The Problem of Poverty

Poverty in the U.S. Poverty is a major variable in the lives of many people in the U.S. The median household income for families in the U.S. is $59,000 (Semega, Fontenot and Kollar)—yet 40.6 million people live in poverty in the U.S., or 12.7% of the population (Semega, Fontenot and Kollar). If poverty were a health issue it would be considered an epidemic. This paper will address the issue of poverty in the U.S.

and explain how it is an injustice and how it affects higher education for young people. Poverty is a socioeconomic issue that impacts everyone—not just the lives of families who directly suffer from it. When communities suffer from poverty, the rest of the world is impacted, too.

Employers are impacted because the pool of educated individuals from which they will be able to select their talent shrinks, as most people who grow up in poverty suffer also from an achievement gap that stems from inequity in education (Balfanz and Byrnes; District of Columbia Public Schools). As a result, the larger economy suffers as well. Companies cannot grow as well as they might like because they do not have access to sufficient talent.

When families grow up in poverty, the entire nation is limited, as a country is only as strong as its weakest members. As Pogge points out, poverty is also an injustice. It is perpetuated as a part of the scheme concocted by the ruling class to separate the haves from the have-nots. The system of capitalism as it is today enables the wealthy to increase their wealth and leverage in huge amounts so as to buy up the assets of others and gain total control over industries.

This plot is especially effective when interest rates are low, as they have been for a decade since the 2008 economic crisis. The ruling classes are able to perpetuate a system of inequality in this way by ensuring that the wealth of the top 1% of the country grows exorbitantly while the bottom 99% steadily sees their savings eroded, especially as the value of the dollar evaporates over time. As a result of inequality, impoverished families and communities suffer. They lack access to the best schools and to good health care.

Their communities often suffer from problems of drugs and crime. Young people who grow up in poverty receive poorer education than those who grow up in well-to-do communities. The wealthy top 1% often receive government tax breaks and incentives to help them grow their wealth, while the bottom 99% merely get subsidies for health care. They are permitted to have student loans that are guaranteed by the federal government but they are still required to pay for their education and to pay interest on the loans they take out.

They are unjustly disadvantaged because they are never given an opportunity to break out of the class divide. It is like the old caste system in India: the upper class caste controls all the levers of upward mobility. The lower class castes are stuck where they are and have no means or opportunities of moving out of their class. They are not permitted access to information, to education or to the same kind of health care of the upper classes. They are viewed as inferior in every way.

Those who grow up in poverty are typically more likely to be minorities, too (Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation). Thus there is a racial and ethnic component to this issue that has to be discussed as well. Only 8% of those in poverty in the U.S. are white, while 20% of those in poverty are African American, and 16% are Hispanic. 22% are Native American and another 13% are of mixed racial heritage, and 9% are Asian American. The white population is the least likely demographic to be found in poverty.

This indicates an unhealthy and racist atmosphere in America, where white privilege is a real concept and non-whites suffer from an oppressive system that goes all the way back to the days of slavery and the racist mentality that allowed the founders of the country to promote themselves as the chosen people and everyone else as their slaves. This mentality continued even after slavery was abolished. Jim Crow laws flourished in the post-Civil War years and into the 20th century.

Inequality was still rampant as segregation was enforced in many states. Blacks did not have equal rights and were not permitted to eat in certain restaurants and go to certain places where whites were allowed to go. Whites kept for themselves access to the best schools and jobs and all socioeconomic opportunities were theirs first. Blacks and other non-whites were always expected to take up menial jobs and work for the white ruling classes.

The Asians when they came to America were basically forced to work for the railroad and lay track out West. Blacks had to slave away for landowners and then were huddled into urban ghettoes when there were no opportunities for them after the war. Hispanics are permitted to enter the States illegally so that business owners can pay them low wages under the table and increase their own profit margins while ruling over the immigrants through the use of fear.

All of this has an impact on the minds of those who are growing up. Young people especially need to feel that they have opportunities to grow—but in today’s system, young people who grow up in poverty see only a system that is rigged against them. They see their people getting arrested and going to jail for petty crimes while white collar criminals of the ruling classes never get punished for their actions which wreck the economies of entire nations.

It is an unfair system that they see and it depresses their motivation to try to change things. Education is the biggest way for people to advance, but as Pogge points out it is very hard for people who grow up in poverty to get the kind of education they need. The achievement gap is a real thing (Balfanz and Byrnes) and there are no good solutions to it, because the best teachers tend to want to teach in the best schools.

Families in poor communities tend to lack the infrastructure and support system needed for kids growing as there is only likely to be one parent at home or no parents at home if both are working. Kids are left without guidance and structure and so they are not incentivized to succeed in the real world through education. Access to higher education becomes a real problem as a result. Young adults lack the skills needed to succeed at higher levels of education and they also lack the funds.

Though student loans are available, they can be seen as very daunting especially if the young adult makes.