Poverty In America (Blog Assignment)

America In Poverty(1)

Former United States president, Ronald Reagan once famously said, “We fought a war on poverty and poverty.” Years after making such an emotive statement, it is inevitable to think he may have been right, with 46 million Americans or 15 percent of the population now counted as poor today.

 

Over the years America has established various government aid programs such as food stamps, housing, subsidies, welfare, and many more to help people on their feet, which consequently now keeps 40 million Americans out of poverty. Poverty would be almost double what it is now without the government programs, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

With all the different resources available, why has America not accomplished more? Four reasons:

• ·      An incredible number of people work at low-wage jobs.
• ·      More households are headed now by a single parent, making it complicated for them to earn a living income from jobs that are often available.
• ·      Welfare and other cash assistance for low-income mothers and children are nearly gone.
• ·      Persistent issues of race and gender transmit to higher poverty rates among minorities and families headed by single mothers.

The current economy lacks jobs that pay decent wages, which would help many people out of poverty. Bigger investment in education and skill development strategies is needed to break out of the current economic barriers that have kept many people in poverty.

This is not a problem specific to a current moment, America has flooded with low-wage jobs for the last 40 years. Most of the money of people living in poverty comes from work. According to the Census Bureau, 104 million people or a third of the population, have annual incomes below twice the poverty line, less than $38,000 for a family of three. Many families struggle to reach financial responsibilities at the end of the month.

Half of the jobs in the nation pay less than $34,000 a year, according to the Economic Policy Institute. In addition, a quarter pays below the poverty line for a family of four, less than $23,0000 annually. Families that can send another adult to work often have done better, but single mothers or fathers don’t have that option. Poverty among families with children headed by single mothers exceeds 40 percent. After all, its not that the whole economy declined. There has been a lot of growth, but it has mostly stuck to the top, leaving the 99 percent of us behind.   

Can the Government do more to help people out of poverty?

Yes

No

Poll Maker

Source:
Edelman, Peter. "Poverty in America: Why Can’t We End It?" The New York Times. The New York Times, 28 July 2012. Web. 28 Apr. 2014.

America in Poverty: Impact on Education(2)

Education was historically considered a great equalizer in American society, capable of guiding less advantaged children to brighter and more successful future. In many cases today poverty can prevent a child from getting access to a quality education. The educational system is funded by local communities; as a result the quality of teachers and materials is reflective on how wealthy or poor the community is. Low-income communities are not able to afford the quality education that high-income communities can.

While the achievement gap between white and black students has narrowed significantly over the past few decades, the gap between rich and poor students has grown considerably during the same period. The imbalance between rich and poor children in college completion, the single most important predictor of success in the work force, has grown by about 50 percent since the late 1980s.

A major reason for the growing gap in educational success, could be that wealthy parents invest more time and money than ever before in their children, while lower-income families, which are more likely to be headed by a single parent, are significantly depleted for time and resources, which has become essential for success in today’s economy.

James J. Heckman, an economist at the University of Chicago, argues that parenting matters as much as, if not more than, income in forming a child’s understanding ability and personality, specially in the years before children start school.

A high-income child will spend 1,300 more hours than low-income children before the age of six in places other than their homes, their day care centers, or schools. By the time high-income children start school, they could have spent about 400 hours more than poor children in literacy activities.

The growing gap between the well-educated and the less-educated, has formed a kind of cultural divide that has its origin in natural social forces, for example the cultural ethic of educated people to marry other educated people, as well as welfare and other government programs, which many argue that they provide incentives for staying single.

Source:
Tavernise, Sabrina. "Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor, Studies Say." The New York Times. The New York Times, 09 Feb. 2012. Web. 26 Apr. 2014.


            Michelle Rhee: High Quality Is The best tool to Fight Poverty (3)

Michelle Rhee from the Brookings Institution reveals in the video that high quality education is the best way to fight poverty, which has created a huge disparity gap among high-income students and low-income students. 

Looking in depth at a statistic provided by Rhee: the top quartile of American kids fight income, this fact is quite astonishing considering the fact that America is a global leader in the world.

 Comparing the richest quarter of American kids internationally, our kids ranked 23^rd out of 30 developed nations. In addition, the poorest fourth of our kids compared to the poorest fourth of other nations, America also ranked 23^rd. So what does this mean? It reveals that no only does America has problems with the poor kids, but also with that not-so poor kids as well. While the rich kids are doing better than the poor kids in the country, they are not superior to their peers in other nations, which whom they will be competing against for jobs when they grow up.

 The question is, does poverty really matter? According to Rhee, absolutely it does and couldn't agree more with her. When a child lives in abject poverty and is attending school everyday without being fed a healthy meal, parental guidance, or possibly the electricity of the child’s house is shut off, and any other health issues that impedes the child to perform well in school, all of these are factors that can make it harder for kids to come and learn to school everyday and also makes it harder for teachers to teach. The disturbing trend today is that society is blaming poverty for preventing children to learn. The contention that teachers and schools cannot do anything for a child simply because of their parents or environment is completely wrong, since considering any circumstance across civilization in any country what we know is that is the best tool to battle intergenerational poverty and break that cycle of poverty, well is education itself.

Source:
Rhee, Michelle. "Michelle Rhee: High Quality Education Is the Best Tool to Fight Poverty." YouTube. YouTube, 27 Mar. 2013. Web. 28 Apr. 2014.

