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Poverty & Hunger

The United States of America

In the early years of the 21st Century

 

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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.

*** 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]

Hunger USA

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>]