Poverty In America’s Chil Essay, Research Paper

The federal government classifies a family as poor if it?s pretax cash income falls below a certain minimum standard. This standard was established by dividing the average expenditure for a minimally adequate diet by the average share of family income spent on food. The federal poverty line is adjusted for family size and for changes in the average cost of living in the United States, but it is not adjusted for regional or local differences.

The number of children living in low-income families is quite large. In addition

to the five million children under six whose families were officially poor in 1987,

another 2.7 million lived in ?near poor? families, with incomes between 100 percent and

150 percent of the poverty line. Many of these families have as much difficulty as

officially poor families purchasing food, shelter, and medicare, and other needed goods

and services. Some have even more difficulty making ends meet because of there

ineligibility for various forms of noncash assistance available to the poor, or because they

are unaware that such assistance is available. It is often hard also to distinguish between

children living near poverty, and children living in poverty. In the book Five Million

Children focuses on three important issues of poor children under six: who are they

and where do they live, why are they poor, and what risks do poor children

face.

The information presented pertains to children who live in houses and

apartments because this is the population founded by household surveys. According to

three national studies of homeless children aged 16 and under, somewhere between

41,000 and 106,000 children are literally homeless at any given time. Homeless meaning

the live in shelters, churches, or public places with no permanent residence. Between

39,000-296,000 are precariously housed meaning they live with either relatives or

doubled up with friends. Families with children represent about one-third of the

homeless population at any time.

The primary cause of homelessness s the lack of affordable housing in many

communities. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development,

affordable housing should consume no more than 30 percent of adjusted household

income. However, five out of six poor renter households in 1985 spent more than 30

percent of adjusted household income on rent. In 1985, when about 60 percent of al poor

households were renters; the typical (median) poor renter household paid 65 percent of

its adjusted income on housing. That is, half of all poor renters households had rent and

utility costs exceeding 65 percent of their adjusted income.

To help pay the costs of housing, many poor families share their house or

apartment with other families or individuals. In 1985, 28 percent of all poor renter

households were doubled up. this represents an increase of nearly 100 percent since

1978.

Government housing assistance has not kept pace with needs. The number of

poor renter households not receiving any federal housing assistance grew from about 4

million in 1979 to 5.4 million in 1987. As of 1988, fewer than one in three poor renter

households received help through federal housing programs.

Another issue I wish to discuss is why poor families with young children are poor.

It is believed that children are poor because there parents are poor. Child poverty can

only be reduced by attacking the multiple causes of family poverty. Children under the

age of six with single mothers are much more likely to be poor than those living with two

parents, but 38 percent of poor young children live in married-couple families. The

proportion of all U.S. children living in mother-only families more than doubled between

1960 and 1987, from 9 percent to 20 percent. Some of the factors contributing to this

change were rising rate of separation, divorce, and childbearing outside of marriage.

This trend, coupled with much higher poverty rates among mother-only families than

among married-couple families, accounts for the gradual feminization of poverty in the

United States.

The greatest risk of poverty is faced by children born outside of a marriage who

grow up with single parents. The proportion of women giving birth outside of marriage

has increased dramatically over the past three decades, and children born outside of

marriage who grow up with single mothers are likely to be poor for most of their

childhood.

Research shows that 61 percent of children who spent the first 10 years of life in a

single-parent family were poor for most the period, and only 7 percent avoided poverty

entirely. In, contrast, only 2 percent of children who spent all of these years in a married-

couple family were poor for seven or more years, and 80 percent never experienced

poverty.

Poor children in today?s society face many risks on a daily basis. Early childhood

experiences contribute to poor children?s high rates of school failure, dropout,

delinquency, early childbearing, and adult poverty.

The level of developmental risk that poor children experience, of course, varies

enormously, and it is influenced in important ways by the depth and duration of family

poverty. However, even among the long term poor, risks to child development vary

according to the physical and mental health of parents, the availability of social support

from outside the family, the place of residence, the resilience of children, and other

circumstances.

Poor children are more likely than nonpoor children to be low achievers in

school, to repeat one or two grades, and to eventually drop out of school. The are more

likely to engage in criminal behavior, to become unmarried teen parents, and to be

welfare dependent and are less likely to earn less if they are employed.

Only a minority of children, whether poor or nonpoor, experience serious neglect

or abuse over the course of childhood. However, the reported incidence of child abuse

and neglect, as well as the severity of the maltreatment reported, is much greater for

children from low-income families than for others. In a national survey of officially and

unofficially documented cases in 1986, the estimated incidence of maltreatment of all

types was about seven times as great among children living in families with annual

income below $15,000 as among those from higher-income families. Rates of abuse

were almost five times as high among low-income children as among others, and rates of

neglect were none times as high.

Child abuse and neglect are more likely to be discovered and reported for low-

income families than for other families. However, there is no evidence that

underreported for the middle- and high-income families alone would account for the

large observed differences between low- and higher-income families. Morever, the dynamics of child maltreatment would suggest that we should find higher rates of

maltreatment in poor families as a result of the many risks associated with living in

poverty-among them chronic and severe stress, inadequate social support, and residence

in dangerous housing and socially disrupted neighborhoods. Among poor families it is

such situational factors, rather then serious psychopathology, that mat be responsible for

perhaps

Bibliography

American Children in Poverty. Children’s Defense Fund.1984.

Livel, K.L>, The School as a Tool for Survival. New York: National Cenbter of Poverty. 1990.