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We can mitigate the fact that families are facing poverty by focusing on the environmental, interpersonal/social, and individual factors. Interpersonal and social risk factors associated with poverty is “food insufficiency, unstable housing, and lack of basic healthcare, low self-esteem, a decreased sense of control over one’s life, and feeling of helplessness, which in turn adversely affects child upbringing” (Jenson & Fraser, 2016, pg. 28). In the community level, we can focus on reducing the risk of food insufficiency by supporting programs such as TANF, WIC and SNAP which can assist many families that are below the poverty line. In the environmental level, unstable housing can be reduced by physical safety, which can be brought by opening …show more content…
Reducing the unequal access of quality education will need a policy that integrates principals of risk, protection and resilience because without it many children will have inadequate education. Nevertheless, we can reduce unequal access to quality education by providing funding that is essential for the child and schools needs. Another form of reduction through the peer level is by acceptance of pro-social peers by having caring and supportive peers who accept them allows them to enjoy their time in school. Without acceptance of their peers it can cause many negative outcomes such as lack of interest of school, behavioral problems or emotional disorders. In the school level, setting high academic and social expectation is essential in receiving quality education because without it children are discouraged and begin to fail. High expectation of student is necessary to encourage children to study, which can lead to them succeeding academically. In the individual level. Involvement in extracurricular activities gives children a sense that they belong. School connectedness can overall impact they way they perceive and reduce the likelihood of dropping
In recent years, the number of children whose families fall under the line of poverty has risen at an alarming rate. Crosson-Tower (2013) postulated a reason for this increase when she said, “The recent weakening economy, a higher unemployment rate, unprecedented numbers of home foreclosures and a decline in the safety net for children and their families have resulted in a gradual continuing increase in children living in extreme poverty” (p. 57). Apparently, nearly every aspect of the United States’ crumbling economy affects a family’s ability to meet basic needs. The rise in single parent, mother headed families has not helped poverty statistics because of the lower earning potential of women. A major reason so many children liv...
Since poverty affects a wide array of people, poverty has evolved into a very complex issue. And even though the government has passed legislature to try to ameliorate the situation, many of these means-tested measures like food stamps, have only been able to help the surface of poverty and fails to rip out the long roots poverty has grown throughout history. Poverty’s deep effects are seen especially in minorities as they struggle much more to leave a current situation that has been created by historical process. Even though government assistance like food stamps do help alleviate some of poverty’s burden, these measures fail to recognize the reality that many of the impoverished minority have undervalued homes or no homes at all and even if they can rent, that rent can be high enough to take up more than fifty-percent of their paychecks. Overall, poverty in America is a vastly complicated issue rooted throughout history. And even though the government has attempted to pass legislature to help provide relief from poverty, America still has yet to provide measures that target the roots of poverty and until then, the government assistance it does provide will only be superficial and fail to provide long-term solutions to a complicated
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.
Of those, 46.5 million were in poverty (Hunger & Poverty Statistics, 2012). For some individuals’s food insecurity is only a temporary situation, for others it may be for an extended period. Food insecurity due to temporary situations such as unemployment, divorce, major medical or illness can become more long term. The vast majority of these are families with children. The Faces of Food Insecurity Food insecurity does not discriminate; it reaches many segments of society (Whitney, DeBruyne, Pinna, & Rolfes, 2007).
As a result of anti-poverty legislation being placed into effect all over the country to force workers back into the capitalist labour market, which has taken hold in neoliberalism, the number of families finding themselves on the brink of homeless is skyrocketing. Furthermore, with the reduction of social assistance programs these families are barely able to provide for themselves, therefore, numerous children are being physically impacted by homelessness. According to Jenny Hsu (2015) hunger and physical illness are effects children and youth may experience due to homelessness that greatly affect their development which is unacceptable for our government to allow this many young people to be negatively impacted. Thus, the links between these
Moreover, with only having the ability to work on small odd jobs, or low paying careers, around his or her local area, is not enough to help a family to obtain the necessities that are needed for a strong healthy environment. Jo Goodwin Parker shows this in her piece "What is Poverty?" as she states "I pay twenty dollars a month rent, and most of the rest goes for food.... I try my best to use only the minimum electricity. If I use more, there is that much less for food" (Parker 406). With most Americans, they take what they have for granted, like the ability to have running water at their finger tips. For those in poverty; however, they have to focus all mostly everything just not to see his or her children starve when dinner is not on the table that night. Additionally, with the inability to afford transportation, health care is very hard to secure in houses that are trapped in poverty. To demonstrate, when looking at Parker 's story again, after talking about how she cannot send her children to school due to their diseases, she states that" yes, there are health clinics and they are in the towns.... I can walk that far (even if it is sixteen miles both way, but can my little children?" (Parker 406). Also, due to the lack of transportation, parents are unable to travel out further in the search of work in the
