Poverty

Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor

I am writing this letter because I believe that even though United States is one of the most advanced industrialized countries in the world, it has some of the highest child poverty rates in the industrialized world. Some children are poor because their parents are working, yet poor. Other poor children live with single mothers or recent immigrants (Ferguson, 2007). Children living in poverty experience increased strain on their physical, emotional, psychological, and social well-being. That said there are some industrialized nations that have reduced child poverty rates through a number of programs and policies.

I believe this is because the poor in wealthier countries like America is getting poorer, and the gap between the lowest- and highest-income families has widened. Average incomes for the poorest in United States, for example, have increased by about 18 percent over the past 10 years, while the wealthiest families experienced a 30 percent increase (Gallo et al., 2006). Young couples with children experienced significant downward shifts, as their average wealth fell about 30 percent over the last decade. Inequality has worsened among families with children.

According to the reports of UN Global Health Decade initiatives, “In the US alone, in 2010 almost 15.1 percent people or 42.6 million people were living in poverty - which is supposed to be the highest counting up till then. Thus it is very important that students accepting the load of population healthiness on the society and be receptive by working to deal with health issues in order to maintain a good quality of life for the communities” (MacInnes, et al., 2012).

Efforts to theorize, to model and measure the processes of exclusion and social inclusion illustrate the realization that in any society, a wide range of social dimensions and areas affect the ability to live a meaningful life, although the economic security and job security are the foundations. In addition, mere poverty in terms of income, whether relative or absolute terms, is only one economic factors involved assessment of the strength of theoretical and empirical models, indicators and measures led to the identification of nine areas that give rise to processes of exclusion and social inclusion: employment and occupation, income and economic resources, material resources, education and skills, health, housing, social resources, community resources and, finally, personal safety. Multiple indicators were selected for each of these areas according to their frequency of use and robustness

Many studies have documented the rise of precarious employment characterized by poor job quality, low wages, and few or no benefits. Over the past decade, U.S has lost thousands of jobs in the manufacturing sector, resulting in the loss of higher-waged, permanent jobs with relatively low education requirements. Many of these displaced workers become employed in temporary, low-waged, precarious, non-standard jobs. Recent immigrants to U.S., who often reside in large cities (with high cost of living) parachute into precarious labour markets. This has forced many recent arrivals and others to become multiple job holders in an attempt to make ends ...