'Poverty and Children in the United States Essay\r'

'Although the conception has made strides in technological development, tender development issues remain a contest not alone to the developing world notwithstanding too to the highly-developed world. Poverty is nonpargonil of the affectionate issues that take in been harnessd by successive organization with little mitigation of the situation. Even in situation where the regularize of meagreness seems declining, thither is always a tender shift of the goalpost and the gains made be quickly decay with successive change of government or collectable to the changing environment condition.\r\nEven in developed countries want unite States, mendi goatcy is a study ch totallyenge. The account of privation of exiguity remains at double digit even with all the efforts to tackle the problem. Poverty has been confined to the confused income segment of the society. Children argon the most affected with a high component of pauperisation confined in clawren population. D ue to their undefendable nature, minorren have no option and to wait with the current land of their liveness. Consequent researches have proven that children chthonian the age of 18 atomic number 18 more(prenominal) likely to be impoverished.\r\nAt all magazine in our history the gap between the fertile and the measly has been evolution vast. Not that there ar not effort to reduce this gap, tho slightlywhatways the nature of our economies, free market and the role of the estate remain unclear. To take a leaf from a popular book which was published in 1888 by Ed ward Bellamy, we have not reached the utopic situation that he had predicted in the book by 2000. He saw a society where class division were to be make away with, but our the gap between the abstruse and the poor is wide; where workers earn the same salary, but there is a big going away in our salary scale; and a society where penury would no longer exist, but our distress levels be soaring all q uantify high. In his miniature breaklook at the 19teh century, Dr Lee failed to understand how reinforcement were differentiate at a state in which men and women would not be able to stay fresh the life of their children. He saw it as a conspiracy to deny children. (Reef, 2008)\r\nPoverty in the joined States\r\nPoverty can be metricalal all as absolute or congeneric mendicancy. irresponsible leanness can be defined as a situation where individuals lack all the basal admits for their survival. This means that individuals lack the fundamental necessities for life like diet that meets their daily caloric and in notifyectual nourishment needs, shelter, clothing, safe drinking water, and others. In the world those breathing under such condition be largely grappleed as poor.\r\nOn the other hand proportional meagerness is a measure that is adopted which goes with the measuring of backing in the society. In this case individuals whitethorn not lack basic nec essities like in absolute poverty but comp bed with the standards of life of those liveliness around they whitethorn be considered deprived of some basic wants. As the standard of active in a rustic rises, individual life may be changing as wellnessy. Therefore poverty in the united States may be mensural or a relative poverty set up since even most of those who atomic number 18 considered poor do not lack the fundamental necessities of their life. (NCCP, 2008)\r\nIn the unite States, poverty is measured using the poverty cable system which has been set by the government. This measure is set to prise how an individual access the basic goods and services which ar usually taken for granted by the society. only this the threshold value for assessing poverty in the region is adjusted from fourth dimension to time in guide with the consider of inflation largely using consumer expenditure index. The measure for poverty used in the world and which has been adopt ed by the United Nations is deuce dollars a day. Individuals who live to a disordereder place the poverty line are those who live on less than two dollars a day.\r\nPoverty eradication has been an ongoing war in the United States. However, it was in 1964 when President Lyndon Johnson prescribedly tell a war on American social. This was war on domestic poverty which had rocked its all time high. Since 1964 when this war was declared, there are hundreds of billions of dollars which have been fatigued in the war against poverty in the small and large American towns. The government has been providing free solid food, repaired all the dilapidated homes and furnished jobs for all those in need.\r\n police wagon and Minds (2007) show that in spite of the government efforts, there are zillions of Americans who are compose sustainment under poverty. American has not won the war. Statistics taken in 1996 showed that there were more Americans living in poverty compared to the statis tics taken in 1964. This clearly illustrate that the country social-wellbeing had been declining to its final levels in the last century. 1996 statistics showed that 13.8 percent of Americans were living in poverty and large percentages were in the borderline. However, it was very staggering that 48 %of this population was children. The statistics also revealed that;\r\n· More than 15 one thousand million children or roughly one out of every four children in united state lived be meek the official poverty line\r\n· 22% of Americans who were under the age of 18 eld and more or less 25% under that age of 12 grades were hungry or were at the risk cladding hunger\r\n· for every 2,660 children who were born in poverty, virtually 276 of them died from the same poverty\r\n· Children and families in poverty were the fasted emergence group of homeless individual making up to most 40%.\r\nPoverty in the United States has been changing with time and usually rhymes with the official measures taken to conduct the problem. However, the official figures have been staggering at around 12 to 16% measured on the federal poverty line at every given time while for the last one decade, it is estimated that roughly 40 % of the population fall be let out the poverty line. The Bureau of Statistics has also revealed that about 58.5% Americans bequeath spend at least one year of life in poverty or mostly between the age of 25 and 75. While the government continues to put more effort in trash poverty, it is intelligible that United States has some of the highest official figures of poverty and the Human development Index ranks the country at the 12th position. This means that among the developed countries in the world, the country has the highest pre and post transfer poverty rates.\r\nInstitute for enquiry on Poverty (2008) shows that despite these staggering figures of poverty, the scattering of poverty among the race, gender, and age is varying. Going w ith the age it is evident that individual downstairs the age of 18 long time are mostly affected by poverty for example, in the 2006 statistics the rate of poverty among the minors was the highest among the industrialised nations in the world. inquiry reveled that 21.9 % of all the minors in the population were living under poverty. However, racial difference was also evident with about 30% of African Americans minors living below the poverty line. look for has also shown that there is a higher rate of child poverty in the rural areas compared to the suburban and urban areas.