Poverty and Social Class- The Impact of Poverty

About 34.6 million people in the United States live in poverty (that is one out of every eight people). Poverty is spread among many ethnic groups and areas, with 10.2 percent of white people, 23.9 percent of black people, and 21.8 percent of Hispanic people being below the poverty level. The costs and consequences of poverty reach beyond the limits of poverty itself and into the rest of society. 

            It is not surprising that the poor have more health problems than the normal American. Research shows that those in poverty have four times higher an incidence of anemia and iron deficiency. They also have twice the deficiency in vitamins A, C, and riboflavin. Infant mortality rates are higher in low-income families due to a lack of prenatal care, poor diets, and poor sanitary conditions. Due to these and other reasons, those in poverty are more susceptible to sickness. However, they now how better health resources though programs like Medicaid.

            As rural areas shrink around the nation, the poverty stricken areas become more concentrated. Almost twice as many people live in the ‘poverty zones’ then 30 years ago. The government has funded projects in the recent years to build better housing for low-income families and got rid of the public-housing units and replacing them with townhouses.

            Family life for those in poverty is commonly unstable. Marriages and pregnancies happen at a younger age, divorces and separations happen more often, and family violence is at a higher rate.

            Lack of education is both a product and a cause for poverty. Who came first, the chicken or the egg? Those who live in poverty do not get a good education most of the time and those who do not get a good education usually end up in poverty. In poor families, one fifth of all heads of household did not graduate from high school. Children who come from families where the parents are high school graduates are more likely to graduate themselves then those whose parents did not graduate from high school.

            Most people are not poor because they do not have jobs; it’s that they do not have high paying jobs, or jobs that pay enough to keep them out of poverty. Young workers usually experience the highest poverty rates, mostly due partially to their lower earnings and higher rates of unemployment. Black and Hispanic young adults between the ages of 18 to 24 are the likeliest to be in the ‘working but poor’ class. 

            Public welfare programs by the government try to help the poor people out with many of the above situations, however they are commonly abused.