According to John Iceland, author of Poverty in America, "a common misconception is that majority of the poor are African American residents in inner cities" (3). Only about one-quarter of the poor population are in fact blacks. To my surprise, I have recently learned that 1 in every 3 poor people in 2005 were children. This statistic came somewhat as a shock to me. I guess I mainly thought that there would be more poor adults than children. As I previously said in my earlier post, there are still poor Hispanics and white. Globally, I believe there are poor people in almost every country. Therefore, anyone or any race can be considered poor.
John Iceland also reinforces some of the factors that I also believe may cause poverty:
- low income
- low education
- family instability
If you have time, check out the "Down and out in America" video:
http://webdb.gsu.edu/dmg/mediaplayer/mediaplayer.cfm?file=swo/swomlo/Ohmer/down_out.mov
.........................you can learn a lot and see poverty from a first-hand perspective!!
Side-note: Sometimes we forget that farmers are also being affected by poverty. Many of them are being forced out of their homes by the government because they do not have the means to pay for their expenses.
I'm glad you brought up the common misconception of poor people as being african-american. In many of our peers' blog a few people defined poor as mostly african-americans. I think this just displays how poorly addressed poverty is here and globally. I also find it shocking that 1 in every 3 poor people in 2005 were children. That's insane and a little depressing. What's even more depressing is that the government most likely knows about this statistic and poverty isn't decreasing.
ReplyDeleteYou are so right about how poorly addressed the poverty issue is. When asked who a person thinks is poor, majority of individuals think of African- Americans right from the start. Therefore, the world as a whole needs to be more educated about it and yes government needs to do more.
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