Marin
Tracy Marin
ENG 100
Essay # 4
November 11, 2005
Final Draft
Essay #4: Arguing About Poverty in America
After Hurricane Katrina and the destruction it left behind exposing the shocking levels of poverty in the neighborhoods of New Orleans, there is a lot to talk about America’s hidden shame. The public needs to pay attention to the plight of poor when there is no natural disaster to put them in the headlines. Poverty is an important and emotional issue. Releasing its annual report on poverty in the United States last year, the Census Bureau declared that there were nearly 35 million poor people living in this prosperous country in 2002 – a small increase from the preceding year yet a quite significant gap from declining. To understand poverty in America, it is crucial to look at the actual living conditions of the individuals that the government believes to be poor - to look beyond the statistical numbers. Most Americans consider the word “poverty” as an inability to provide a family with nutritious, clothing, and reasonable shelter. However, only a small portion of the 35 million people fit that the Census Bureau’s description (Rector and Johnson 12). Real material hardship is limited in scope and severity, as most American “poor” live in material conditions that would be considered as well-off just a few generations ago. Today, the “expenditures per person of the lowest-income one-fifth of households equal those of the median American household in the early 1970s, after adjusting for inflation” (Rector and Johnson 34). This implies that the cost of living in America has increased. But is it just about the economic well-being of this country that molds the poverty that exists within? I don’t really think so. The change in cultural values and the lack of hope and commitment among the individuals also contribute to the epidemic of poverty.
Celebrity breakups are all around the public’s eye. Just a few decades ago, divorce was not a standard act for a couple to bear. But with the public’s most respected and known people doing such acts, the attitudes of average people start to play the game too. Signs indicate the rapid rising number of children who are raised in single-parent homes. According to the Family Research Council, “27.1 percent [of our nation’s children] are born into single parenthood… [while] …the number of children in single, female-headed homes has increased from 170 percent, rising from 5.1 million in 1960 to 13.7 million in 1989” (123). The coming of “sexual revolution”, from the diffusion of such attitudes through advertising, popular music, television, and movies, has brought change towards values and behaviors of the society, reforming their norms of family life, increasing divorce rates, illegitimacy and female-headed families. Women no longer stay at home as housewives; instead, they find employment as an entity for completeness. They now have the confidence of being independent and so, the strong faith that they can bring up a family alone emerges. However, situations don’t always come out as nicely as what they expect. The poverty rate for children living with mother only is 53% compared to 21% rate when they live with their father only; while, living with two parents gives 11% poverty rate (Poverty Rate of Children Table qtd. in Family Research Council 125). Women are paid less for the same job as men – gender discrimination – resulting to more chances for female-headed families to be buried in poverty.
