Essay On Poverty In America

46 million people, 15 percent of the population, in the United States live at or below the federal poverty line. For those stuck in poverty there seems to be little to no hope of ever getting out of it. The cycle of poverty just continues on from generation to generation. Over 50 years ago, President Lyndon B. Johnson used his first state of the union address to urge “an all-out war on human poverty and unemployment in the United States.” The War on Poverty was one of the most ambitious policies since the Great Depression. Yet, despite the movement to try and end poverty in America, people are still struggling to survive. In 2011, the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) took samples from tens of thousands of households across 2 and half to 4 years and estimated that 1.65 million households fell below the $2 dollar a day threshold in a given month. America is one of the richest countries in the world and yet some of its populations are living on $2 a day. You always hear about people in developing countries that live on a $1 a day but you never think that that is a reality for Americans.

Many developing countries are in deep debt and poverty partially because of policies by the International Institution such as the international Monetary Fund (IMF) as well as the World Bank. IMF’s programs have been heavily criticized for having caused poverty in many developing nation and causing them to become more dependent on richer nations. Structure Adjustment Polices (SAPs) has been imposed to ensure that debt is paid and economic structure is kept. However, it has cause poor countries to reduce spending on education, health and development to pay off the debt they have accumulated from richer countries. In effect IMF and the World Bank have caused these poorer nations to lower the standard of living for their own people. (Shah,