Child Poverty

Child Poverty

Introduction

Child poverty is the general state of children living below the federal poverty line due to the low level of income of their families to meet all their needs due to limited resources.  The level of child poverty in the United States is reported to be high compared to other developed countries across the world. However, poverty distribution in the United States depends on factors such as ethnicity, level of income of parents, and parenting nature of raising a child. The effects of poverty in the life of children are long-lasting since they not only affect a child alone but also can affect his or her children (3). As such, it is prudent to take appropriate measures that can help to eradicate poverty among people living in the United States. To achieve this goal, both the Federal and the society should work jointly to redress the poverty gap among children. This paper seeks to determine how American societies should respond to poverty issues to avoid negative impacts on the life of innocent children. As well, this paper will discuss various strategies that can be used to address the problems of child poverty in the United States. Some of the programs that will be addressed include income programs, controlling the birth control, affordable housing, supporting education. In doing so, this paper will critically analyze Kisha Dawkins’s family case.

Ways American Societies can use to Eradicate Child Poverty in the United States

According to the reading, it is noted that the level of child poverty in the United States has been growing substantially since the 1970s. The tremendous growth in poverty levels among children is attributed to factors such as ethnicity and residential areas where people live in the United States. To reduce or eliminate this problem in the United States American societies should put these intervention measures discussed in the reading:

Introduction of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs

American cultures should set up income-based programs to collect money to support impoverished families in the United States. The generated amount should be used to purchase food and other essential items and share among the needy families like the family of Kisha Dawkins. Poor children suffer more hardship than non-poor. (9). The introduction of such programs will help in reducing the level of poverty among children living in the United States. According to research conducted in 2014, approximately 21% of children under the age of 18 in the United States are living below the poverty line (1). Therefore, creating a supplemental fund account can help to solve poverty-related problems that are experienced in most parts of the United States. However, in sharing the product of such amounts, members of societies should consider the level of neediness of families (6). For example, families with children living below the poverty level like Kisha Dawkins should be given priority to stop the issue from moving to the next generation. Families with children should be prioritized so that the children will not fall into the same cycle, like their parents, when they grow-up. Helping families with children would give a chance to the families to come out of poverty. The children can go to school without worrying about food; therefore, they can focus on their education and getting good grades. They can get scholarships for college and get an associate or even bachelor’s degrees. Children going to college will break the circle of poverty. Therefore, families with children should be prioritized because it would help to reduce child poverty.

Besides providing necessary items such as food and shelter for needy families, such support programs should be appropriated to cater to the education needs of children who come from low-income families. Most families below the poverty line cannot afford school fees needed to provide quality education to their children. Therefore, part of the funds generated from such programs should be channeled to the education sector to cater for school feed of needy children (7). At the same time, members of families living below the poverty line should take advantage of these opportunities by encouraging their children to work hard in school to eliminate poverty out of their lives. The families also should know that the only way to be out of poverty is to encourage the children to finish school and get a better paying job.

Birth Control in Low-Income Families

Birth control measures can be put in place by teaching members of the societies to have a reduced number of children to minimize the poverty level among families. In doing, health professionals should teach members of the public the benefits of using birth control measures such as family planning to control birth rates.  Birth control refers to prevent pregnancy before it begins. Birth control is another way through which American societies can positively respond to child poverty issues is through controlling birth rates in the United States. According to the reading, the proportionate level of poverty in the United States is for minority races. This implies that the minority groups record more cases of poverty than the majority groups (2). As such, to reduce the level of child poverty in the United States, there is a need to control the birth rate. In most deprived families in the United States, especially in rural areas, parents have many children that they cannot meet all their basic needs, thus leading to an increase in poverty rates. The latter is demonstrated in Kisha Dawkins’s case because she has three children, but the family cannot meet all their primary needs. As well, this can be applied in the case of Kisha Dawkins and her family because Kisha is not capable of meeting all her children’s needs, thus making them join millions of American children who live below the poverty line. Controlling birth rates can help to reduce the effect of child poverty in the future in the United States. The United States can control the birth rate by providing birth control to low-income families and making it affordable or giving them out for free at the local clinics (15).

