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

We blame them for being poor. We say they are poor because of their own personal failings rather than looking at the inequalities in our society; we say that they don’t have jobs because of their lack of skills, not because of the inequalities in wealth and power (O’Connor, 2001). What about the single mother of three who is working two jobs, but still does not make enough money to give her children what they need? Or the girl who is trying to make a better life for herself by going back to school and trying to find a job? Then, there is the man who had to drop of out school to get a job and take care of his mother. In our society, we don’t think about the other reasons why people are in poverty or homeless. We look at them with disgust and don’t want to help them. We say it is their fault. Our society does not realize how hard these people really do work to survive, and it is still not enough. We need to look at the reasons why poverty is such an issue America. We need to change the way we view

During this time, there were many immigrants coming to the United States (particularly New York City) for a better life. In New York City during the late1800s, nurseries and orphanages were created for abandoned children or children whose parents were too poor to take care of them. There was a different orphanage built for African American orphans. In the 1830s, tenement houses were built for the poor. These were apartment buildings that were run down, unsanitary, overcrowded, and unsafe. They were cheap to build, and landlords would make more money off of them because they would house several people in one room (“History of Poverty,” 2015). There were three Tenement House Acts that were enacted to improve the quality of the tenement houses. In the late 1800s to early 1900s, settlement houses were created. These were houses where middle class, educated people would come to talk about how to solve the problems of the poor. They also hoped this would help close the gap between the rich and the poor (“History of Poverty,”