In this day and age it seems that the wealthy keep getting wealthier, and the poor keep getting poorer; as well as an absence of a middle class. If poverty rates continue on the track that they are on there will become only two options; rich or poor, there will be no in-between. Although the federal government has implemented programs to aid the impoverished, poverty continues to grow. How is it possible for one of the powerhouses of the world to have a poverty rate of 14.8%? The United States of America strives in trying to aid other nations on their economic struggles but in its own backyard they still have 46.7 million people who fall below the poverty line. People do not truly know what it is to be impoverished. The true meaning of poverty is the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions, as said by Merriam-Webster dictionary, but poverty is not only due to a lack on money. Homelessness, hunger, and unemployment are the biggest attributes to poverty in our society.
Homelessness in the United States consists of 578, 424 people on any given night; 69 percent were staying in residential programs for
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People cannot pay for a roof over their heads or food to eat when they are unemployed and have no source of income. Though the unemployment rates have seedily been decreasing since the all time high in 2010, the rate is at 5.1% leaving 7.9 million people without jobs still. But there is optimism for unemployment, as the average monthly job growth rate is 198,000 jobs per month and Work Share Programs have helped in decreasing unemployment rates as well. New York State has implemented Work Share Programs, which allow businesses to temporarily reduce the hours of their employees instead of laying them off during economic hardships; the idea is to reduce the amount of unemployment when the economy is on a downturn ("Work Share