Provision of Stable and Affordable Housing

The provision of better housing programs for children living below the poverty levels in the United States can help to reduce the high growth rate of child poverty. As such, members of the communities need to coordinate with government agencies to assist in providing good quality housing systems to families living in rural and suburban areas where the rate of poverty is extreme (8). The housing programs should be rented to families with unstable houses at affordable prices. This can help improve the quality of life of children living in inadequate homes, which affects them not only physically but also mentally. In the case of the Kisha Dawkins family, their state of living is appalling because the family cannot afford stable housing. Although the rent might be rational for others, Dawkins is hard due to low paying jobs. This makes children in this family living below the poverty line in the United States.  Therefore, if the community works jointly with the government to provide affordable housing programs to such members of the community, it will help to reduce the growing rate of child poverty in the United States.

Supporting Education Systems

Developing an advanced education system is also a better way of eradicating poverty issues in the United States. These systems can be designed by making education accessible to children of all classes that are both poor and the rich. This will help to reduce low school attendance among children from low-income families.  Despite the effort of Kisha to provide to her family members, especially her three daughters, she cannot afford to provide quality education for her children. The inability to provide quality education to children in the United States has significantly contributed to the increase of child poverty in many families.

On the other hand, most families living below the poverty line in the United States cannot afford to support their children’s education due to lack of enough financial resources. Most parents only pay for primary education fees for their children but fail to pay for their children’s tertiary education 8). The latter contributes to the increasing poverty rate among children in suburban areas in the United States, which continues to new generations because their parents could not fix the problem at earlier stages. Intrinsically, for the family of Kisha Dawkins and other families to eradicate child poverty issues, there is a need to encourage the adoption of an advanced education system for their children.

Accessing advanced education systems can help equip children from low-income families with skills and ideas that can enable them to get employment. Consequently, this can help to eradicate child poverty in the United States because it will assist in reducing unemployment rates, which is one of the main contributors to increased poverty cases among families from different parts of the world. For example, Kisha Dawkins and the family are living below poverty due to a lack of a well-paying job. In case Kisha Dawkins could be able to access equality education when she was a child, she would be employed in a well-paying job; hence she could be in a position to meet her children’s needs (13).

Direct Investments through Program

Direct investment plans can also be a better way of reducing poverty levels among children living in a country. However, the biggest challenge is that most families have limited income sources; thus, they cannot appropriate part of their income to such programs. Therefore, American societies, the governments, and other non-governmental agencies should work closely to form development plans aimed at providing basic needs for children living below the poverty levels in the United States (8). In doing so, families like that of Kisha Dawkins will be able to access basic needs. Increasing money in rural areas would make improvements in the educational system. (12) Investing in the education system will bring significant changes in the poor neighborhood area.  Although there are people who are against welfare, believing that it’s going to do more damage. (10) However, low-income is the leading cause of loss. Increasing cash for poor people it would help them to control the damage.  According to the London School of Economics, people who had income increases children achieving higher scores on tests and having emotional stable. (12). Therefore, increasing cash to low-income families would help children in poverty. Ultimately, this will assist in reducing child poverty levels as well as bridging the gap between wealthy and low-income families.

Conclusion

In summary, child poverty has become a contentious issue that affects most across all over the world, including the developed nations like the United States. The rate of child poverty is reported to be high in the United States compared to other developed countries due to the high population growth and economic gap. Therefore, there is a need for the society and the United States government to use appropriate measures that can help eradicate poverty issues among children and low-income households. Some of the recommended societal interventions that can help to solve child poverty discussed in the reading and as in the case of Kisha Dawkins include the following: introduction of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs, provision of stable and affordable housing, controlling of birth rates and supporting advanced education program to improve quality of education among the improvised families. If society and the government in the United States do not invest in this intervention. Child poverty in the United States is going to continue to increase, and there is no slowing down due to the economic gap.

Works Cited

Madrick, Jeff. “Poverty Hurts Children in Ways We’re Just Beginning to Understand” in Invisible Americans. New York: Penguin Random House, 2020.

McCarty, Alyn. “Child Poverty in the United States: A Tale of Devastation and the Promise of Hope.”Sociology Compass. 2016 Jul; 10(7): 623–639.

Rab, Lisa. “Poverty in Charlotte: ‘It Was Never Okay’” Charlotte Magazine. February 1, 2016. Web.