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Robert Sampson, Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences, is one of the researchers studying the link between poverty and social mobility.

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Unpacking the power of poverty

Peter Reuell

Harvard Staff Writer

Study picks out key indicators like lead exposure, violence, and incarceration that impact children’s later success

Social scientists have long understood that a child’s environment — in particular growing up in poverty — can have long-lasting effects on their success later in life. What’s less well understood is exactly how.

A new Harvard study is beginning to pry open that black box.

Conducted by Robert Sampson, the Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences, and Robert Manduca, a doctoral student in sociology and social policy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the study points to a handful of key indicators, including exposure to high levels of lead, violence, and incarceration as key predictors of children’s later success. The study is described in an April paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“What this paper is trying to do, in a sense, is move beyond the traditional neighborhood indicators people use, like poverty,” Sampson said. “For decades, people have shown poverty to be important … but it doesn’t necessarily tell us what the mechanisms are, and how growing up in poor neighborhoods affects children’s outcomes.”

To explore potential pathways, Manduca and Sampson turned to the income tax records of parents and approximately 230,000 children who lived in Chicago in the 1980s and 1990s, compiled by Harvard’s Opportunity Atlas project. They integrated these records with survey data collected by the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, measures of violence and incarceration, census indicators, and blood-lead levels for the city’s neighborhoods in the 1990s.

They found that the greater the extent to which poor black male children were exposed to harsh environments, the higher their chances of being incarcerated in adulthood and the lower their adult incomes, measured in their 30s. A similar income pattern also emerged for whites.

Among both black and white girls, the data showed that increased exposure to harsh environments predicted higher rates of teen pregnancy.

Despite the similarity of results along racial lines, Chicago’s segregation means that far more black children were exposed to harsh environments — in terms of toxicity, violence, and incarceration — harmful to their mental and physical health.

“The least-exposed majority-black neighborhoods still had levels of harshness and toxicity greater than the most-exposed majority-white neighborhoods, which plausibly accounts for a substantial portion of the racial disparities in outcomes,” Manduca said.

“It’s really about trying to understand some of the earlier findings, the lived experience of growing up in a poor and racially segregated environment, and how that gets into the minds and bodies of children.” Robert Sampson

“What this paper shows … is the independent predictive power of harsh environments on top of standard variables,” Sampson said. “It’s really about trying to understand some of the earlier findings, the lived experience of growing up in a poor and racially segregated environment, and how that gets into the minds and bodies of children.”

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The study isn’t solely focused on the mechanisms of how poverty impacts children; it also challenges traditional notions of what remedies might be available.

“This has [various] policy implications,” Sampson said. “Because when you talk about the effects of poverty, that leads to a particular kind of thinking, which has to do with blocked opportunities and the lack of resources in a neighborhood.

“That doesn’t mean resources are unimportant,” he continued, “but what this study suggests is that environmental policy and criminal justice reform can be thought of as social mobility policy. I think that’s provocative, because that’s different than saying it’s just about poverty itself and childhood education and human capital investment, which has traditionally been the conversation.”

The study did suggest that some factors — like community cohesion, social ties, and friendship networks — could act as bulwarks against harsh environments. Many researchers, including Sampson himself, have shown that community cohesion and local organizations can help reduce violence. But Sampson said their ability to do so is limited.

“One of the positive ways to interpret this is that violence is falling in society,” he said. “Research has shown that community organizations are responsible for a good chunk of the drop. But when it comes to what’s affecting the kids themselves, it’s the homicide that happens on the corner, it’s the lead in their environment, it’s the incarceration of their parents that’s having the more proximate, direct influence.”

Going forward, Sampson said he hopes the study will spur similar research in other cities and expand to include other environmental contamination, including so-called brownfield sites.

Ultimately, Sampson said he hopes the study can reveal the myriad ways in which poverty shapes not only the resources that are available for children, but the very world in which they find themselves growing up.

“Poverty is sort of a catchall term,” he said. “The idea here is to peel things back and ask, What does it mean to grow up in a poor white neighborhood? What does it mean to grow up in a poor black neighborhood? What do kids actually experience?

“What it means for a black child on the south side of Chicago is much higher rates of exposure to violence and lead and incarceration, and this has intergenerational consequences,” he continued. “This is particularly important because it provides a way to think about potentially intervening in the intergenerational reproduction of inequality. We don’t typically think about criminal justice reform or environmental policy as social mobility policy. But maybe we should.”

This research was supported with funding from the Project on Race, Class & Cumulative Adversity at Harvard University, the Ford Foundation, and the Hutchins Family Foundation.

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Confronting Poverty

Why is it important to reduce poverty, shorter life expectancy.

The result is a death rate for the poverty-stricken between the ages of 25 and 64 that is approximately three times higher than that for the affluent within the same age range, and a life expectancy that is considerably shorter. For example, Americans in the top 5 percent of the income distribution can expect to live approximately 9 years longer than those in the bottom 10 percent. As health expert Nancy Leidenfrost writes in her review of the literature, “Health disparities between the poor and those with higher incomes are almost universal for all dimensions of health.”

However, what we have failed to recognize is that poverty also places enormous economic, social, and psychological costs on the nonpoor as well. These costs affect us both individually and as a nation, although we have been slow to recognize them. Too often the attitude has been, “I don’t see how I’m affected, so why worry about it?”

Poverty Affects Us All

Yet the issues that many Americans are in fact deeply concerned about, such as crime, access to and affordability of health care, race relations, and worker productivity, to name but a few, are directly affected and exacerbated by the condition of poverty. As a result, the general public winds up paying a heavy price for allowing poverty to walk in our midst. A report by the Children’s Defense Fund on the costs of childhood poverty makes this strikingly clear,

The children who suffer poverty’s effects are not its only victims. When children do not succeed as adults, all of society pays the price: businesses are able to find fewer good workers, consumers pay more for their goods, hospitals and health insurers spend more treating preventable illnesses, teachers spend more time on remediation and special education, private citizens feel less safe on the streets, governors hire more prison guards, mayors must pay to shelter homeless families, judges must hear more criminal, domestic, and other cases, taxpayers pay for problems that could have been prevented, fire and medical workers must respond to emergencies that never should have happened, and funeral directors must bury children who never should have died.

When we speak of homeland security, these are the issues that truly undermine us and our security as a nation.