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2014 African Americans held the highest poverty rate of 26%, with Hispanics holding the second highest rate at 24% (DeNavas-Walt & Proctor, 2015). When comparing this to the poverty rates of Whites at 10% and Asians at 12% in 2014, we see that in America, racial and ethnic minorities are more vulnerable to experiencing poverty (DeNavas-Walt & Proctor, 2015). In addition, discrimination is seen between genders among those living in poverty. Family households of a single adult are more likely to be headed by women and are also at a greater risk for poverty (DeNavas-Walt & Proctor, 2015). In 2014, 30.6% of households headed by a single woman were living below the poverty line compared to 15.7% for households headed by a single male (DeNavas-Walt & Proctor, 2015). Many factors such as poor wages for women, pregnancy associations, and the increase of single-woman parented families have impacted the increase of women in poverty. Children are most harshly affected by poverty because for them the risks are compounded, as they lack the defenses and supports needed to combat the toxicity surrounding them. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 21% of all U.S. children (73.6 million children) under 18 years old lived in poverty in 2014 (DeNavas-Walt & Proctor,
According to the Children Defense Fund 1 in 13 children will live in extreme poverty in the United States and a family of four is extremely poor if their income is below 10,000 or half of the official poverty line. (http://www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/data/state-data-repository/census/census-2007-child-poverty-data.pdf,). Despite being wealthy the U.S. . has the highest rate of child poverty among all the other countries. Poor children are more likely to go hungry and are less likely to be read to during their early years. They are less likely to have health insurance and needed care. Poor children are more likely to start school behind their affluent peers and are less likely to graduate high school. They are more likely to grow up as poor adults and become involved in the criminal justice system. A family of four's annual income must be lower than 23,000 to reach child poverty. (http://www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/state-of-americas-children/documents/2014-SOAC_child-poverty.pdf(). Children in single parent homes were four times more likely to be poor than children in two adult families. Almost 70 percent of all children live with two parents.(http://www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/data/state-data.) The south has the highest child poverty rate with 1 in 4 children compared to 1 in 5 children in the rest of the country. Growing up in child poverty can be a major effect on a healthy development for a child. Poverty and stress about finances can have an effect on children's cognitive development and their ability to learn. It can contribute to behavioral problems, social and emotional problems, and poor health. Living in poverty affects how a chil...
When considering the topic of poverty and hunger, many Americans look outside the borders of the United States. However, food insecurity is an issue that plagues millions of American households each year. The United States Department of Agriculture found that 14.5% of American households faced food insecurity during 2012. These households were defined as having “difficulty at some time during the year providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources” (Nord, Singh, Coleman-Jensen).
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.
The information provided by the National Homeless Coalition (2009) regarding “why are people homeless” confirmed my notion that the increasing struggles in our economy has resulted in an increase in homelessness. The surprising factor that I neglected to visualize was the impact it had on children and families. When people think about the homeless, they often envision older adults on the streets. It is too painful to imagine that children are on the streets without food, water, or shelter. One family that I had the chance to work together with was with a mother and her three children. She had two daughters, ages 11 and 9 and a boy who was 2 years old. She is currently without a job and lives with her mother temporarily. She is one of the fortunate ones that have family members supporting her, but there were other stories of families living in cars and streets because of no support.
Everyday students attend school, but not every single student attends the same type of school nor do they receive the same type of education. This thought may be very concerning to some, but for others, this is all too much a reality. For example, some may ask how is it possible that students in public schools that are located within the same state somehow receive a different education; the answer is simple. The concept of quality is a factor that can hinder or facilitate anything, especially ones education. The difference between a public school education in a particular town compared to another is its demographic. Some students are fortunate enough to be afforded the opportunity to attend school systems that perform well, while others do not have the privilege to do the same. Something as simple as a couple of miles can be the difference, the difference that makes some feel entitled to certain things such as higher education while others can only hope to appreciate a secondary or trade school education. Therefore, education is not a right rather a privilege, and the level of quality is contingent upon the environment wherein the learning takes place. The immense importance of environment is self-evident in examples
One segment of the population facing increasing prospects of poverty are students who are tasked with facing disappearing jobs, and skyrocketing education costs. Another large segment facing issues in relation to poverty are the elderly, and minorities, as well as individuals living in single parent households. In 2013, the national poverty rate rose to include 13.2% of the population in the United States meaning that almost 1 out of every 6 people in the wealthiest nation in the world were living at or below the poverty line. In addition to this inexcusable figure, 3.5 million people were forced to sleep in under bridges and in parks in 2013. These unfortunate developments are the result o...
The education system and the peer group within the school system are important socialisation agents in an individual’s life. Children from an early age absorb the values, attitudes and beliefs of the society in which they participate (Ashman & Elkins, 2009).
Did you know that one in five households in the United States are considered to have food insecurity. Food insecurity is described by the USDA as meaning “consistent access to adequate food is limited by the lack of money and other resources at times during the year” (2014). This affects 31 million people in the United States, which includes 15.9 million children under the age of 18. For example, the Walls family in The Glass Castle written by Jeannette Walls leaves a great example of what it is like to be under these circumstances. Currently, with prices of food rising to an all time high, so does the number of people not able to buy the basic foods they need to live a full life. By increasing spending on food benefit programs in the United States, guarantees less people who suffer from food insecurity.