Cycle Of Poverty In America

For decades the War on Poverty has been a debate area that every president running for office has used as an election tactic, especially democrats. Republican voters are usually Caucasian, upper class, and in higher positioned occupations; while those voting democratic are typically minorities fighting to stay at or above the poverty line. Former President Lyndon B. Johnson was the first politician to use the term War on Poverty during his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964. This was during a time when the national poverty rate was around nineteen percent, adding to President Johnson’s Great Society plan. But the question still remains, after all of the promises and plans focused on the ending of poverty, is the culmination of poverty …show more content…
This rule of no child left behind, coined by former United States President George W. Bush, became famous because it gave the American people hope that with a quality education and support from the government, anyone who tries desperately enough could get out of their current economic situation. Yet as the majority came to find out, it is much harder than anticipated. The cycle of poverty is one that is incredibly hard to break, mostly because the top one percent of Americans do not want the cycle to diminish. If more and more people began finding their way out of poverty, less money would go to those who run the country strictly based off how much money lines their pockets. With a good education and a drive for success, everyone has a chance to break out of their current way of life, and break in to middle class, though it is extremely hard and very rare. It turns out that most people who work hard to get out of poverty and in to middle class end up falling back in to the cycle of poverty eventually. This is because maintaining a middle class lifestyle is one of the toughest things to do. It is no secret that as a country, we are one of the most ruthless when it comes to keeping the man down. We are nowhere near the tyranny of countries such as North Korea or Cuba, but it is understood that without the lower class to do all of the countries basic work, our nation would fall to its knees. So even if every American citizen graduated high school and attended a four year institution, life events would come up along the way and make it so that a certain percentage would live their adult lives in poverty, such is the way of life. Granted, with a good education a person is already half way to living a stable, happy life, but something always happens; the economy gets bad, mistakes happen, and the life of a once upper-middle class citizen is thrown in to the