War On Poverty In America

Poverty is a major issue in the U.S. and the world today. The way people see poverty can mean a lot of different things like: no shelter, being hungry, lack of education, lack of healthcare, being sick, no job, and no clean water. Some people see poverty as the homeless people out on the streets. But did you know that most poverty people live in apartments and homes not just on the streets. The real definition of poverty is extremely poor. Someone you know may be in poverty, and you don’t even know it. About 40 percent of the poor are under age 18, and another 10 percent are age 65 or older (Henslin). Some people think that people that are in poverty are lazy and don’t want to get a job. This is not true, about 30 percent of the working-age

government programs to provide a variety of new opportunities for impoverished Americans. One of the programs was established by the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, and is administered by the Office of Economic Opportunity. The act provides help for all age groups. Several projects have been formed to help the War on Poverty program. One of the most well-known is Job Corps. Job Corps offers residential camps and centers for basic education, skill training, and good work habits to low-income men and women from the ages of 16 to 24 (Frequently Asked Questions). Another project is, VISTA it was founded in 1965 as a national service program to fight poverty in America. In 1993, VISTA was incorporated into the AmeriCorps network of programs (AmeriCorps). Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), permits Americans 18 years of age and older to use their skills while they live and work among the poor for a year or a summer. Another of the well know programs to help people in poverty is the Project Head Start. It is for low-income family for the children under the age of 5. It helps promote school readiness. People began to realize that kids in school were not able to perform well in school due to lack of nutrition. So some states began feed students in schools to help them perform better. In 1946, President Harry Truman established the nutrition program under National School Lunch Act. It is to provide nutritionally balanced, low-cost or free lunches to children

Is this issue getting better? So let me tell you about what I have learned about it. There have been many things the government has started years and years ago that has helped. But every few years cost of living has gone up but people’s wages staid the same. So the lower class keeps getting poorer and the richer class keeps getting richer. President Obama said in his State of the Union speech that he wants Congress to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour. “Of course, nothing helps families make ends meet like higher wages. … And to everyone in this Congress who still refuses to raise the minimum wage, I say this: If you truly believe you could work full-time and support a family on less than $15,000 a year, go try it. If not, vote to give millions of the hardest-working people in America a raise.” President Obama (Ye Hee Lee) I agree with President Obama minimum wage should increase but it is not enough to get everyone out of poverty. It will help a few people get out of poverty. The others that are in poverty after the wage increase can lose all the federal assistants programs they were using. So in the long run most people that were in poverty before the wage increase are going to be in poverty much worse than before. When wages increase so does the price of goods so there is no win-win