American Poverty

These are some facts that I learned in my Introduction to Social Work class today.

Poverty is defined as the lack of resources to achieve a reasonably comfortable standard of living.

• 15% of individuals in the USA are living in poverty. That’s one in seven people.
• College educated, former middle class, suburbanites, and home owners are among the poor.
• 46 Million in poverty in America. (That’s the most there’s ever been since the census bureau first started tracking poverty.)
• $22,314 is now what the poverty line is at for a family of four.
• The most likely to experience poverty (population at risk) are: children, women, the elderly, the working poor, the homeless, and some disabled individuals.
• In Tennessee, there are 2,200 homeless children just in Nashville.
• There is now a term for the over abundance of children in poverty. It’s called the juvenilization of poverty.
• One in four children live in poverty.
• Every 36 seconds, a baby is born into poverty.
• Three-fifths of the children who were living in poverty now live in extreme poverty.
• When women fall into poverty, their children fall into poverty as well.

Thoughts? How does this make you feel about the condition of American society?