Quantifying the Costs

There have been several attempts to quantify the cost of poverty in terms of a monetary amount. However, the ability to estimate the magnitude of the costs surrounding an issue such as poverty is exceedingly complex. Nevertheless, in a recent study by Michael McLaughlin and Mark Rank, the researchers estimated the expense of childhood poverty with respect to increased health care costs, criminal justice costs, and costs associated with reduced productivity and economic output. McLaughlin and Rank calculated that the overall economic price tag of childhood poverty in the U.S. totaled approximately 1 trillion dollars a year, or 28 percent of the entire federal budget in 2015.

Suffice it to say that poverty exacts a high toll upon both the poor and the nonpoor in our country. In your thinking and discussions of poverty, what are some of the other reasons that may be important for reducing poverty? One line of thinking is to explore and consider the concepts of social justice and fairness with respect to poverty. Is the condition of poverty just? Why or why not? What about childhood poverty or poverty amongst the elderly? Is impoverishment among these groups fair? Should Americans who work full-time still be mired in poverty? Why or why not? There are many approaches to thinking about why reducing poverty is important.

Poverty Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on poverty essay.

“Poverty is the worst form of violence”. – Mahatma Gandhi.

How Poverty is Measured?

For measuring poverty United nations have devised two measures of poverty – Absolute & relative poverty.  Absolute poverty is used to measure poverty in developing countries like India. Relative poverty is used to measure poverty in developed countries like the USA. In absolute poverty, a line based on the minimum level of income has been created & is called a poverty line.  If per day income of a family is below this level, then it is poor or below the poverty line. If per day income of a family is above this level, then it is non-poor or above the poverty line. In India, the new poverty line is  Rs 32 in rural areas and Rs 47 in urban areas.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Causes of Poverty

According to the Noble prize winner South African leader, Nelson Mandela – “Poverty is not natural, it is manmade”. The above statement is true as the causes of poverty are generally man-made. There are various causes of poverty but the most important is population. Rising population is putting the burden on the resources & budget of countries. Governments are finding difficult to provide food, shelter & employment to the rising population.

The other causes are- lack of education, war, natural disaster, lack of employment, lack of infrastructure, political instability, etc. For instance- lack of employment opportunities makes a person jobless & he is not able to earn enough to fulfill the basic necessities of his family & becomes poor. Lack of education compels a person for less paying jobs & it makes him poorer. Lack of infrastructure means there are no industries, banks, etc. in a country resulting in lack of employment opportunities. Natural disasters like flood, earthquake also contribute to poverty.

In some countries, especially African countries like Somalia, a long period of civil war has made poverty widespread. This is because all the resources & money is being spent in war instead of public welfare. Countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc. are prone to natural disasters like cyclone, etc. These disasters occur every year causing poverty to rise.

Ill Effects of Poverty

Poverty affects the life of a poor family. A poor person is not able to take proper food & nutrition &his capacity to work reduces. Reduced capacity to work further reduces his income, making him poorer. Children from poor family never get proper schooling & proper nutrition. They have to work to support their family & this destroys their childhood. Some of them may also involve in crimes like theft, murder, robbery, etc. A poor person remains uneducated & is forced to live under unhygienic conditions in slums. There are no proper sanitation & drinking water facility in slums & he falls ill often &  his health deteriorates. A poor person generally dies an early death. So, all social evils are related to poverty.

Government Schemes to Remove Poverty

The government of India also took several measures to eradicate poverty from India. Some of them are – creating employment opportunities , controlling population, etc. In India, about 60% of the population is still dependent on agriculture for its livelihood. Government has taken certain measures to promote agriculture in India. The government constructed certain dams & canals in our country to provide easy availability of water for irrigation. Government has also taken steps for the cheap availability of seeds & farming equipment to promote agriculture. Government is also promoting farming of cash crops like cotton, instead of food crops. In cities, the government is promoting industrialization to create more jobs. Government has also opened  ‘Ration shops’. Other measures include providing free & compulsory education for children up to 14 years of age, scholarship to deserving students from a poor background, providing subsidized houses to poor people, etc.

Poverty is a social evil, we can also contribute to control it. For example- we can simply donate old clothes to poor people, we can also sponsor the education of a poor child or we can utilize our free time by teaching poor students. Remember before wasting food, somebody is still sleeping hungry.

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7 Essays About Poverty: Example Essays and Prompts

Essays about poverty give valuable insight into the economic situation that we share globally. Read our guide with poverty essay examples and prompts for your paper.

In the US, the official poverty rate in 2022 was 11.5 percent, with 37.9 million people living below the poverty line. With a global pandemic, cost of living crisis, and climate change on the rise, we’ve seen poverty increase due to various factors. As many of us face adversity daily, we can look to essays about poverty from some of the world’s greatest speakers for inspiration and guidance.

There is nothing but a lack of social vision to prevent us from paying an adequate wage to every American citizen whether he be a hospital worker, laundry worker, maid or day laborer. There is nothing except shortsightedness to prevent us from guaranteeing an annual minimum—and livable—income for every American family. Martin Luther King Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?

Writing a poverty essay can be challenging due to the many factors contributing to poverty and the knock-on effects of living below the poverty line . For example, homelessness among low-income individuals stems from many different causes.

It’s important to note that poverty exists beyond the US, with many developing countries living in extreme poverty without access to essentials like clean water and housing. For help with your essays, check out our round-up of the best essay checkers .

Essays About Poverty: Top Examples

1. pensioner poverty: fear of rise over decades as uk under-40s wealth falls, 2. the surprising poverty levels across the u.s., 3. why poverty persists in america, 4. post-pandemic poverty is rising in america’s suburbs.

• 5. The Basic Facts About Children in Poverty
• 6. The State of America’s Children 
• 7. COVID-19: This is how many Americans now live below the poverty line

10 Poverty Essay Topics

1. the causes of poverty, 2. the negative effects of poverty, 3. how countries can reduce poverty rates, 4. the basic necessities and poverty, 5. how disabilities can lead to poverty, 6. how the cycle of poverty unfolds , 7. universal basic income and its relationship to poverty, 8. interview someone who has experience living in poverty, 9. the impact of the criminal justice system on poverty, 10. the different ways to create affordable housing.

There is growing concern about increasing pensioner poverty in the UK in the coming decades. Due to financial challenges like the cost of living crisis, rent increases, and the COVID-19 pandemic, under 40s have seen their finances shrink.

Osborne discusses the housing wealth gap in this article, where many under the 40s currently pay less in a pension due to rent prices. While this means they will have less pension available, they will also retire without owning a home, resulting in less personal wealth than previous generations. Osborne delves into the causes and gaps in wealth between generations in this in-depth essay.

