ANALYZE A SOCIOLOGICAL ISSUE

Analyze a sociological issue



Poverty and Children in America

Introduction

Poverty is defined as a condition in which one lacks the basic necessities of life. These include food shelter, water, lack of education and dignity. The uneven distribution of poverty at various scales, from the global to the household, via the national, regional, and local, suggests the importance of geographic factors in explaining its prevalence and understanding its nature. Poverty in United States of America is unique in nature with 13-17% Americans live below the poverty line in America. Of course, significant variations exist within regions and nations. Similarly, in USA too poverty rates are usually higher in rural areas, a large and a growing number of poor people live in urbanized areas, with a significant degree of concentration and clustering in distinct neighborhoods and informal settlements.

Background

With more than 14 million children living in poverty, the number of destitute children living below one half of the poverty line has grown by almost half a million children since welfare “reforms” were instituted. In addition to the increase in extreme child poverty among families who were already impoverished, there is increasing hunger and homelessness in poor urban and rural communities, and decreasing access to Medicated and food stamps. The damage of welfare “reform” in terms of the violence done to young children is yet to be made visible as families' lives unravel in a ravaging market economy, where social infrastructures are crumbling, and income equality is soaring. For the children at the bottom of the well, the booming economy neither splashes nor trickles down.

Discussion

During the recession (2008-09), the poor got poorer, and the middle class lost ground. The poverty rate among Americans aged 65 years and older is nearly twice as high as the traditional 10 percent (18.6 percent). Alarmingly, for the first time in history, 1.2 million more of America's poor are living in the suburbs than in the cities. The Center for American Progress further estimates that approximately 17 percent of children in the United States live in or near poverty, and the annual cost to the country's economy of children growing up poor, resulting in their eventual lower productivity and earnings and higher crime rates and health costs, is over half a trillion dollars (Bahmani, 2000).

Children and young people are the most likely to suffer poverty. The existence of poverty reflects the failure to fairly distribute the world's resources so that all can have at least a basic quality of life. For young people from the majority world countries, poverty can mean lack of educational or employment opportunities, lack of access to basic needs such as food, clothing and shelter, and not being involved in making choices about issues that affect them (Chuck and Yeskel 2000). Poverty often causes young people in the majority world to be overlooked, and disconnected from their community, services and peers for young people. This is most often reflected in the limited opportunities for young people to have a voice and raise the ...