Why there are many poor people in the USA even when the country is so rich and developed?

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.

A report claimed that in 2015, the poverty rate in the USA was 1 percent higher than in 2007.

Talk about progress!