         College Enrollment Among Low-Income students Still Trails Richer Groups (4)

Higher education has been perceived as one of the best ways out of poverty. Yet, drawing connections of low-income students (Even the high-achieving ones who presumably are best prepared for work) with colleges and universities still remains a major challenge. College enrollment among low-income students has generally increased over the past several decades, according to data from the Digest of Educational Statistic. 

However, the Great Recession and weak recovery have deteriorated the gains of recent years, and middle- and upper-income far more likely to go to college. With the education system being particularly hit by the economic down turn, which resulted in many challenges limiting the resources for many students making it even harder for low-income students to reach for a high education, since many times priorities outside of schools or after high-school completion for low-income students such as work or other responsibilities can prevent them from going to college. In 2012, according the NCES, 50.9 percent of recent low-income high-school completers were enrolled in a two- or four- year college, which is down from the record-high 58.4 percent in 2007, and just a half of a percentage point higher than the rate in 1993. On the contrary, enrollment rates among middle- and high-income students also have risen, 64.7 percent 80,7 percent, respectively, in 2012. To put it another way, low-income students are enrolled at about the same rate as middle-income students were in the mid-1980s.

Historically the quality of education an individual received was based off race or ethnicity, but data shows the trend has now shifted to income levels. The 2012 data on college entry by race and ethnicity show a noticeable convergence: After decades of marked race disparities in enrollment, about two-thirds of white, black, and Hispanic high school completers all were enrolled in college    

Source:

Desilver, Drew. "College Enrollment Among Low-Income Students Still Trails Richer Groups." Pew Research Center RSS. Pew Research Center RSS, 15 Jan. 2014. Web. 28 Apr. 2014

                      CDC: Higher Income and Education Levels Linked to Better Health(5)

People with more education are more likely to earn a decent living and enjoy better health, according the government’s annual health report. More educated people with higher income levels have lower rates of many chronic diseases, including obesity, compared to people with lower education and income levels. It clearly makes sense since lower-educated and low-income are at a disadvantage than their more educated and higher-income counterparts, which have more difficulties getting access to the various health resources since many do not have the proper educational levels to reach for a better job that can bring more income and a better lifestyle, minimizing health risks as well.

Other report findings include: 

• In 2007-2010, homes where the head of the household had a higher level of education resulted in lower obesity rates among boys and girls aged 2 to 19 years.  In households where the head of the house had a bachelor’s degree or higher, 11% of boys were obese and 7% of girls were. Comparatively, in homes where the head of household had less than a high school education, 24% of boys and 22% of girls were obese.
• Women age 25 and over with less than a bachelor’s degree were more likely to be obese than women with a bachelor’s degree or higher: up to 43% compared to 25%.
• In 2010, half of adults 18 years old and over failed to meet federal physical activity recommendations for aerobic activity and muscle-strengthening.
• In 2006, on average, men age 25 without a high school diploma had a life expectancy 9.3 years less than those with a bachelor’s degree or higher. Women without a high school diploma had a life expectancy 8.6 years less than those with a bachelor’s degree or higher.
• Between 2000-2010, the percentage of children with a family income below 200% of the poverty level who were uninsured decreased from 22% to about 13%.  The percentage with a family income at 200% to 399% of the poverty level who were uninsured decreased from 9% to 7%, and children with a family income at 400% of the poverty level who were uninsured decreased from 3% to 2%.

So why does poverty and chronic diseases (ex. Obesity) go together?

• ·      In many poverty-dense regions, people are unable to access affordable healthy foods
• ·      People with lower incomes tend to have more sedentary living environments. Etc.

a Source:

Sifferlin, Alexandra. "CDC: Higher Income and Education Levels Linked To Better Health." Time. Time, 16 May 2012. Web. 28 Apr. 2014.

                         Almost Half of Public Schools Students Are Now Low-Income (6)

In this country, how well off you are depends largely on your success in school. Sadly, your success in school depends largely on what you parents income levels. Looking at the depressing map, in 2011 there were 17 states where at least half of all public school students came from low-income families. Across the whole country, 48 percent of kids qualified as low income, up from 38 percent a decade earlier.

More worrying than the number of low-income students, however, was the long-term trend. The number of states handing out free or reduced meals to more than half their students when up four times in a span of ten years. Public schools in the United States are unfortunately becoming poorer.

Reasons that elevated the disparity:

• ·      2008 recession
• ·      Immigration
• ·      High birthrate among low-income families

These reasons were occurring before the economy collapsed, but the fall aggravated them. As the economy was heading falling many immigrants entered the country at higher rates than today, in addition, more low-income families were having babies in high poverty-dense area forcing parents to enroll there children in these public schools, causing schools to become poor.

Points to take away from these numbers:

·      Policy makers and pundits often get worked up about the mediocre performances on standardized tests. Yet, the reality is that there are vast variations between the students, who are divided by geography and socio-economic class in ways quite unlike children in countries such as Japan or Finland. For example, If schools are still, in a sense, factories, then Massachusetts districts get much better raw material to work with than California districts. Suburbs have an advantage on cities, and their results often reflect it.

·      The data may reveal that these statistics are glances at the future, considering that students from low-income families tend to end up parents of low-income families.

Lets hope for a change. 

Source:
Weissmann, Jordan. "Study: Almost Half of Public School Students Are Now Low-Income." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 17 Oct. 2013. Web. 28 Apr. 2014.