Poverty is an issue that has inundated this world since the beginning of times and like the earlier times, nations struggle to eradicate this problem. Poverty is a condition that compels people to live in substandard conditions with little or no access to basic necessities. Poverty is a condition of not being able to take your child to the doctor when he/she is coughing miserably or has stomach pains. Poverty is not being able to buy yourself socks just so that your child could enjoy the pleasure of eating his favorite candy. The sum and substance of the above discussion are this; poverty is a condition of not being able to fulfill your needs and your child’s wishes due to dearth of money. Poverty can be defined at two different levels. Absolute poverty is a condition of living that deprives a person of the means necessary to afford the basic necessities essential for survival including food, safe drinking water, health, shelter, education and access to services. Relative poverty is a living condition where a person has resources less than that are necessary to live their lives according to the standards of the society. Relative poverty is largely dependent upon the financial condition of the country. The greater the county’s wealth the better would be its people’s living standards and more elevated would be the level of relative poverty. A country where both types of poverty prevail, absolute poverty is a more serious issue, which is mostly the case in third world countries. According to a report published in the New York Times, the poverty rate declined for the first time during 2013 since 2006. The Bureau estimated 45.3 million people to be living below the poverty level in 2013. Charles T. Nelson, the official of the Census Bureau, attributed the decline in poverty level to increase in employment and enhancement in the earnings of parents of the dependent children . The Loss Angeles times however give a report that concludes that child poverty is at the highest point in the past 20 years, putting millions at the risk of injuries, infant mortalities and premature death. It is a shame that in a nation so rich, 25% children don’t have enough food to eat, and 7 million kids have no health insurance.
Poverty is a problem that results from a number of factors, and in order to combat this problem, we need to target every problem of poverty and work towards its solutions. A few causes of poverty are as follows. Despite the financial stability of the United States, the system of distribution of wealth is most unfair in comparison to other nations. In the USA, 75.4% of all of the country’s wealth is held by 10% of the people. The comparative figures in other countries include 50.3% in Australia, 57.4% in Canada, 53.3% in the United Kingdom and 51.8% in France. Except for the developing countries, the proportion of wealth held by the top 10% is quite staggering in the United States. For this reason, the remaining 90% are left competing for the lingering wealth, but the distribution amongst the 90% is also rather inequitable. This results in 45.3 million living below poverty lines. This system creates an accumulation of wealth at one end and scarcity of resources at the other. High-divorce rate is another factor that contributes towards poverty. This results in a greater ratio of single parents who form families with less number of earning members and more dependent members in the family. The working member, therefore, may not be able to make ends meet when providing for the children. Sadly, millions in the Unites States go through poor education systems that create a great deal of dependences upon minimum wage jobs which are quite difficult to support families on. Even these jobs are present in scarce amounts so many remain unemployed as well . Households that depend on agriculture as their main sources of income live through different periods of abundance as well and scarcity and therefore live in poverty for the most part of the year. What's more is that agriculture is a gamble that may not always harvest the desired results. One thing going wrong could set off a chain of events pushing a family into the cycle of poverty which they might not be able to find their way out of.
When talking about the global statistics of poverty, the following information comes into discussion. According to UNICEF, approximately 22000 children die each year due to poverty. According to this figure, an astounding number of infants face death from an issue that could conveniently be overcome. Based on the enrollment data of 2007, about 72 million children going through primary school age in the developing countries did not attend schools, out of which 57 percent were girls . What are the causes for global poverty? Let’s discuss a few. Most countries are plagued with a long history of colonization and slavery, practices that they are unable to get rid of. This instills in the society discrimination and institutions that govern the lives of the less fortunate. Also, since almost all economies started from being agrarian economies at some point in the history, development in the means of agriculture and industrialization like better use of technology resulted in many people being laid off with employment opportunities declining significantly. Families with too many children also struggle to keep up with their food, education, shelter and clothing requirements and if the parents work in jobs that pay minimum wages, the bigger size of family is likely to become quite hard to tackle. This problem may also lead to the children studying in poor education system and as they children grow old, they find it difficult to compete with the world as a result of which poverty plagues the family for generations.
The very main concern to every person living in poverty and those helping them is the impact that poverty has on the mental and physical well-being of children. Children are the future of the nation and for a healthier tomorrow, it is essential that we breed and encourage healthier children today. But poverty has vastly negative effects on the physical and mental health of children. When compared with the children living in prosperous conditions, poor children were reported to be less healthy. Most of the children born in poverty have low birth weight due to the meager conditions of mothers during pregnancy. Also, the infant mortality rate (the number of infant death per 1000 live births) was lower in poorer kids in comparison to its more affluent counterparts. These children later on suffer through diminished mental abilities including poor math abilities, higher grade repetition rate and a higher number of students dropping out. Poorer children have greater malnutrition issues and are witnessed to suffer through several physical disabilities like stunted growth, development delays and mental underdevelopment. Academic achievement which is the main scale used to measure the future success of children is diminished in children living in poorer conditions. The stress at home mostly affects the children which make them unable to concentrate properly on their education. The academic gap between the poorer and the rich kids is abysmally wide. Also, poverty leads to children studying in poorer communities schools which are less equipped with the basic educational requirements and adversely affect the children studying in those schools. In addition, poorer children face greater risks of behavioral and emotional problems due to the stressful environments at their homes. They exhibit aggressive and impulsive behavior and face problems getting along with peers as well as attention problems. Poor children live in poor homes or sometimes live in homeless conditions which are not very ideal conditions for their well-being. These children face greater risks of childhood accidents at home. Adverse living surroundings during childhood can put a toll on the children’s opportunities during adulthood. Children living in poor housing conditions are 10 times more likely to contract meningitis and every one out of three children living in overcrowded conditions suffer through respiratory problems including asthma and allergies towards later part of their lives.
Children are the most important assets of our nation and for this reason it’s very important that we take care of them and find solutions to problems they might be facing. When talking about child poverty demographics, we can conclude that about 16 million children, about 22% of the young population live in families below the poverty level . These children need for us to rescue them from their skimpy lives. How can we contribute; as an individual level, as an organization, and as a nation? The quickest and the most effective solution to poverty is education, and utmost quality education, which every child has a right to. Government could spare greater budgets on education and the schools that exist in poor conditions should be revived. Organizations that work to eliminate child poverty should establish goals that afford these offsprings the quality of education that they deserve. And we as a community should lend hands to every less fortunate member of the society that we come in contact with by donating and giving charity. The second solution is focusing on the parent’s income. Investments in the country should be encouraged which could generate more employment opportunities and might be able to lend a hand with the parent’s troubles in their child’s upbringing. Organizations should also give benefits to their employees that encourage the furtherance of education in them, which will result in parents with even better jobs and greater ability to provide for their kids. The housing problems should be solved by launching programs that focus on improving housing and encourage donations and contributions from the general public as well. The institutions are working towards finding solutions to poverty should focus on the more basic causes and find solutions to them.
Works Cited
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