The definition of poverty is the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support. Poverty has many different forms it does not always look like tattered clothes and dirty faces. Poverty grabs a family or person and once it has a hold its hard to get loose from the chains. Poverty is more times than not a lifelong struggle the poor get poorer. When people think poverty everyone is concerned with the children because they did nothing to get in this situation they’re just stuck. The effects that poverty can have on a child are grave. Growing up poor can affect children in a variety of ways.
Often times when people think of poor people they think that in order to find actual …show more content…
“Compared with children whose families had incomes of at least twice the poverty line during their early childhood, poor children completed two fewer years of schooling, earned less than half as much, worked 451 fewer hours per year, received $826 per year more in food stamps as adults, and are nearly three times as likely to report poor overall health. Poor males are more than twice as likely to be arrested. For females, poverty is associated with a more than fivefold increase in the likelihood of bearing a child out of wedlock prior to age 21” (Duncan, 93). More than likely children growing up in poverty come from single parent household. The effects of poverty take a tool because nobody wants to be poor so people do what it takes to feed their families’ whether it be selling drugs or robbing people are going to do what it takes to stay alive. However those things only cause trouble for everyone in the community. The kids who grow up in poverty never get out because they think they are stuck so the individuals just keep living and they cycle continues. Growing up in poverty in neighborhoods where everyone is living the same, there is nothing in those areas to better the lives of people. From the gang violence to the drug addicts growing up poor significantly decreases the likelihood that individuals …show more content…
Sometimes there is good stories that come from kids that had to grow up in poverty but more times than not they end up in jail, dead, or still living in poverty. It’s a harsh reality to take in because people like to avoid the problems that are going on at home and focus on the problems somewhere else. Nobody wants to confront the bad in themselves and that is just what America is doing. Ignoring the problem at hand, while we are off spending thousands of dollars of the welfare of other countries our country is failing the very people that it has sworn to protect and that just isn’t right. In order to help others we have to help ourselves so the focus should first be to irradiate poverty in your home country then the focus can be shifted to help the other countries that way you know that the problem can be