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Tam Thang
Mrs.Crist
English 4
10-21-14
Poverty in United States
Poverty is the most common problem around the world. Poverty has existed throughout
history. Despite the United States huge and growing economy, and no matter how much money
has been spent on assistance programs, there will always be people who lack of basic needs of
shelter and food. However, poverty is one of the common major issues in United State and need
more attention from the government more before it will become a harder and much more
complex problems.
Poverty is when a person cannot afford to live, lacks money and possessions. Despite
how wealthy the United State is there still are some 46.2 million Americans who lived below
the official poverty line- 15 percent of the country.(Plumer) America has been fighting poverty
since the Great Depression in the 1930s, for example: National War on Poverty. President
Ronald Reagan famously said: We fought a war on poverty and poverty won - He was right. The
government has done a lot from Social Security, Medicaid, SNAP, CHIP and more, those
program keep poverty rate slowing down but still cannot end poverty. To say that poverty won
is like saying that the program crrupted itself due to long term effect of poverty.
Poverty can be measured by absolute (poverty line) or relative (measurement of the
percentage of population with income less than fixed of median income). The poverty line was

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created in 1950 by Social Security. The poverty line in 2013 was $ 23,000 per year for a family
of four, but David Copper- economic analyst, EPI- said The Federals poverty line is not the
most accurate measure in today cost of living he was right because there are families making
over $ 30,000 but they are still poor, about lose their home and cannot afford food. The cost of
living in 1950 cannot compare to the cost of todays living but the poverty line has stayed the
same at $ 23,000. However, on other side how of Americans think Americans also believe that
the average family requires more than $55,000 in annual income to be considered living out of
poverty and safety in the middle class (Halpin). Some families lives dependently on aids from
government but many states actually reduced the size of their access and lowered benefits to
those in greatest need. The benefit of SNAP has been lower The average food stamp benefit is
$21/week (U.S Department of agriculture). Some poor families do not receive aids from most
basic program such as SNAP, Medicaid, and TANF. Those are just a small portion of all the
reasons have led to the loss of War on Poverty, and it is still continuing to spread throughout the
country. Extreme poverty can lead to an increasing rate of crime, economy start to decrease and
plague. In some families, poverty is part of their tradition, nothing can change and those people
have no future and it will pass through generation and so go on never lift their head out of
poverty.
Poverty is one of the most common major issues in United State and needs more attention
from the government otherwise it will grow deeper into every person in United States. However
ending extreme poverty is big and complex challenge. Due to povertys causes made it hard to
end, however, hard does not mean its cannot be overcome. United State is full of talented people
that can make the change if they act right now, stand up, and help each other for a common goal.

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Work cited
Halpin, John. "Why Poverty Is A Much Bigger Problem Than The Government
Thinks." ThinkProgress RSS. Think Progress, 8 Jan. 2014. Web. 03 Oct. 2014.
Plumer, Brad. "Heres Why 10.4 Million American Workers Are Still in Poverty." Washington
Post. The Washington Post, 12 Apr. 2013. Web. 03 Oct. 2014.