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CAUTION: The following links and
accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation
in the USA in the early years of the 21st Century. Some of these links
may lead to websites that present allegations that are unsubstantiated,
misleading or even false. No attempt has been made to validate
their authenticity or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on
this page and others to see which aspects of poverty are of particular
interest to you. You might be
interested in exploring the relationship between distribution of labor and
per-capita GDP, for example. Perhaps
your paper could focus on life expectancy or infant mortality. Other factors of interest might be
unemployment, literacy, access to basic services, etc. On the other hand, you might choose to
include some of the possible outgrowths of poverty such as Human Trafficking,
Street Children, or
even Prostitution. There is a lot to the subject of
Poverty. Scan other countries as well
as this one. Draw comparisons between
activity in adjacent countries and/or regions. Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper resources
that are available on-line. Teachers Check out some of
the Resources
for Teachers attached to this website. *** Extreme Weather *** Climate scientists
have confirmed that 2023 broke temperature records. It remains to be seen
whether 2024 will be even more extreme. The Colorado State
University’s tropical meteorology project team forecasts 23 storms for the
2024 hurricane season, with 11 of them becoming hurricanes and five reaching
Category 3 status or stronger. In
2023, the U.S. experienced 28 separate weather and climate disasters that
each resulted in at least $1 billion in damages. This total annual cost
reached at least $92.9 billion.– adapted from Microsoft BING Copilot *** ARCHIVES *** The World Factbook - USA U.S. Central Intelligence Agency CIA www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html [accessed 17 November 2020] World Factbook website has moved to --->
www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/united-states/ [accessed 11 January 2021] Long-term problems
for the US include stagnation of wages for lower-income families, inadequate
investment in deteriorating infrastructure, rapidly rising medical and pension
costs of an aging population, energy shortages, and sizable current account
and budget deficits. The onrush of
technology has been a driving factor in the gradual development of a
"two-tier" labor market in which those at the bottom lack the
education and the professional/technical skills of those at the top and, more
and more, fail to get comparable pay raises, health insurance coverage, and
other benefits. But the globalization of trade, and especially the rise of
low-wage producers such as China, has put additional downward pressure on
wages and upward pressure on the return to capital. Since 1975, practically
all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households. GDP -
per capita (PPP): $59,800 (2017
est.) Labor
force - by occupation: agriculture:
0.7% (2009) industry:
20.3% (2009) services:
37.3% (2009) Unemployment
rate: 4.4% (2017
est.) Population
below poverty line: 15.1% (2010
est.) Maternal
mortality rate: 19 deaths/100,000 live births (2017 est.) Infant
mortality rate: total: 5.3 deaths/1,000 live births Life
expectancy at birth: total population: 80.3 years Drinking
water source: improved: total: 99% of population Physicians
density: 2.61 physicians/1,000 population (2017) Sanitation
facility access: improved: total: 100% of population Electricity
access: electrification - total population: 100% (2016) The Borgen Project - USA borgenproject.org/poverty-in-america/ [accessed 26 January 2021] The Borgen Project works with U.S. leaders to utilize the
United States’ platform behind efforts toward improving living conditions for
the world’s poor. It is an innovative,
national campaign that is working to make poverty a focus of U.S. foreign
policy. It believes that leaders of
the most powerful nation on earth should be doing more to address global
poverty. From ending segregation to providing women with the right to vote,
nearly every wrong ever righted in history was achieved through advocacy. The
Borgen Project addresses the big picture, operating
at the political level advancing policies and programs that improve living
conditions for those living on less than $1 per day. ~
Poverty In America borgenproject.org/poverty-in-america/ Hunger in America:
Part 1 Haeven Gibbons, Dept of Journalism, College of Communication, Texas Christian Univ. TCU, 25 January 2021 www.tcu360.com/2021/01/hunger-in-america-part-1/ [accessed 26 January 2021]
Facts About Child
Hunger in America No Kid Hungry nokidhungry.org/who-we-are/hunger-facts [accessed 17 March
2021] According
to the USDA, more than 11 million children in the United States live in
"food insecure" homes. That phrase may sound mild, but it means