“Those under-40s have already been identified as  facing the biggest hit from rising mortgage rates , and last week a study by the financial advice firm Hargreaves Lansdown found that almost a third of 18- to 34-year-olds had stopped or cut back on their pension contributions in order to save money.” Hilary Osborne,  The Guardian

In this 2023 essay, Jeremy Ney looks at the poverty levels across the US, stating that poverty has had the largest one-year increase in history. According to the most recent census, child poverty has more than doubled from 2021 to 2022.

Ney states that the expiration of government support and inflation has created new financial challenges for US families. With the increased cost of living and essential items like food and housing sharply increasing, more and more families have fallen below the poverty line. Throughout this essay, Ney displays statistics and data showing the wealth changes across states, ethnic groups, and households.

“Poverty in America reflects the inequality that plagues U.S. households. While certain regions have endured this pain much more than others, this new rising trend may spell ongoing challenges for even more communities.” Jeremy Ney,  TIME

In this New York Times article, a Pulitzer Prize-winning sociologist explores why poverty exists in North America.

The American poor have access to cheap, mass-produced goods, as every American does. But that doesn’t mean they can access what matters most. Matthew Desmond,  The New York Times

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released its annual data on poverty, revealing contrasting trends for 2022. While one set of findings indicated that the overall number of Americans living in poverty remained stable compared to the previous two years, another survey highlighted a concerning increase in child poverty. The rate of child poverty in the U.S. doubled from 2021 to 2022, a spike attributed mainly to the cessation of the expanded child tax credit following the pandemic. These varied outcomes underscore the Census Bureau’s multifaceted methods to measure poverty.

“The nation’s suburbs accounted for the majority of increases in the poor population following the onset of the pandemic” Elizabeth Kneebone and Alan Berube,  Brookings

5.  The Basic Facts About Children in Poverty

Nearly 11 million children are living in poverty in America. This essay explores ow the crisis reached this point—and what steps must be taken to solve it.

“In America, nearly 11 million children are poor. That’s 1 in 7 kids, who make up almost one-third of all people living in poverty in this country.” Areeba Haider,  Center for American Progress

6.  The State of America’s Children  

This essay articles how, despite advancements, children continue to be the most impoverished demographic in the U.S., with particular subgroups — such as children of color, those under five, offspring of single mothers, and children residing in the South — facing the most severe poverty levels.

“Growing up in poverty has wide-ranging, sometimes lifelong, effects on children, putting them at a much higher risk of experiencing behavioral, social, emotional, and health challenges. Childhood poverty also plays an instrumental role in impairing a child’s ability and capacity to learn, build skills, and succeed academically.” Children’s Defense Fund

7.  COVID-19: This is how many Americans now live below the poverty line

This essay explores how the economic repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic 2020 led to a surge in U.S. poverty rates, with unemployment figures reaching unprecedented heights. The writer provides data confirming that individuals at the lowest economic strata bore the brunt of these challenges, indicating that the recession might have exacerbated income disparities, further widening the chasm between the affluent and the underprivileged.

“Poverty in the U.S. increased in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic hammered the economy and unemployment soared. Those at the bottom of the economic ladder were hit hardest, new figures confirm, suggesting that the recession may have widened the gap between the rich and the poor.” Elena Delavega,  World Econmic Forum

If you’re tasked with writing an essay about poverty, consider using the below topics. They offer pointers for outlining and planning an essay about this challenging topic.

One of the most specific poverty essay topics to address involves the causes of poverty. You can craft an essay to examine the most common causes of extreme poverty. Here are a few topics you might want to include:

• Racial discrimination, particularly among African Americans, has been a common cause of poverty throughout American history. Discrimination and racism can make it hard for people to get the education they need, making it nearly impossible to get a job.
• A lack of access to adequate health care can also lead to poverty. When people do not have access to healthcare, they are more likely to get sick. This could make it hard for them to go to work while also leading to major medical bills.
• Inadequate food and water can lead to poverty as well. If people’s basic needs aren’t met, they focus on finding food and water instead of getting an education they can use to find a better job.

These are just a few of the most common causes of poverty you might want to highlight in your essay. These topics could help people see why some people are more likely to become impoverished than others. You might also be interested in these essays about poverty .

Poverty affects everyone, and the impacts of an impoverished lifestyle are very real. Furthermore, the disparities when comparing adult poverty to child poverty are also significant. This opens the doors to multiple possible essay topics. Here are a few points to include:

• When children live in poverty, their development is stunted. For example, they might not be able to get to school on time due to a lack of transportation, making it hard for them to keep up with their peers. Child poverty also leads to malnutrition, which can stunt their development.
• Poverty can impact familial relationships as well. For example, members of the same family could fight for limited resources, making it hard for family members to bond. In addition, malnutrition can stunt the growth of children.
• As a side effect of poverty, people have difficulty finding a safe place to live. This creates a challenging environment for everyone involved, and it is even harder for children to grow and develop.
• When poverty leads to homelessness, it is hard for someone to get a job. They don’t have an address to use for physical communication, which leads to employment concerns.

These are just a few of the many side effects of poverty. Of course, these impacts are felt by people across the board, but it is not unusual for children to feel the effects of poverty that much more. You might also be interested in these essays about unemployment .

Different countries take different approaches to reduce the number of people living in poverty

The issue of poverty is a major human rights concern, and many countries explore poverty reduction strategies to improve people’s quality of life. You might want to examine different strategies that different countries are taking while also suggesting how some countries can do more. A few ways to write this essay include:

• Explore the poverty level in America, comparing it to the poverty level of a European country. Then, explore why different countries take different strategies.
• Compare the minimum wage in one state, such as New York, to the minimum wage in another state, such as Alabama. Why is it higher in one state? What does raising the minimum wage do to the cost of living?
• Highlight a few advocacy groups and nonprofit organizations actively lobbying their governments to do more for low-income families. Then, talk about why some efforts are more successful than others.

Different countries take different approaches to reduce the number of people living in poverty. Poverty within each country is such a broad topic that you could write a different essay on how poverty could be decreased within the country. For more, check out our list of simple essays topics for intermediate writers .

You could also write an essay on the necessities people need to survive. You could take a look at information published by the United Nations , which focuses on getting people out of the cycle of poverty across the globe. The social problem of poverty can be addressed by giving people the necessities they need to survive, particularly in rural areas. Here are some of the areas you might want to include:

• Affordable housing
• Fresh, healthy food and clean water
• Access to an affordable education
• Access to affordable healthcare

Giving everyone these necessities could significantly improve their well-being and get people out of absolute poverty. You might even want to talk about whether these necessities vary depending on where someone is living.

