Poverty in America seems like an impossibility given the extreme wealth of this nation however as any good reader knows things are not always as they seem. Also poverty in a nation as wealthy as this cannot be so simply described, so this is the facts by the numbers available. A friend of mine from India was said "It must be nice here in America where even the poor people are fat."
The Problem:
In looking at this issue it must be noted that poverty in the United States is far different from the rest of the world. According to the census reports that came out in 2002 the poverty level in the United States for a single adult was a person making less than $46,000 is in some level of poverty for being below the median. In addition one of the qualifiers for poverty on this country is determined by whether a person is covered by health insurance. According to the World Factbook compiled by the C.I.A 12% of Americans are severely below the poverty line. According to the circumstances the poverty line varies from between 10% and 20% straight graph
The Solutions:
According to the latest census the majority of people in the severest poverty are those who are un- employed or in areas of the highest populations. Like most problems in there are no simple solutions. One possible solution that may help lessen the problem is to work on the education system because amongst the unemployed the biggest reasons are because of injury, education and substance abuse. More funding could produce higher graduation rates which at this time are around 70% an exact figure is hard to find so this number comes from different accounts namely All 4 Ed .org .Higher levels of education would mean higher paying jobs for more people and a lower chance of substance abuse. Statistics from the Office of Applied Studies under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 78% of those reporting for treatment are un- employed.
Another Solution would be to raises taxes on Alcohol and Cigarettes to pay for clinics for treatment of substances abuse illness and the effects of substance abuse. (see TheWarOnDrugs)
Other Sights of Interest
Blogg on Bills Currently in Congress Open Congress .org
Blogg on Poverty Statistics in the United States In these Times
PovertyAbroad, GlobalClimateChange, TheWarOnDrugs, TheWarOnTerrorism, FreshWaterConservation, ResourceUsage, ArmsTrading, DiamondTrade, HumanTrafficking
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