Detailed Analysis Of The Causes And Effects Of Poverty In USA (Essay Sample)

POVERTY IN THE USA
Student’s Name
Name of Profesor
Name of Institution
Course name
Date
More than 46 million people in the USA are living in absolute poverty. This is the largest number ever to be witnessed in the USA in more than 50 years. One out of every six Americans live in absolute poverty. A big chunk of this lot are people who have lost their jobs, people with disabilities, people who have lost their jobs, young adults, families living under minimum age and newly employed people.
According to data from the USA government, a family of people is living in poverty if they make less than US$2281 annually or US$1900 monthly. This amount is just enough to take care of the family’s basic needs like shelter, food, paying for utilities and essential requirements like transport, devoid of luxuries and leisure.
What causes poverty?
In trying to devise lasting solutions and sustainable means of alleviating poverty before it gets to run-away levels, understanding the causes of poverty is a crucial part of the process. There is however no single and universal cause of poverty but considering histories of individual societies and circumstances of given regions and countries we can establish a common trend on the causes of poverty.
Income inequality
When a country’s economy grows, overall poverty goes down. However if the national income is not evenly distributed among the citizens, this leads to inequalities in wealthy distribution. It creates a situation where the rich grows richer and the poor sink further in poverty.
Conflict and unrests
Although the USA enjoys a relatively peaceful domestic environment, much of her resources are committed in oversea global peace creation and enhancement programs. A big percentage of US military personnel are deployed in several countries around the world both in battle and peace keeping missions. These include Iraq and Afghanistan. This taps back into the local economy as the US citizens are taxed higher to finance these missions. The government also spends a lot in self-defense against external aggressions.
Ill health and disability
Poverty is rampant in communities that are adversely affected with diseases like HIV aids and malaria. Diseases cause many deaths leaving behind a trail of orphaned children as well as elderly people without care. Family resources are also drained as a result of disability as disabled people are taken are of care of. This increases the country’s dependence ratio.
Unemployment
A big percentage of US employable workforce if without jobs. Population increase, a shrinking economy as well as mismatch of skills and available jobs have led to increase in levels on unemployment in the US. These further scale up poverty levels as the unemployed depend on the few employed.
Consequences of poverty
Malnutrition
Malnutrition is common in children from poor families. Families living in poverty have limited access to nutritious foods and even when they gain access to these foods they can’t afford to buy them. The healthiest foods are always the most unfordable hence a family with a narrow budget is more likely to opt for foods that are less nutritious.
Health
One of the biggest effects of poverty are health effects on the people. This includes things like accessibility to medicine, increase in diseases and a fall in life expectance. Diseases are rampant in poor people as in most cases they live in deplorable environments. They can’t access nutritious foods which compromises their body immunity. Poor sanitation increases the chances of contracting diseases. Poverty grossly affect child mortality and life expectance.
Education
Many people who live in poverty are not able...