There are a lot of medical and social issues that contribute to poverty, and you could write about how disabilities contribute to poverty. This is one of the most important essay topics because people could be disabled through no fault of their own. Some of the issues you might want to address in this essay include:

• Talk about the road someone faces if they become disabled while serving overseas. What is it like for people to apply for benefits through the Veterans’ Administration?
• Discuss what happens if someone becomes disabled while at work. What is it like for someone to pursue disability benefits if they are hurt doing a blue-collar job instead of a desk job?
• Research and discuss the experiences of disabled people and how their disability impacts their financial situation.

People who are disabled need to have money to survive for many reasons, such as the inability to work, limitations at home, and medical expenses. A lack of money, in this situation, can lead to a dangerous cycle that can make it hard for someone to be financially stable and live a comfortable lifestyle.

Many people talk about the cycle of poverty, yet many aren’t entirely sure what this means or what it entails. A few key points you should address in this essay include:

• When someone is born into poverty, income inequality can make it hard to get an education.
• A lack of education makes it hard for someone to get into a good school, which gives them the foundation they need to compete for a good job. 
• A lack of money can make it hard for someone to afford college, even if they get into a good school.
• Without attending a good college, it can be hard for someone to get a good job. This makes it hard for someone to support themselves or their families. 
• Without a good paycheck, it is nearly impossible for someone to keep their children out of poverty, limiting upward mobility into the middle class.

The problem of poverty is a positive feedback loop. It can be nearly impossible for those who live this every day to escape. Therefore, you might want to explore a few initiatives that could break the cycle of world poverty and explore other measures that could break this feedback loop.

Many business people and politicians have floated the idea of a universal basic income to give people the basic resources they need to survive. While this hasn’t gotten a lot of serious traction, you could write an essay to shed light on this idea. A few points to hit on include:

• What does a universal basic income mean, and how is it distributed?
• Some people are concerned about the impact this would have on taxes. How would this be paid for?
• What is the minimum amount of money someone would need to stay out of poverty? Is it different in different areas?
• What are a few of the biggest reasons major world governments haven’t passed this?

This is one of the best essay examples because it gives you a lot of room to be creative. However, there hasn’t been a concrete structure for implementing this plan, so you might want to afford one.

Another interesting topic you might want to explore is interviewing someone living in poverty or who has been impoverished. While you can talk about statistics all day, they won’t be as powerful as interviewing someone who has lived that life. A few questions you might want to ask during your interview include:

• What was it like growing up?
• How has living in poverty made it hard for you to get a job?
• What do you feel people misunderstand about those who live in poverty?
• When you need to find a meal, do you have a place you go to? Or is it somewhere different every day?
• What do you think is the main contributor to people living in poverty?

Remember that you can also craft different questions depending on your responses. You might want to let the interviewee read the essay when you are done to ensure all the information is accurate and correct.

The criminal justice system and poverty tend to go hand in hand. People with criminal records are more likely to be impoverished for several reasons. You might want to write an essay that hits on some of these points:

• Discuss the discriminatory practices of the criminal justice system both as they relate to socioeconomic status and as they relate to race.
• Explore just how hard it is for someone to get a job if they have a criminal record. Discuss how this might contribute to a life of poverty.
• Dive into how this creates a positive feedback loop. For example, when someone cannot get a job due to a criminal record, they might have to steal to survive, which worsens the issue.
• Review what the criminal justice system might be like for someone with resources when compared to someone who cannot afford to hire expert witnesses or pay for a good attorney.

You might want to include a few examples of disparate sentences for people in different socioeconomic situations to back up your points. 

Affordable housing can make a major difference when someone is trying to escape poverty

Many poverty-related problems could be reduced if people had access to affordable housing. While the cost of housing has increased dramatically in the United States , some initiatives exist to create affordable housing. Here are a few points to include:

• Talk about public programs that offer affordable housing to people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
• Discuss private programs, such as Habitat for Humanity , doing similar things.
• Review the positive impacts that stable housing has on both adults and children.
• Dive into other measures local and federal governments could take to provide more affordable housing for people.

There are a lot of political and social angles to address with this essay, so you might want to consider spreading this out across multiple papers. Affordable housing can make a major difference when trying to escape poverty. If you want to learn more, check out our essay writing tips !

Meet Rachael, the editor at Become a Writer Today. With years of experience in the field, she is passionate about language and dedicated to producing high-quality content that engages and informs readers. When she's not editing or writing, you can find her exploring the great outdoors, finding inspiration for her next project.

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Why Poverty Persists in America

A Pulitzer Prize-winning sociologist offers a new explanation for an intractable problem.

A mother and son living in a Walmart parking lot in North Dakota in 2012. Credit... Eugene Richards

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By Matthew Desmond

• Published March 9, 2023 Updated April 3, 2023

In the past 50 years, scientists have mapped the entire human genome and eradicated smallpox. Here in the United States, infant-mortality rates and deaths from heart disease have fallen by roughly 70 percent, and the average American has gained almost a decade of life. Climate change was recognized as an existential threat. The internet was invented.

On the problem of poverty, though, there has been no real improvement — just a long stasis. As estimated by the federal government’s poverty line, 12.6 percent of the U.S. population was poor in 1970; two decades later, it was 13.5 percent; in 2010, it was 15.1 percent; and in 2019, it was 10.5 percent. To graph the share of Americans living in poverty over the past half-century amounts to drawing a line that resembles gently rolling hills. The line curves slightly up, then slightly down, then back up again over the years, staying steady through Democratic and Republican administrations, rising in recessions and falling in boom years.

What accounts for this lack of progress? It cannot be chalked up to how the poor are counted: Different measures spit out the same embarrassing result. When the government began reporting the Supplemental Poverty Measure in 2011, designed to overcome many of the flaws of the Official Poverty Measure, including not accounting for regional differences in costs of living and government benefits, the United States officially gained three million more poor people. Possible reductions in poverty from counting aid like food stamps and tax benefits were more than offset by recognizing how low-income people were burdened by rising housing and health care costs.

The American poor have access to cheap, mass-produced goods, as every American does. But that doesn’t mean they can access what matters most.