\r\nPoverty and children\r\nAs we have seen, children are most affected by poverty in the country. A large percentage of children especially those living in families with low income are languishing in relative poverty compared to how other children in their neighborhood are living. Research has been documented that children living in low income neighborhood famously referred to as the ghettos experience a high rate of poverty compared to children in well up neighborhoods.\r\nHearts and Minds (2007) assert that for the last two decades, child poverty has been ranging between 10 and 20%. Although there has been fluctuation and dispute of the official figures of child poverty, it is very clear that the figures have been on the up rationalise. During the 1990s, the official figures of poverty children ancestrys slightly and the same decline was also recorded in wel farthere rolls. However, the hopes raise by this decline obscured three caveats:\r\n· First the ontogenesis did not last and when we thought we had mad strides in 1990s, the figures started rising again from 2000. The welfare safety send away was also drastically reduced since 2000.\r\n· Second, there has been an add in severe poverty. This defines children who are living in families that live on less that half of the set federal line on poverty.\r\n· Third, there are a very large number of children who are living below or near the poverty line, with a good percentage hanging on the border line. Currently estimates show that this groups is roughly 37 % of American children that is composed of 42% American child and toddlers, 58% American children, 62% of American Hispanic children\r\nAccording to the recent estimates, more than 13 million Americans children are living in families which have income far below the federal poverty level which is soon set at $20,650 every year for a family of four. Between 2000 and 2006 it has been shown that the number of children living in poverty increased by about 11% despite the government effort to mitigate the situation. However, it has been argued that since poverty is measured as relative poverty in United States, this could be attributed to the increase in income in the speed segment of the population. Therefore, this figure may be reflecting a growing disparity in the distribution of income preferably than an increase in the official figu re of children living in poverty. despite the argument about the robustness of these figures, it is evident that there are more than 1.2 million more children living under the federal poverty threshold today compared to 2000. (NCCP, 2008)\r\nFass and Cauthen (2007) stresses that these numbers are troubling, and they also tell us a part of the wide scale poverty situation in our country. These figures tell us of a more flawed metric of economic hardship that our country is currently experiencing. Research has proved that most families in the United States need twice more the federal poverty level threshold in order to make the ends met. once more here we can see a very clear picture portraying how our official figures are not rhyming with the situation on the aim which tells of a growing disparity in the distribution of resources. According to the federal threshold level for 2006, children who were living in families below this level which was roughly $41,000 for a family of four were regarded as low income. More than 39% of children in the nation, about 28 million lived in low income families in 2006.\r\nWhat do these figures reflect? We can give different interpretation from the figures which we have reviewed so far. However, it is very clear that there is a growing rate of child poverty in America. As expressed by child advocacy groups this is a big push to us especially when we consider that children will make our society tomorrow. We have toiled to piddle a developed country and our fear is that we may be slowly slipping to a triplet world society if we have to continue with the trend.\r\nmoreover the growing number of children living below the poverty line is a reflection of the trend in the large society. This clearly reflects the growing disparities in income distribution. As we saw with the disputed figures, it is evident that the main close which we an attribute to the growing disparity in the official poverty rate figures shows a growi ng income in the upper segment of the society while the low income families have reduced their level of income or remained in the same statues. This is a growing concern considered that item that about 1% of the Americans currently earn twice as much as the 38% of the American in the bottom of the ladder. (NCCP, 2008)\r\nThere is also a growing barrier to upward mobility. This is manifested not only in the rising child poverty but also in the preclusive real estate and the rising rate of inflation. There is a growing cost of health care, energy, and others. Healthcare for children is a concern in the country with the No Child odd Behind program struggling to meet its objectives and furnish affordable healthcare cost to American children. It is quench estimated that there are more children in low income families who are not insured with any medical exam insurance, and who still fail to meet the entry criteria to No Child Left Behind program.\r\nGussow (1994) estimate that abou t 13 million children in the united states still live in homes with low access to food supply. Researches have established a direct association between lack of enough food supply, malnutrition and poor health status among children. Although there are conflict figures on the rate of malnutrition in the country, it is evident that children from the low income families have been experiencing one from of malnutrition or the other. While the dominate data gives very little evidence of worldly concern of extreme hunger, there is enough data to hint that majority of American children living in poverty have deficient of one mineral or the other. (NCCP, 2008)\r\nMiller and Koreman (1994) shows that the situation is compounded by the concomitant that we have been caught up in double cataclysm of malnutrition. While a good segment of American children are living in relative poverty, the upper segment is living in affluence with a high rate of lifestyle disease. However, data fails to make between the two factors although it is evident that malnutrition problems like laborious and obesity are prevalent in two the affluent and the poor segment of the society. While some studies suggests that low income family children have a higher rate of overweight and obesity, other studies have shown contradicting results. Whichever the case we have to understand that over nutrition or under nutrition both express a health challenge manifested in American children.\r\nConclusion\r\nDespite the government effort to deal with poverty, child poverty in United States remains a challenge. The trend is worrying despite the efforts made we are slipping to a dangerous situation. The population of children living below the federal poverty line has been on the rise. It is time that the government realized that this is a problem we are facing and therefore come up with strategies to address it. The country need to take changes in the social system in order to address the engagement o f children well in providing of basic necessities. Some programs like No Child Left Behind need to be reviewed in order to accommodate more children. Unless we take the problem of our children as ours, the problem of child poverty will stay here with us.\r\n'