There are 38 million people living in poverty in the United States. These are people who go days without meals, live in the projects, do not own cars and are unable to make ends meet. Many of them live off of money provided by the government. The buy their food with food stamps and pay their bills with the any extra money they can find.
Poverty can affect all ages. In a study done by the U.S. Census Bureau in 1996 13.8% of Americans lived in Poverty. The biggest surprise to many people is that 48% of the poverty stricken are children. 15 million were under 18 years old and six million were under six years old. These are children who were born into poverty. They did not have a choice if they wanted to be poor or not.
There are many factors as to why people are below the poverty line. A high school diploma was the only thing that people needed to get an okay job. Times have changed so that if a person does not have some sort of formal education than it is more difficult for them to become employed. No job means no income. Another factor to the increase in poverty rates is the number of children living in single-mother homes. For many reasons there are mothers who must raise their children alone. The children in these situations were five times more likely to be poor than those living in two-parent homes. Stalled economic growth has played a big role in poverty. If there are no jobs for people than they can not take home the money to support their families.
Children living in poverty do not have the same opportunities as other children. They are growing up in neighborhoods where the schools, food, homes, etc are not up to par with what a family that is not in poverty has. When a child grows up poor, the long term effects can be devistating. They can grow to be in the same situation and never change and it could create long term psychological damage.
Two million poor children in the U.S. in 1990 were foreign born. Long term effects of childhood poverty is more common in minorities. Latino and immigrant children are the fastest growing groups in the United States. They come to the U.S. looking for freedom, without educations. Latinos and foreign immigrants produce children faster than Americans do. This is one major cause for why there are so many of their children in poverty.
There have been many studies over the years of the long-term effects of poverty. Just because a child grows up in poverty does that mean they will grow up in poverty? The studies have showed that a majority of the children that remained in poverty never overcome it as adults. The largest difference in long-term effects were between white Americans and African Americans. 29% of African American children remained in poverty for ten years after childhood. These studies are not completely current. These were done on children born the last 1960's-1970's.
One of the saddest things to read about is children who are in poverty. Most of them are born into it and do not ever overcome it. It is not their fault that they have to suffer, not have food, shelter, efficient schooling, etc. We can help them in many ways to hopefully give them a brighter future. I have given a website to go too, to possible help a child in need.
Wendy Matthews