Any fair assessment of poverty must confront the breathtaking march of material progress. But the fact that standards of living have risen across the board doesn’t mean that poverty itself has fallen. Forty years ago, only the rich could afford cellphones. But cellphones have become more affordable over the past few decades, and now most Americans have one, including many poor people. This has led observers like Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill, senior fellows at the Brookings Institution, to assert that “access to certain consumer goods,” like TVs, microwave ovens and cellphones, shows that “the poor are not quite so poor after all.”

No, it doesn’t. You can’t eat a cellphone. A cellphone doesn’t grant you stable housing, affordable medical and dental care or adequate child care. In fact, as things like cellphones have become cheaper, the cost of the most necessary of life’s necessities, like health care and rent, has increased. From 2000 to 2022 in the average American city, the cost of fuel and utilities increased by 115 percent. The American poor, living as they do in the center of global capitalism, have access to cheap, mass-produced goods, as every American does. But that doesn’t mean they can access what matters most. As Michael Harrington put it 60 years ago: “It is much easier in the United States to be decently dressed than it is to be decently housed, fed or doctored.”

Why, then, when it comes to poverty reduction, have we had 50 years of nothing? When I first started looking into this depressing state of affairs, I assumed America’s efforts to reduce poverty had stalled because we stopped trying to solve the problem. I bought into the idea, popular among progressives, that the election of President Ronald Reagan (as well as that of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom) marked the ascendancy of market fundamentalism, or “neoliberalism,” a time when governments cut aid to the poor, lowered taxes and slashed regulations. If American poverty persisted, I thought, it was because we had reduced our spending on the poor. But I was wrong.

Reagan expanded corporate power, deeply cut taxes on the rich and rolled back spending on some antipoverty initiatives, especially in housing. But he was unable to make large-scale, long-term cuts to many of the programs that make up the American welfare state. Throughout Reagan’s eight years as president, antipoverty spending grew, and it continued to grow after he left office. Spending on the nation’s 13 largest means-tested programs — aid reserved for Americans who fall below a certain income level — went from $1,015 a person the year Reagan was elected president to $3,419 a person one year into Donald Trump’s administration, a 237 percent increase.

Most of this increase was due to health care spending, and Medicaid in particular. But even if we exclude Medicaid from the calculation, we find that federal investments in means-tested programs increased by 130 percent from 1980 to 2018, from $630 to $1,448 per person.

“Neoliberalism” is now part of the left’s lexicon, but I looked in vain to find it in the plain print of federal budgets, at least as far as aid to the poor was concerned. There is no evidence that the United States has become stingier over time. The opposite is true.

This makes the country’s stalled progress on poverty even more baffling. Decade after decade, the poverty rate has remained flat even as federal relief has surged.

If we have more than doubled government spending on poverty and achieved so little, one reason is that the American welfare state is a leaky bucket. Take welfare, for example: When it was administered through the Aid to Families With Dependent Children program, almost all of its funds were used to provide single-parent families with cash assistance. But when President Bill Clinton reformed welfare in 1996, replacing the old model with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), he transformed the program into a block grant that gives states considerable leeway in deciding how to distribute the money. As a result, states have come up with rather creative ways to spend TANF dollars. Arizona has used welfare money to pay for abstinence-only sex education. Pennsylvania diverted TANF funds to anti-abortion crisis-pregnancy centers. Maine used the money to support a Christian summer camp. Nationwide, for every dollar budgeted for TANF in 2020, poor families directly received just 22 cents.

We’ve approached the poverty question by pointing to poor people themselves, when we should have been focusing on exploitation.

A fair amount of government aid earmarked for the poor never reaches them. But this does not fully solve the puzzle of why poverty has been so stubbornly persistent, because many of the country’s largest social-welfare programs distribute funds directly to people. Roughly 85 percent of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program budget is dedicated to funding food stamps themselves, and almost 93 percent of Medicaid dollars flow directly to beneficiaries.

There are, it would seem, deeper structural forces at play, ones that have to do with the way the American poor are routinely taken advantage of. The primary reason for our stalled progress on poverty reduction has to do with the fact that we have not confronted the unrelenting exploitation of the poor in the labor, housing and financial markets.

As a theory of poverty, “exploitation” elicits a muddled response, causing us to think of course and but, no in the same instant. The word carries a moral charge, but social scientists have a fairly coolheaded way to measure exploitation: When we are underpaid relative to the value of what we produce, we experience labor exploitation; when we are overcharged relative to the value of something we purchase, we experience consumer exploitation. For example, if a family paid $1,000 a month to rent an apartment with a market value of $20,000, that family would experience a higher level of renter exploitation than a family who paid the same amount for an apartment with a market valuation of $100,000. When we don’t own property or can’t access credit, we become dependent on people who do and can, which in turn invites exploitation, because a bad deal for you is a good deal for me.

Our vulnerability to exploitation grows as our liberty shrinks. Because labor laws often fail to protect undocumented workers in practice, more than a third are paid below minimum wage, and nearly 85 percent are not paid overtime. Many of us who are U.S. citizens, or who crossed borders through official checkpoints, would not work for these wages. We don’t have to. If they migrate here as adults, those undocumented workers choose the terms of their arrangement. But just because desperate people accept and even seek out exploitative conditions doesn’t make those conditions any less exploitative. Sometimes exploitation is simply the best bad option.

Consider how many employers now get one over on American workers. The United States offers some of the lowest wages in the industrialized world. A larger share of workers in the United States make “low pay” — earning less than two-thirds of median wages — than in any other country belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. According to the group, nearly 23 percent of American workers labor in low-paying jobs, compared with roughly 17 percent in Britain, 11 percent in Japan and 5 percent in Italy. Poverty wages have swollen the ranks of the American working poor, most of whom are 35 or older.

One popular theory for the loss of good jobs is deindustrialization, which caused the shuttering of factories and the hollowing out of communities that had sprung up around them. Such a passive word, “deindustrialization” — leaving the impression that it just happened somehow, as if the country got deindustrialization the way a forest gets infested by bark beetles. But economic forces framed as inexorable, like deindustrialization and the acceleration of global trade, are often helped along by policy decisions like the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, which made it easier for companies to move their factories to Mexico and contributed to the loss of hundreds of thousands of American jobs. The world has changed, but it has changed for other economies as well. Yet Belgium and Canada and many other countries haven’t experienced the kind of wage stagnation and surge in income inequality that the United States has.

Those countries managed to keep their unions. We didn’t. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, nearly a third of all U.S. workers carried union cards. These were the days of the United Automobile Workers, led by Walter Reuther, once savagely beaten by Ford’s brass-knuckle boys, and of the mighty American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations that together represented around 15 million workers, more than the population of California at the time.

