poverty an issue in the United States? As Rank (2004) discusses, the real issue is how our society deals with poverty. People seem to be numb to it. They see homeless people on the street, and they walk right past them as if no one is there. As a high-income country, we have the resources to help those in need, yet our political leaders don’t do as much as they can. Or, as O’Connor (2001) explains, some political leaders

Poverty is the hidden message in the “American Dream” fantasy that everyone wants, it’s something Hollywood portrays very well in movies and TV shows. Everyone sees how the United States is a country of business, big buildings, business men in suits, fashion icons, luxury cars, and big houses. However, what about homelessness, hunger, violence, racism, sexism, why doesn’t anyone tell them that America is going to make you be poor. Many people have to overwrite the concept of being poor and translate into surviving. In this essay I will state how five individuals we able to adapt to their poverty knowing that they were probably judged and viewed as lazy.

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.

When we speak of the poor, we speak as though they are an unchanging and faceless group to be pity despised or feared. To talk of the "poverty problem" is to talk of some depersonalized permanent fixture on the U.S. landscape. The poverty is people, it's people standing in welfare lines, it's people standing in soup kitchen lines and unemployment lines. It's people living in rat-infested projects and people sleeping on the streets. It's people struggling to acquire things that the rest of society takes for granted. It's people coming up short in their quest for th...

Many times it is easy for people to hide certain aspects of their lives. However, poverty is not one of them. When a person is poor, it is humiliating for themselves, their families, and is very difficult to overcome. Although poverty is not always a choice, it is a preventable problem in today’s society that can be fixed. If people have the ability to recognize that this is a problem that affects people everywhere and are willing to do something about it, the percentage of poverty-stricken persons would be down to almost nothing.

The American dream is impossible for the more impoverished because over the years poverty rates have been increasing. The richest country in the world still has more than 12% of its total population, and almost 20% of all children under the age of 18, unable to meet, let alone be guaranteed coverage of basic needs. With that said the nation has fallen apart in the last 25 years. America has faced economic insecurity and it is up to us to change it. Furthermore, the three main issues why poverty in America continues are the high cost of living, a great percentage of people living (below the poverty line) and the economic inequality that the impoverished face.

“More than 46 million Americans live in poverty.” The poverty line in Florida is currently 17.1 percent. The amount of poverty is at its highest since 1960. Does the United States have an obligation to help the poor? In America, we claim to be the land of the brave and the home of the free. But how many people in America are free from poverty? 49.7 million people in the United States are in poverty. In 2012, 49 million people weren’t sure if they were going to be able to buy food for themselves or for their families. This is incredibly distressing to hear. In America, which praises itself for being a world powerhouse, some people can’t afford to eat. The factors that affect poverty include government programs, unemployment, organizations helping the poor, and how poverty is calculated.

America has always been a country known for their great integrity, diversity, financial prosperity and great pop culture. It has been a place many people have flocked to from many different parts of the world in order to escape their very own poverty struck countries in their quest to build a new life in America and hopefully become financially stable. In this article written by M. Harrington he pointed out some key factors discussing how America has not really changed from over a hundred years ago. In specifics he tells how many years have gone by and still yet there is still a very large amount of a poverty class of people. Although our nation takes great pride on its classlessness there is still a one quarter percent of our country’s population that still lives in a poverty level. Some of these areas also included some inner city blacks, farmworkers, Appalachian whites and elderly people. Harrington’s book “The Other America” also tells us how as a country we have managed to hide the poverty level class from being seen while our country screams we are the wealthiest country in the world! America has done just that. Encourage the wealthy to become wealthier and poor to be poorer. It was also pointed out that the poverty class tends to have a poor language, poor mentality and just a poor outlook of the entire world view as a whole. He stated that the poverty people in this country are identified by a unique way of what is called “Culture Of Poverty”. What he was saying was that the mind of a poverty struck person will not ever surmount to doing things that will benefit them or change the course of their direction. In other words you may give a poor man a million dollars but he will not know wha...

Many reforms in the UnitedStates have been passed to help fight against the “War on Poverty”; but it has not been effective in eradicating poverty in the U.S. There are about 46 million people who are living in impoverished conditions and poverty continues to be a social issue in this country (Heritage Foundation, 2011) In the beginning, our country was formed under the belief that “this land is the land of opportunity and if we worked hard enough the American Dream can be gained” (Schwarz, 1997). People immigrate to this country today in hopes of becoming rich so they could gain a better life. In spite of coming to this country for a better life, many are faced with the lack of skills and money to succeed. In the end, most will end up in unskilled labor jobs that can barely support their families. Poverty continues to be a growing social issue because people have the “ inability to provide necessities like clothes, healthcare, and shelter” (Heritage Foundation, 2011) to help themselves and their family; therefore, many sacrifices have to be made to insure their survival. Yet many reforms made to help people living in poverty are based “off of outdated statistics” (Henslin, 2014, p.276) and are not enough to help the lower class maintain a sufficient standard of living. Poverty relates to conflict theory since the poor are struggling just to get by. Government programs such as Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), housing assistance, and food stamps provided by the government are not enough to help the poor gain social mobility.

Compared to the rest of the world the United States is economically prosperous however, many citizens are plagued with poverty and destitution. Poverty has become such a problem that one in six Americans are living below the poverty line (Yen). Despite the significant number of Americans living in poverty, most Americans are unaware of its vast scope and scale. The public’s apathy towards poverty has caused it to become an invisible epidemic. The middle -class’s flight from the cities has created de facto segregation between the impoverished and the financially comfortable. Lawmakers find that running on the platform of “fixing poverty” is not appealing to the majority of their middle-class constituents. The media turns a blind eye to America’s poverty epidemic because poverty does not excite viewers or garner favorable ratings.

Several citizens in America may not empathize with many social conflicts which transpire in America. Unfortunately, when poverty is mentioned people of diverse gender, race/ethnic, and age can relate to poverty in America. Although several societies have not experienced the undesirable measures of relative or absolute poverty; several people know poverty exist through many channels, such as the media, social networking, history and charities.

As reported on google images “Poverty” is represented by starving children in third world countries, people living among trash, hunger, sadness and even death. These images are meant to evoke emotion in people but in reality all they do is numb the general public to the truth. American poverty though, is represented differently on google images. When American poverty is shown there are images of run-down cities, statistics and graphs. The images provided do not show any general representation of poverty in America. In fact these images even dehumanize American poverty by showing graphs and statistics rather than the people affected by poverty. Among America’s poor lie victims of the unjust criminal system. Although America is considered to

Growing up in America, I have witnessed and heard about many incidents in which America has deviated from a country that prides itself on freedom and opportunity. I have heard of instances of police brutality, of African American men, women, and children, who have gotten hurt, even killed, of instances where due to inherent racism, people of different races are thought of as “inferior”; of the protests and grievances of women who have not had an equal opportunity in life, and who have been put at such a low position in society, only to have their voices concealed by the louder voices of men who counter with “be grateful for what you got” or “it could have been worse,” as if that completely absolves everything that they have faced; and of the homeless out on the streets begging for money, only to be met with the condescending faces of people who possess more than enough money but are