Poverty is one of the devastating social problems facing many parts of the world. For many years, poverty has been viewed as a challenge for people living in the developing world. However, it is apparent that the troubles of material needs cut across the globe to include the developed world. People and communities alike lack financial capacity and essentials that could allow them to meet the minimum standard of living. This aspect leaves them without access to basic human needs, including food, shelter, and health services. Just like other parts of the globe, the poverty level in the U.S. is alarmingly high. This paper explores poverty as an intensely worrying problem in the United States. It further investigates national and state interventions towards fighting poverty in the country. While both federal and state governments formulate and enforce policies in the fight against poverty, it remains the most social problem in the United States.
As a social problem, poverty has negative ramifications to the lives of poor Americans. Leon-Guerrero (2016) defines a social issue as a “social condition or pattern of behavior that has negative consequences for individuals, our social world, or our physical world, (7). Poverty is a social problem because it makes people lack access to resources, thereby lacking the fulfillment of their basic needs. Poor people could go without adequate food, lack of access to health services, or improper housing. Statistics posted by the United States Census Bureau in 2018 depict a clear picture of the poverty levels in the country. These statistics demonstrate that, indeed, poverty is a leading social problem in the U.S. In fact, the official rate of poverty as of 2018 is 11.8 percent translating to 38.1 million poor Americans (Semega, Kollar, Creamer, & Mohanty, 2019). Having scores of millions of people living in poverty is a clear illustration of the depth of the problem in American society.
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Poverty in the United States affects both adults and children. No section of the society goes unaffected, an aspect that shows that poverty is truly a devastating and ruthless challenge in the face of the country considered an economic powerhouse in the world. Estimates released in 2018 show that 10.7 percent of Americans aged 18 to 64 are poor; the number of children, those below 18 years, stood at 16.2 percent (Semega et al., 2019). Poverty in the U.S has been legitimized. Legitimization involves formalizing the way a social problem is handled (Leon-Guerrero, 2016). In light of this note, both the national government and state authorities have taken stringent measures to eradicate poverty in the nation.
While poverty levels remain relatively high, government interventions indicate an improvement. The poverty rate in 2011 stood at 14.5%, implying that 46.2 million Americans were poor (Leon-Guerrero, 2016); the rate has since improved to the current 11.8 percent, or 38.1 million people (Semega et al., 2019). National and state government interventions include a raft of policy changes designed to solve the root factors promoting poverty in the country. Income inequality, which is high in the U.S., is a key driver of persistent poverty in the country (Leon-Guerrero, 2016). Had Americans experienced equally distributed income growth; poverty levels would have reduced drastically. Both the national and state governments have raised minimum wages to ensure Americans earn decent pay to cover their basic needs comfortably. In 2013, the Obama administration proposed changes in the minimum wage; Congressional Democrats have since introduced bills, and federal minimum wage stands at $7.25 per hour, with 18 states as well as Washington, D.C taking action (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 2018). The rise in the minimum wage is an indication that more people would be comparatively capable of funding their budgets.
Both the state and federal governments are focused on promoting access to income for the Americans. The authorities have in place programs to cushion the public against poverty by providing unemployment insurance (UI) and the permanent Extended Benefits (EB) initiatives besides pushing for full economic recovery to boost employment. According to Stone and Chen (2014), the UI replaces part of the wages for Americans without jobs but those unemployed due to a fault not of their own. Stone and Chen expound that the EB program provides Americans with 13 or 20 weeks-joblessness compensation to those who have exhausted the regular state benefits. However, the authorities are concerned with the Americans already willing to work rather with little worry for those unwilling to commit their efforts towards making a decent living. Indeed, fighting poverty has to start with an individual before even the government contributes.
In retrospect, the fangs of poverty in the United States continue to bite despite the federal and state governments have put in place policy initiatives to eradicate the problem in the country. Poverty affects both children and adults as people struggle to meet their basic needs due to a lack of adequate income in their households. While poverty levels remain considerably high, seemingly, government interventions appear to be bearing fruits. Since 2011, the rate of poverty in the United States has reduced signaling an improvement in the people’s way of living. The federal and state governments have a clear cut mandate to ensure the people are saved from the poverty troubles. Policies such as minimum wage recommendations and employment insurance plans are integral to the fight against poverty.
References
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (2018). Policy Basics: The Minimum Wage . Retrieved from https://www.cbpp.org/research/economy/policy-basics-the-minimum-wage
Leon-Guerrero, A. (2016). Social problems: Community, policy, and social action. 5 th Ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE
Semega, J., Kollar, M., Creamer, J., & Mohanty, A. (2019). Income and Poverty in the United States: 2018. Current Population Reports, U.S. Census Bureau . Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2019/demo/p60-266.pdf
Stone, C., & Chen, W. (2014). Introduction to Unemployment Insurance. Center On Budget and Policy Priorities. Retrieved from https://www.cbpp.org/research/introduction-to-unemployment-insurance