In their heyday, unions put up a fight. In 1970 alone, 2.4 million union members participated in work stoppages, wildcat strikes and tense standoffs with company heads. The labor movement fought for better pay and safer working conditions and supported antipoverty policies. Their efforts paid off for both unionized and nonunionized workers, as companies like Eastman Kodak were compelled to provide generous compensation and benefits to their workers to prevent them from organizing. By one estimate, the wages of nonunionized men without a college degree would be 8 percent higher today if union strength remained what it was in the late 1970s, a time when worker pay climbed, chief-executive compensation was reined in and the country experienced the most economically equitable period in modern history.

It is important to note that Old Labor was often a white man’s refuge. In the 1930s, many unions outwardly discriminated against Black workers or segregated them into Jim Crow local chapters. In the 1960s, unions like the Brotherhood of Railway and Steamship Clerks and the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America enforced segregation within their ranks. Unions harmed themselves through their self-defeating racism and were further weakened by a changing economy. But organized labor was also attacked by political adversaries. As unions flagged, business interests sensed an opportunity. Corporate lobbyists made deep inroads in both political parties, beginning a public-relations campaign that pressured policymakers to roll back worker protections.

A national litmus test arrived in 1981, when 13,000 unionized air traffic controllers left their posts after contract negotiations with the Federal Aviation Administration broke down. When the workers refused to return, Reagan fired all of them. The public’s response was muted, and corporate America learned that it could crush unions with minimal blowback. And so it went, in one industry after another.

Today almost all private-sector employees (94 percent) are without a union, though roughly half of nonunion workers say they would organize if given the chance. They rarely are. Employers have at their disposal an arsenal of tactics designed to prevent collective bargaining, from hiring union-busting firms to telling employees that they could lose their jobs if they vote yes. Those strategies are legal, but companies also make illegal moves to block unions, like disciplining workers for trying to organize or threatening to close facilities. In 2016 and 2017, the National Labor Relations Board charged 42 percent of employers with violating federal law during union campaigns. In nearly a third of cases, this involved illegally firing workers for organizing.

Corporate lobbyists told us that organized labor was a drag on the economy — that once the companies had cleared out all these fusty, lumbering unions, the economy would rev up, raising everyone’s fortunes. But that didn’t come to pass. The negative effects of unions have been wildly overstated, and there is now evidence that unions play a role in increasing company productivity, for example by reducing turnover. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics measures productivity as how efficiently companies turn inputs (like materials and labor) into outputs (like goods and services). Historically, productivity, wages and profits rise and fall in lock step. But the American economy is less productive today than it was in the post-World War II period, when unions were at peak strength. The economies of other rich countries have slowed as well, including those with more highly unionized work forces, but it is clear that diluting labor power in America did not unleash economic growth or deliver prosperity to more people. “We were promised economic dynamism in exchange for inequality,” Eric Posner and Glen Weyl write in their book “Radical Markets.” “We got the inequality, but dynamism is actually declining.”

As workers lost power, their jobs got worse. For several decades after World War II, ordinary workers’ inflation-adjusted wages (known as “real wages”) increased by 2 percent each year. But since 1979, real wages have grown by only 0.3 percent a year. Astonishingly, workers with a high school diploma made 2.7 percent less in 2017 than they would have in 1979, adjusting for inflation. Workers without a diploma made nearly 10 percent less.

Lousy, underpaid work is not an indispensable, if regrettable, byproduct of capitalism, as some business defenders claim today. (This notion would have scandalized capitalism’s earliest defenders. John Stuart Mill, arch advocate of free people and free markets, once said that if widespread scarcity was a hallmark of capitalism, he would become a communist.) But capitalism is inherently about owners trying to give as little, and workers trying to get as much, as possible. With unions largely out of the picture, corporations have chipped away at the conventional midcentury work arrangement, which involved steady employment, opportunities for advancement and raises and decent pay with some benefits.

As the sociologist Gerald Davis has put it: Our grandparents had careers. Our parents had jobs. We complete tasks. Or at least that has been the story of the American working class and working poor.

Poor Americans aren’t just exploited in the labor market. They face consumer exploitation in the housing and financial markets as well.

There is a long history of slum exploitation in America. Money made slums because slums made money. Rent has more than doubled over the past two decades, rising much faster than renters’ incomes. Median rent rose from $483 in 2000 to $1,216 in 2021. Why have rents shot up so fast? Experts tend to offer the same rote answers to this question. There’s not enough housing supply, they say, and too much demand. Landlords must charge more just to earn a decent rate of return. Must they? How do we know?

We need more housing; no one can deny that. But rents have jumped even in cities with plenty of apartments to go around. At the end of 2021, almost 19 percent of rental units in Birmingham, Ala., sat vacant, as did 12 percent of those in Syracuse, N.Y. Yet rent in those areas increased by roughly 14 percent and 8 percent, respectively, over the previous two years. National data also show that rental revenues have far outpaced property owners’ expenses in recent years, especially for multifamily properties in poor neighborhoods. Rising rents are not simply a reflection of rising operating costs. There’s another dynamic at work, one that has to do with the fact that poor people — and particularly poor Black families — don’t have much choice when it comes to where they can live. Because of that, landlords can overcharge them, and they do.

A study I published with Nathan Wilmers found that after accounting for all costs, landlords operating in poor neighborhoods typically take in profits that are double those of landlords operating in affluent communities. If down-market landlords make more, it’s because their regular expenses (especially their mortgages and property-tax bills) are considerably lower than those in upscale neighborhoods. But in many cities with average or below-average housing costs — think Buffalo, not Boston — rents in the poorest neighborhoods are not drastically lower than rents in the middle-class sections of town. From 2015 to 2019, median monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment in the Indianapolis metropolitan area was $991; it was $816 in neighborhoods with poverty rates above 40 percent, just around 17 percent less. Rents are lower in extremely poor neighborhoods, but not by as much as you would think.

Yet where else can poor families live? They are shut out of homeownership because banks are disinclined to issue small-dollar mortgages, and they are also shut out of public housing, which now has waiting lists that stretch on for years and even decades. Struggling families looking for a safe, affordable place to live in America usually have but one choice: to rent from private landlords and fork over at least half their income to rent and utilities. If millions of poor renters accept this state of affairs, it’s not because they can’t afford better alternatives; it’s because they often aren’t offered any.