that those households don't have enough food for every family member to lead
a healthy life. And that number dates
from before the coronavirus pandemic. How
many Americans live in poverty? Over 38 million, or
12% of all Americans, according to 2018 data from the U.S. Census Bureau. 15
million of those were children. Household Food
Security in the United States in 2018 Coleman-Jensen,
Alisha, Matthew P. Rabbitt, Christian A. Gregory,
and Anita Singh. 2019. Household Food
Security in the United States in 2018, ERR-270, U.S. Department of Agriculture,
Economic Research Service www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/94849/err-270.pdf [accessed 17 March
2021] ABSTRACT -- An
estimated 88.9 percent of U.S. households were food secure throughout the
entire year in 2018, with access at all times to enough food for an active,
healthy life for all household members. The remaining households (11.1
percent, down from 11.8 percent in 2017) were food insecure at least some
time during the year, including 4.3 percent with very low food security (not
significantly different from 4.5 percent in 2017), where the food intake of
one or more household members was reduced and their eating patterns disrupted
at times because the household lacked money and other resources for obtaining
food. The 2018 prevalence of food insecurity declined, for the first time, to
pre-recession (2007) levels. Among
children, changes from 2017 in food insecurity and very low food security
were not statistically significant. Children and adults were food insecure in
7.1 percent of U.S. households with children in 2018; very low food security
among children was 0.6 percent. In
2018, the typical food-secure household spent 21 percent more on food than
the typical food-insecure household of the same size and household
composition. About 56 percent of food-insecure households participated in one
or more of the three largest Federal food and nutrition assistance programs
(Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps);
Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children
(WIC); and the National School Lunch Program) during the month prior to the
2018 survey. What the Biden administration can do to fight child poverty Suraj Patel and Joel Dodge, Cable News Network CNN, 8 March 2021 www.cnn.com/2021/03/08/opinions/child-hunger-direct-payments-patel-dodge/index.html [accessed 9 March 2021] Even before
the pandemic, more than 4 in 10 children lived in households that struggle to
meet basic expenses, and the United States has one of the highest child
poverty rates of all developed countries, according to the Economic Policy
Institute. Poverty can have a lifelong impact on kids, negatively affecting
their learning and development, their physical brain composition, and their
earnings in adulthood. The
Covid-19 pandemic has only exacerbated the problem of child poverty. In New
York, where we both live, roughly 2.1 million children no longer had access
to free and reduced-price meal programs once schools shut down, leading the
state to issue an additional $880 million in food assistance. Many students
here and across the country are also falling behind in school -- or failing
to show up entirely -- due to the lack of internet connection, laptops or
stable home environments that allow them to fully engage in online learning. Interview with Joel Berg, NYC’s Hunger Free
Advocate Alexina Cather, Hunter
College New York City Food Policy Center -- Front Page Feature / General /
Interviews / February 17, 2021 www.nycfoodpolicy.org/interview-with-joel-berg-nycs-hunger-free-advocate/ [accessed 17 February 2021] In your
opinion, what is the number-one thing governments get wrong about hunger and
food? They
think charities and community gardens (which are seasonal) can somehow solve a
massive, structural, year-round problem. Many of
the hungriest New Yorkers are undocumented immigrants, both because they are
usually paid low wages and because they are ineligible for SNAP and other
public benefits. What specific steps should be taken by the government to
reduce hunger among this population? Undocumented
immigrants can obtain WIC, and if they have children who were born here, they
can get SNAP for those children. But that still leaves many out, so the City
and State should team up on new programs to provide extra food money for
undocumented immigrants on electronic cards What
broader, practical, and realistic economic steps – such as creating jobs,
raising wages, and making housing, childcare, health care, and transportation
more affordable – should be taken to reduce poverty and hunger? Poverty
is the main cause of hunger, and the main causes of poverty in NYC are
low-wages and the high cost of living. If you’ve solved those things, you’ve
solved most of the hunger problem. We Are a Nation of
Child Abusers Nicholas Kristof, Opinion Columnist, New York Times, 3 February 2021 [Long
URL] [accessed 4 February 2021] We Are a Nation of Child Abusers ...
