Poverty Issue in America, Essay Example

America being the richest nation in the whole world has people living in poverty. America for a long time has been the richest nation in the history of mankind. It has been estimated that approximately 37 million people live in poverty. The issue here is not the number of people living in poverty but the people who are behind the number as reported by (Edwards 256). The people living in poverty lack enough money for the basic needs; food, clothing and shelter. It is a national shame to know that among the richest men alive, there are very poor people in the midst of all the wealth that America has. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the 37million Americans were hit by the highest levels of poverty. Edwards reported that these people were in the news; they were thirsty, hungry and also desperate (256). They could not flee the situation because they had no where to go to. The other thing that brings poverty in the United States of America is the fact that most families have a single parent raising the whole family (Edwards 259). This might be due to divorce which leaves one parent with little money to support the family and the children lack proper education. Edwards suggests that when a child lacks sufficient education in the changing world, chances are that the person will grow up in poverty or still not get employed (260).

Poverty Levels in America

It has been reported that the poverty levels are high in the United States of America due to a number of factors. Women are now working twice as much as men did back in history and the men have resorted not to working at all. The few men who work are either very rich or very poor. This is the reason why many women in America are in work units because they have families to support while men between the ages of twenty nine to fifty four do not have jobs or they are in unstable jobs. This is because the role of the woman in the family and the whole society has changed to bearing children, nurturing them and financially supporting the children, men in the society leave their children with their mothers after divorce as reported by (Glasmeier 2). Americans are in debt that is so enormous and the debts continue to pile up. It has been reported that the payments of debts covers about 19.4% of income earned in an average family. The most surprising thing is that about 23% of America’s families devote 40% of their total income to pay their debts. Many families spend a lot of their money paying their mortgage and also other things that take a lot of their hard earned money. The rate of America’s personal savings fell to levels below zero. This means that the Americans have more expenses that their incomes (Glasmeier 4).

The Constant Growth of Inequality in America

While many people including the U.S academics, point incisively to America’s income inequality growth, a neoliberal magazine in Britain is writing about and getting the whole situation to the whole world. It has been reported that the wealthy people gained a lot as from 1995 when the pattern that was there earlier changed. The productivity in the early 1990s seemed to benefit the whole nation in the aspects of rising wages. This changed drastically and the productivity has often failed to positively affect the overall wages hence benefiting only the top officials or the highest skilled in America’s economy. The real estate business is failing because the common citizens in America lack wage increase. The housing values are so high that home owners tend to lose a lot of money while buying other houses or even refurnishing. This is the sole reason why most real estate businesses are failing; the citizens have no money to fully pay for the houses while the real estate business has increased the value of their houses.

Due to this simple fact, the prices of the houses are falling and the houses stay quite longer on the market. The gap between the rich and the poor that is so huge has been blamed on the emergence of the computer and technology era and also the use of internet. This was explained by some top government officials that the changing world needed new improved skills. Those who are qualified to embrace the constant change in information and technology are in a better place of earning a lot of income (Glasmeier 8). The change in the Federal and state government also benefits the rich in the U.S. The federal government dealt away with the issue of unions which destroyed the ability of the common people to acquire wealth through team change in the working class as reported by (Glasmeier 10).

A Timeless Pre-Occupation

It has been reported that American top industrialist have been casing different jobs in world’s new and constantly changing economy. About 150 years ago, the US was flooded with products especially jewelry from Switzerland and also Britain. This encouraged the US government to start making its own watches and also products that the European countries were producing. The US built huge industries in different states and employed a lot of people to work in the factories and companies so as to have the competitive advantage in the whole world. The market was filled with products from the US and they were also exported to other countries all over the world. The industrialist at first had brought materials for making the jewels; gold watches, necklace and other items from Europe.

As the competition began to increase, the US did not know how to invent new designs because they had initially taken Europe designs and ideas. The other countries improved their products’ designs and also prices, this act made the US industry greatly reduce the prices of their products to lower levels that the companies and the industries shut down. This lead to a lot of poverty among the people who worked in the industries and the nation at large lost a lot of money. In today’s world the US focus on Science so much that they have different states competing in research work. This is not a good idea because the states are supposed to work together towards a common goal. If one state takes the whole Biotechnology market, the people working in the other states will lose their jobs and end up in the streets (Glasmeier 15).

Black Men Are Evaded by Equal Opportunities in America

Black men between the ages of eighteen to thirty five face challenges in the work industry. Most black men in the US have either dropped out of high school and lack jobs while others are incarcerated. The reason why black men have no jobs is the poverty level from the time most of them were born. A black kid who is raised by the grandparents because the parents died from AIDs or are incarcerated or are drug addicts will not complete high school because of the pressure to earn money while they are still young. Most of these kids end up in the streets selling drugs and when they are incarcerated and later released, employers do not accommodate black people with a history of incarceration. The black kids who drop out of school will lack proper skill to work in the constant changing world where a person is required to have a Bachelor’s degree in any field of study so as to earn good income. The manual jobs are few because the technology has taken over the technical work.