You can read injunctions against usury in the Vedic texts of ancient India, in the sutras of Buddhism and in the Torah. Aristotle and Aquinas both rebuked it. Dante sent moneylenders to the seventh circle of hell. None of these efforts did much to stem the practice, but they do reveal that the unprincipled act of trapping the poor in a cycle of debt has existed at least as long as the written word. It might be the oldest form of exploitation after slavery. Many writers have depicted America’s poor as unseen, shadowed and forgotten people: as “other” or “invisible.” But markets have never failed to notice the poor, and this has been particularly true of the market for money itself.

The deregulation of the banking system in the 1980s heightened competition among banks. Many responded by raising fees and requiring customers to carry minimum balances. In 1977, over a third of banks offered accounts with no service charge. By the early 1990s, only 5 percent did. Big banks grew bigger as community banks shuttered, and in 2021, the largest banks in America charged customers almost $11 billion in overdraft fees. Previous research showed that just 9 percent of account holders paid 84 percent of these fees. Who were the unlucky 9 percent? Customers who carried an average balance of less than $350. The poor were made to pay for their poverty.

In 2021, the average fee for overdrawing your account was $33.58. Because banks often issue multiple charges a day, it’s not uncommon to overdraw your account by $20 and end up paying $200 for it. Banks could (and do) deny accounts to people who have a history of overextending their money, but those customers also provide a steady revenue stream for some of the most powerful financial institutions in the world.

Every year: almost $11 billion in overdraft fees, $1.6 billion in check-cashing fees and up to $8.2 billion in payday-loan fees.

According to the F.D.I.C., one in 19 U.S. households had no bank account in 2019, amounting to more than seven million families. Compared with white families, Black and Hispanic families were nearly five times as likely to lack a bank account. Where there is exclusion, there is exploitation. Unbanked Americans have created a market, and thousands of check-cashing outlets now serve that market. Check-cashing stores generally charge from 1 to 10 percent of the total, depending on the type of check. That means that a worker who is paid $10 an hour and takes a $1,000 check to a check-cashing outlet will pay $10 to $100 just to receive the money he has earned, effectively losing one to 10 hours of work. (For many, this is preferable to the less-predictable exploitation by traditional banks, with their automatic overdraft fees. It’s the devil you know.) In 2020, Americans spent $1.6 billion just to cash checks. If the poor had a costless way to access their own money, over a billion dollars would have remained in their pockets during the pandemic-induced recession.

Poverty can mean missed payments, which can ruin your credit. But just as troublesome as bad credit is having no credit score at all, which is the case for 26 million adults in the United States. Another 19 million possess a credit history too thin or outdated to be scored. Having no credit (or bad credit) can prevent you from securing an apartment, buying insurance and even landing a job, as employers are increasingly relying on credit checks during the hiring process. And when the inevitable happens — when you lose hours at work or when the car refuses to start — the payday-loan industry steps in.

For most of American history, regulators prohibited lending institutions from charging exorbitant interest on loans. Because of these limits, banks kept interest rates between 6 and 12 percent and didn’t do much business with the poor, who in a pinch took their valuables to the pawnbroker or the loan shark. But the deregulation of the banking sector in the 1980s ushered the money changers back into the temple by removing strict usury limits. Interest rates soon reached 300 percent, then 500 percent, then 700 percent. Suddenly, some people were very interested in starting businesses that lent to the poor. In recent years, 17 states have brought back strong usury limits, capping interest rates and effectively prohibiting payday lending. But the trade thrives in most places. The annual percentage rate for a two-week $300 loan can reach 460 percent in California, 516 percent in Wisconsin and 664 percent in Texas.

Roughly a third of all payday loans are now issued online, and almost half of borrowers who have taken out online loans have had lenders overdraw their bank accounts. The average borrower stays indebted for five months, paying $520 in fees to borrow $375. Keeping people indebted is, of course, the ideal outcome for the payday lender. It’s how they turn a $15 profit into a $150 one. Payday lenders do not charge high fees because lending to the poor is risky — even after multiple extensions, most borrowers pay up. Lenders extort because they can.

Every year: almost $11 billion in overdraft fees, $1.6 billion in check-cashing fees and up to $8.2 billion in payday-loan fees. That’s more than $55 million in fees collected predominantly from low-income Americans each day — not even counting the annual revenue collected by pawnshops and title loan services and rent-to-own schemes. When James Baldwin remarked in 1961 how “extremely expensive it is to be poor,” he couldn’t have imagined these receipts.

“Predatory inclusion” is what the historian Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor calls it in her book “Race for Profit,” describing the longstanding American tradition of incorporating marginalized people into housing and financial schemes through bad deals when they are denied good ones. The exclusion of poor people from traditional banking and credit systems has forced them to find alternative ways to cash checks and secure loans, which has led to a normalization of their exploitation. This is all perfectly legal, after all, and subsidized by the nation’s richest commercial banks. The fringe banking sector would not exist without lines of credit extended by the conventional one. Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase bankroll payday lenders like Advance America and Cash America. Everybody gets a cut.

Poverty isn’t simply the condition of not having enough money. It’s the condition of not having enough choice and being taken advantage of because of that. When we ignore the role that exploitation plays in trapping people in poverty, we end up designing policy that is weak at best and ineffective at worst. For example, when legislation lifts incomes at the bottom without addressing the housing crisis, those gains are often realized instead by landlords, not wholly by the families the legislation was intended to help. A 2019 study conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia found that when states raised minimum wages, families initially found it easier to pay rent. But landlords quickly responded to the wage bumps by increasing rents, which diluted the effect of the policy. This happened after the pandemic rescue packages, too: When wages began to rise in 2021 after worker shortages, rents rose as well, and soon people found themselves back where they started or worse.

Antipoverty programs work. Each year, millions of families are spared the indignities and hardships of severe deprivation because of these government investments. But our current antipoverty programs cannot abolish poverty by themselves. The Johnson administration started the War on Poverty and the Great Society in 1964. These initiatives constituted a bundle of domestic programs that included the Food Stamp Act, which made food aid permanent; the Economic Opportunity Act, which created Job Corps and Head Start; and the Social Security Amendments of 1965, which founded Medicare and Medicaid and expanded Social Security benefits. Nearly 200 pieces of legislation were signed into law in President Lyndon B. Johnson’s first five years in office, a breathtaking level of activity. And the result? Ten years after the first of these programs were rolled out in 1964, the share of Americans living in poverty was half what it was in 1960.

