African-American poverty in America (Essay Sample)

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African-American poverty in America
African American is the second largest ethnic group in the United States of America. They are a group of citizens in the US who have partial or total ancestry from African slaves of the 16th and 17th century, or from African immigrants, the Caribbean, and South America. Majority of the African Americans can trace their origin from West or Central Africa. African Americans make up 13.6% of the American population with the majority located predominantly in the Southern States of the US where they Christian values (ASPE Issue Brief, 4). African Americans largely came from Africa during the infamous slave trade of the 16th, 17th, 18th centuries and traces of the 19th century. The state of deplumation experienced by slaves led to demand of radical reformation of laws supporting slave trade and resolutions were started with the purpose of eradicating slave trade. Poverty can be defined as the lack of necessities. It is the lack of necessary basic shared values of human survival like basic food, shelter, medical care and security. Objectively poverty according to the statistical measure established by the federal government is the annual income needed by a family to survive. African American poverty levels in the USA are very high reaching with the situation deteriorating in recent times. Statistics show that majority of the African American community live in abject poverty. According to US Census Bureau American Community survey of 2013, poverty rates for African American citizens were 28.1%, an increase of 25% since 2005. Since 2005 poverty rates have increased for every demographic of African American except those aged 65 years and above which has reduced from 21.2% to 19%. Families catered for by a single mother experience poverty levels astronomically higher than families with both parents, 47.5% in contrast with 8.4% of families with both parents (United States Census Bureau, 23).
Causes of poverty in African American community can be attributed to several factors chief among them being racial discrimination in job recruitments. Racial and gender discrimination interfere undoubtedly with the search for employment among members of the minority race. African American discrimination in the job market prevents qualified individuals from accessing good employment, which would improve their welfare and quality of life standards like those experienced in the suburban areas. Presently, this remains a hypothetical dream. Discrimination contributes indirectly to the poverty levels experienced by single headed families. This is mainly because it lowers the general earnings of women who have taken up family responsibilities as their male counterparts. Discrimination also influences how much an individual is paid in a job while also increases occupational segregation. It has been noted that the higher the percentage of minority groups in an occupation the less the wages paid. This means that the more concentrated minority groups are in a certain occupation the lower the wages paid. To some extent, occupational traditions also contribute to the overwhelming discrimination in the jobs department. Traditionally minority groups were offered backroom jobs while the whites or the majority is offered front house labor. Little has been done to alleviate these mores. These discriminatory factors are some of the major contributors of poverty.
Migration is another contributor to the unemployment of African Americans. While the middle class residents are leaving the city in search of a better, quality and quiet life, the poor and ambitious are moving to the cities in search of greener pastures. As the newcomers fill up the economic niches and social structures vacated by the leaving residents, the situation worsens. This migration by unemployed citizens may seem noble and beneficial but it hurts the working majority in cities. The working city dwellers unable to leave due to personal, job, or housing rationale form the stable core of the cities. This results to depletion of resources by the people moving into the cities, while competitions for jobs intensify creating a pool of poor dependents.
Poverty among the African Americans is also caused by lack of proper, adequate or quality education. Crime levels are predominantly in the black residential areas while drug and substance abuse problems are prevalent. These three factors are interrelated; quality of education in poverty-stricken black residential areas is affected by the underlying factors named above. African Americans form the largest number of prisoners in the country. This explains why crime rates are high among blacks. Crimes are integrated in kids from the young age and they do not adhere to their education leading to drop outs. Most of African American kids therefore do not qualify for college or University education. Drug related problems contribute hugely to poverty levels among African Americans. Drug problem is a huge menace in the US. It is estimated that 23.9 million Americans as of 2012 are active drug abusers (Bradshaw, 5). People deplore all their resources and property in search of a sniff, while they also engage in different haphazard activities to access drugs, which create a huge unemployment and poverty pool. The lack of proper upbringing, lack of quality education and the drug problem leads to poor people engaging in crime to survive. The levels of poverty are not helped by the industrial transformation, discrimination, the underclass, migration, the spatial mismatch or the demoralizing drug issues and endogenous growth deficit.
Other factors indicating the severity of this poverty among the African-Americans include, food insecurity, the amount of charitable assistance they receive from the government, agencies and other non-governmental organizations, poverty levels, sickness levels and the ability to access quality health care services. Unemployment is a major contributing factor to poverty levels among the Africa-American living in the United States. It is also a major contributor of food insecurity. In 2009, the number of African-American unemployed was almost twice as high compared to those of the white non-Hispanics. It was revealed that 13% are unemployed while the number of unemployed white non-Hispanics stands at a mere 7 % (United States Census Bureau, 3). The level of food insecurity faced by the African-American is also clear. One person in four African-Americans households is food insecure. This translates to roughly 26% of the population-compared to11percentage of the Caucasian households and 14% of the overall population. When assessing the number of people receiving food charity, African-Americans are disproportionately represented with the group, as they are three times likely to receive food assistance. This is according to figures obtained from Feeding America Network which is the main organization mandated to provide food assistance to the poor in the united States.31 % of African-Americans receive food assistance from the organization which is roughly one in four people. These sums up to 12 million people, adults and seniors included. In comparison, only 10 % of the white non-Hispanic population receives food aid from Feeding America network, which is less than a third of the African-American beneficiaries (Feeding America, 3).
Poverty levels experienced by African-American are comparatively high. They have lower income compared to the other races with an average African American earning $34,600 per annum. On the other hand, the white non-Hispanics have a median annual salary of $58,300 with the gap widening even further in recent times. The race is as much as three times poor compared to the non-Hispanic, which translates to 27 % poverty levels. Of the 27 % poor African-Americans, 12 % of them ...