Issues With Poverty

Poverty has been the subject of much debate as public policy issues evoke the societal values of liberty and equity and the balance between them. Some would claim poverty as an issue of equality of opportunity while others claim an equality of condition. Poverty has reached an alarming level in America. In 2010, it was estimated that 15.1 percent of the U.S population were living below the poverty line which translated into almost 44 million people (Marger, 2014). The official poverty line in the U.S. back in 2010 was $22,113 for a family of four which included two children, so the issues with poverty have stemmed from multiple reasons. A few of the reasons that a person could fall into poverty could be the labor market, education, and life chances. There are, of course, many other reasons.
Every year, our economy makes social mobility and job security more difficult for people. This may be causing a decline of confidence in believing that the “American Dream” is obtainable. The Great Recession of 2007 caused an influx of businesses to close their doors forever leaving thousands unemployed without any notice. Let’s also include companies that started sending their jobs overseas due to cheaper labor. These jobs, even though some …show more content…
Children that come from lower-income families are more likely to have low test scores which, then, puts them at risk for dropping out of school. Those that do finish high school are much less likely to attend college, unlike their peers from higher income families. Thus the cycle of poverty in families starts again. Since they have little education, they will have fewer job skills which will only qualify them for certain types of jobs that usually have little to no opportunity for advancement. Ensuring the education of children must occur is absolutely necessarily and vital to success and advancement of our future economy. The cycle has to break in order for the line of poverty to