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According to a 2015 report, there are about
43.1 million people in the USA living in
poverty. This poverty level is identified through the poverty threshold set by Federal
Government. Like currently, one person making less than $12,082 is considered
poor. The threshold level for a family of two is $15,391, for three it is $18,871,
for four it it is $24,257… and this
continues.
As to why there is this poverty in the USA even when the country is highly developed,
there could be a plenty of reasons.
Let’s understand this—beyond a certain
point, poverty is all about perception. What we’re calling poor people in the USA would be called middle-class in many third-world
countries (keeping economic factors at bay). But when we compare these American
‘poor’ with their wealthy peers, they certainly look poor. The government there
strives to offer citizens a high-class living facility. Meaning, they have
helped the people set high standards of living. This, however, doesn’t mean
that people who can’t match this standard
of living are dying of hunger and deprivation.
They don’t match these standards and they are categorized as poor, but they
aren’t necessarily dying of this situation, as is the case of so many other
African and Asian countries. So the bottom line is, poverty in the USA is way different than poverty in other countries.
In the USA,
poverty is often talked in correlation to race and crime. It is believed that
only criminals and people of certain races are poor (which isn’t true, by the
way). This subsequently takes up a political identity. And unsurprisingly, the
real problem of poverty gets suppressed by political campaigns and propaganda.
And when this happens, even media gets carried away in the mix, eventually overlooking
the real issue of poverty in the country. When was the last time you saw CNN,
NBC, Fox and other news organizations do a comprehensive reporting on poverty?
Exactly!
These are the reasons why poverty still exists in the country. And if everything goes
as it is going right now, the situation will persist even after decades from
now.
Talk about progress!
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