But Biden has offered a way to reduce child poverty by half. That would be
transformative The
centerpiece of the child poverty plan is an expansion of the child tax
credit, up to $3,600 a year for young children. This would cost as much as
$120 billion a year and, critically, would be paid out monthly to families
that earn too little to pay taxes. Even a sum as modest as $3,600 is
transformative for many low-income families. One
reason to think that this would be so successful is that many other countries
have used similar strategies to cut child poverty by large margins. Canada’s
parallel approach cut child poverty by 20 to 30 percent, depending on who’s counting, and Britain under Tony Blair cut child poverty
in half. High-Poverty
Neighborhoods Bear the Brunt of COVID’s Scourge Phillip Reese, California Healthline, 14 December 2020 californiahealthline.org/multimedia/high-poverty-neighborhoods-bear-the-brunt-of-covids-scourge/ [accessed 15 December 2020] A California Healthline review of local data from the state’s 12 most
populous counties found that communities with relatively high poverty rates
are experiencing confirmed COVID-19 infection rates two to three times as
high as rates in wealthier areas. By late November, the analysis found, about
49 of every 1,000 residents in the state’s poorest urban areas — defined as
communities with poverty rates higher than 30% — had tested positive for
COVID-19. By comparison, about 16 of every 1,000 residents in comparatively
affluent urban areas —communities with poverty rates lower than 10% — had
tested positive. Rethinking the Poverty Measure Kalena Thomhave, The American Prospect, 3 December 2020 prospect.org/day-one-agenda/rethinking-the-poverty-measure/ [accessed 5 December 2020] The current poverty
measure, as I’ve previously written in the Prospect, was somewhat the result
of chance. In 1963, an economist in the Social Security Administration,
Mollie Orshansky, published a paper on economic
instability and hunger around the same time that the federal government was
searching for a way to measure poverty. Orshansky’s
work measured deprivation by multiplying the cost of the government’s economy
food plan by three, as back then people typically spent about a third of
their incomes on food. We still use that measure, adjusted only for
inflation, and not adjusted for changes in consumption habits, household
makeups, living standards, median income, or even food budgeting (food is now
about a tenth of a family’s budget). The World Bank in
the United States www.worldbank.org/en/country/unitedstates/overview [accessed 21 April 2021] As the
World Bank Group’s largest shareholder, the United States has a long history
of supporting the Bank Group’s mission and addressing development challenges
of vital importance through its support of Bank Group programs. Looking back a few years … Advameg, Inc., Encyclopedia of the Nations www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Americas/United-States-ECONOMY.html [accessed 7 February 2021] By the middle of
the 20th century, the United States was a leading consumer of nearly every important
industrial raw material. The industry of the United States produced about 40%
of the world's total output of goods, despite the fact that the country's
population comprised about 6% of the world total and its land area about 7%
of the earth's surface. In recent decades, US production has continued to
expand, though at a slower rate than that of most other industrialized
nations. At the beginning of
the 21st century, significant economic concerns—aside from the inevitable
worry over how long the boom could last without an eventual downturn—included
the nation's sizable trade deficit, the increasing medical costs of an aging
population, and the failure of the strong economy to improve conditions for
the poor. Since 1975, gains in household income were experienced almost
exclusively by the top 20% of households. However, in the late 1990s and
early 2000, productivity was continuing to grow, inflation was relatively
low, and the labor market was tight. All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT
COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT ARTICLES. Cite this webpage as: Prof. Martin
Patt, "Poverty - USA", http://gvnet.com/poverty/USA.htm, [accessed <date>] |