The US government spent a lot of money to advocate for women rights in relation to work while the black men in jails or in the streets have been neglected. On the contrary, white kids who drop out of school are very few while those who have no jobs are also few in numbers. The poverty for the young black men will not stop any time soon because the cycle continues; a black man gets a kid and ends up in jail, the kid is later raised by a single parent and the notion that the other parent has criminal records and is in jail will make kid to follow the foot steps of the father because children grow up taking life examples from their parents whether good or bad. The issue of strong family foundation is a factor in improving poverty among black men in the US.

The President’s Office Definition of Poverty Level

For many years, policy makers, scientists and also scholars have been discussing the appropriate ways to reduce poverty in America. They put measures that could help but the office of the President for four decades had its own definition of poverty. The top officials believed that there has to be a gap between the poor and the rich so that different works could be delegated to different people and the people in the highest class would control the lives of other people however they wanted to, as reported by(Glasmeier 20). For so many years the federal government has known ways to reduce poverty in the US but they have done nothing to make life better for the citizens who live below the poverty level. The lives of these people have become worse as compared to the past when people could afford the basic needs at affordable prices and also good working conditions, (Bendavid-Val, Praeger 9) reported.

Today, people work for longer hours and have less time for resting and at the end; the pay is not as much as one would expect and this is the reason why many people would rather work in such conditions than sit at home without food. The people who benefit from these strenuous works are the top government officials who only set regulations for the work and take all the profits. People who earn little money in the US pay tax while the top officials evade paying tax. The tax from the citizen is used for the expenses of the top government officials who sit in their offices for only two hours doing nothing significant but at the end of the month, they get hefty salaries. Their salaries come from the long working hours with unfavourable conditions of the poorly paid citizens of the US.

Food Wastage in the US

Over the years, it has been discovered that the US wastes a lot of food that could have been used to feed about 23 million US citizens. The statistics show that in many states in the US, families skip meals because they lack adequate money to buy enough food for the whole family. The families have small children who also eat one meal in a day and the rest of the food is stored to sustain the family for longer periods. The fact that the US federal government knows that there is a certain amount of food wastage every year; they should give people the food instead of waiting for the expiry dates. By now the US government knows how much food is consumed every year. This should allow them to feed those people who are below the poverty level for almost a life time. Milk, grains, vegetables and clean water are the types of food that can be donated to the poor families. This action can help to reduce hunger in the US if only the government took drastic measures in handling the disposal of excess food production.

Drug Abuse and Teen Pregnancy

The Americans are faced with the problem of drug abuse and also teen pregnancy which both lead to school drop outs and unskilled labour who work for longer hours with little pay. Peer pressure has increased in the young generation in the contemporary world. Teenagers need to fit in the society by doing what other fellow students are doing. They smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol in school which eventually leads to their expulsion from the schools. In case such a teenager wants to join another school, the records of drug abuse will unfortunately lead to his or her rejection. This student will want to make money and so if the student is a girl, the easiest way to make money is through prostitution which might lead to death from diseases or physical assault. For a student who is a boy, the student will also be involved in male prostitution or will end up selling drugs in the streets.

Teen pregnancy also leads to the increase in poverty levels whereby, a girl is pregnant and she drops out of school and with the insufficient education, the girl will work for low pay so as to support the child and also herself. These teenagers are neglected by their parents because they broke all the family values. Parents who have strict religious beliefs do not accept their pregnant teenagers back into the family. A young girl starting life on her own is such a hustle, she will settle for any kind of job even if it pays less than a dollar in a day as suggested by (Grootaert 23).

The US has ways of reducing the poverty level. These measures are often opposed by the rich and famous people who are few in number. The poverty levels continue to rise and it is feared that the situation will not get better if the top officials in the government put their interests first before those of the citizens that they serve. Teen pregnancy is a factor that can be stopped by the society at large. Drugs given to the young black men have to be stopped because these young black men have the potential to achieve greatness when their minds and talents are put into use. Poverty is a state of mind not being, if people of the US want to achieve the common goal of eradicating poverty, then they have to put great minds together and devise ways of helping every one achieve financial independence.

Works Cited

Bendavid-Val, Praeger. Regional and Local Economic Analysis for Practitioners. USA: Westport CT, 1991.

Edwards. Ending Poverty In America, USA: W W Norton & Co Inc, 2007.

Glasmeier. Manufacturing Time: The History of the World Watch Industry, Penn State: Guildford Press, 2000.

Grootaert, Kanbur. Policy-Oriented Analysis of Poverty and the Social Dimensions of Structural Change. World Bank USA: Washington DC, 1990.