Poverty In America Essay

1311 Words6 Pages

Annually, there is enough food being produced worldwide to feed 10 billion people, so why is there still 795 million people worldwide that do not have enough to eat? It is a common misconception that hunger is caused by scarcity, but in reality, hunger is caused by poverty and lack of inequality. For the past two decades, the production of food has been increasing at a rate faster than the rate of population growth. In reality, with the nearly 3 billion people living on less than $ 2.50 a day, people simply cannot afford to buy food. The effects of poverty are usually interrelated so that one problem hardly occurs alone. For instance, bad sanitation will make it easier for the disease to spread, and lack of resources such a food and water make them more vulnerable to them. So how does …show more content…

This means that 15% of the populations is poor and that 7% of the population(21 million) live in deep poverty. So what is our government doing to reduce poverty? There are many governmental efforts to reduce poverty and its effects, and these range from a scope of efforts in a neighborhood to a national focus. Currently, the United States Government is already working to address the problem of poverty and inequality. Some policies and welfare programs the government have in place to address income inequality and assist poor households are the Progressive Income tax, Food Stamp, Social Security, etc. These federal lifelines have kept over 20 million people out of poverty. Social Security payments have helped keep 21.4 million people, including 14,5 million seniors, out of poverty. Food Stamps have lifted 3.9 million people, including 1.7 million kids, out of poverty. The Earned Income Tax credit, a refundable federal credit for low to moderate-income families, has kept 5.7 million people out of poverty. While governmental efforts have kept millions of people above the poverty line, it can still