But the War on Poverty and the Great Society were started during a time when organized labor was strong, incomes were climbing, rents were modest and the fringe banking industry as we know it today didn’t exist. Today multiple forms of exploitation have turned antipoverty programs into something like dialysis, a treatment designed to make poverty less lethal, not to make it disappear.

This means we don’t just need deeper antipoverty investments. We need different ones, policies that refuse to partner with poverty, policies that threaten its very survival. We need to ensure that aid directed at poor people stays in their pockets, instead of being captured by companies whose low wages are subsidized by government benefits, or by landlords who raise the rents as their tenants’ wages rise, or by banks and payday-loan outlets who issue exorbitant fines and fees. Unless we confront the many forms of exploitation that poor families face, we risk increasing government spending only to experience another 50 years of sclerosis in the fight against poverty.

The best way to address labor exploitation is to empower workers. A renewed contract with American workers should make organizing easy. As things currently stand, unionizing a workplace is incredibly difficult. Under current labor law, workers who want to organize must do so one Amazon warehouse or one Starbucks location at a time. We have little chance of empowering the nation’s warehouse workers and baristas this way. This is why many new labor movements are trying to organize entire sectors. The Fight for $15 campaign, led by the Service Employees International Union, doesn’t focus on a single franchise (a specific McDonald’s store) or even a single company (McDonald’s) but brings together workers from several fast-food chains. It’s a new kind of labor power, and one that could be expanded: If enough workers in a specific economic sector — retail, hotel services, nursing — voted for the measure, the secretary of labor could establish a bargaining panel made up of representatives elected by the workers. The panel could negotiate with companies to secure the best terms for workers across the industry. This is a way to organize all Amazon warehouses and all Starbucks locations in a single go.

Sectoral bargaining, as it’s called, would affect tens of millions of Americans who have never benefited from a union of their own, just as it has improved the lives of workers in Europe and Latin America. The idea has been criticized by members of the business community, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has raised concerns about the inflexibility and even the constitutionality of sectoral bargaining, as well as by labor advocates, who fear that industrywide policies could nullify gains that existing unions have made or could be achieved only if workers make other sacrifices. Proponents of the idea counter that sectoral bargaining could even the playing field, not only between workers and bosses, but also between companies in the same sector that would no longer be locked into a race to the bottom, with an incentive to shortchange their work force to gain a competitive edge. Instead, the companies would be forced to compete over the quality of the goods and services they offer. Maybe we would finally reap the benefits of all that economic productivity we were promised.

We must also expand the housing options for low-income families. There isn’t a single right way to do this, but there is clearly a wrong way: the way we’re doing it now. One straightforward approach is to strengthen our commitment to the housing programs we already have. Public housing provides affordable homes to millions of Americans, but it’s drastically underfunded relative to the need. When the wealthy township of Cherry Hill, N.J., opened applications for 29 affordable apartments in 2021, 9,309 people applied. The sky-high demand should tell us something, though: that affordable housing is a life changer, and families are desperate for it.

We could also pave the way for more Americans to become homeowners, an initiative that could benefit poor, working-class and middle-class families alike — as well as scores of young people. Banks generally avoid issuing small-dollar mortgages, not because they’re riskier — these mortgages have the same delinquency rates as larger mortgages — but because they’re less profitable. Over the life of a mortgage, interest on $1 million brings in a lot more money than interest on $75,000. This is where the federal government could step in, providing extra financing to build on-ramps to first-time homeownership. In fact, it already does so in rural America through the 502 Direct Loan Program, which has moved more than two million families into their own homes. These loans, fully guaranteed and serviced by the Department of Agriculture, come with low interest rates and, for very poor families, cover the entire cost of the mortgage, nullifying the need for a down payment. Last year, the average 502 Direct Loan was for $222,300 but cost the government only $10,370 per loan, chump change for such a durable intervention. Expanding a program like this into urban communities would provide even more low- and moderate-income families with homes of their own.

We should also ensure fair access to capital. Banks should stop robbing the poor and near-poor of billions of dollars each year, immediately ending exorbitant overdraft fees. As the legal scholar Mehrsa Baradaran has pointed out, when someone overdraws an account, banks could simply freeze the transaction or could clear a check with insufficient funds, providing customers a kind of short-term loan with a low interest rate of, say, 1 percent a day.

States should rein in payday-lending institutions and insist that lenders make it clear to potential borrowers what a loan is ultimately likely to cost them. Just as fast-food restaurants must now publish calorie counts next to their burgers and shakes, payday-loan stores should publish the average overall cost of different loans. When Texas adopted disclosure rules, residents took out considerably fewer bad loans. If Texas can do this, why not California or Wisconsin? Yet to stop financial exploitation, we need to expand, not limit, low-income Americans’ access to credit. Some have suggested that the government get involved by having the U.S. Postal Service or the Federal Reserve issue small-dollar loans. Others have argued that we should revise government regulations to entice commercial banks to pitch in. Whatever our approach, solutions should offer low-income Americans more choice, a way to end their reliance on predatory lending institutions that can get away with robbery because they are the only option available.

In Tommy Orange’s novel, “There There,” a man trying to describe the problem of suicides on Native American reservations says: “Kids are jumping out the windows of burning buildings, falling to their deaths. And we think the problem is that they’re jumping.” The poverty debate has suffered from a similar kind of myopia. For the past half-century, we’ve approached the poverty question by pointing to poor people themselves — posing questions about their work ethic, say, or their welfare benefits — when we should have been focusing on the fire. The question that should serve as a looping incantation, the one we should ask every time we drive past a tent encampment, those tarped American slums smelling of asphalt and bodies, or every time we see someone asleep on the bus, slumped over in work clothes, is simply: Who benefits? Not: Why don’t you find a better job? Or: Why don’t you move? Or: Why don’t you stop taking out payday loans? But: Who is feeding off this?

Those who have amassed the most power and capital bear the most responsibility for America’s vast poverty: political elites who have utterly failed low-income Americans over the past half-century; corporate bosses who have spent and schemed to prioritize profits over families; lobbyists blocking the will of the American people with their self-serving interests; property owners who have exiled the poor from entire cities and fueled the affordable-housing crisis. Acknowledging this is both crucial and deliciously absolving; it directs our attention upward and distracts us from all the ways (many unintentional) that we — we the secure, the insured, the housed, the college-educated, the protected, the lucky — also contribute to the problem.

Corporations benefit from worker exploitation, sure, but so do consumers, who buy the cheap goods and services the working poor produce, and so do those of us directly or indirectly invested in the stock market. Landlords are not the only ones who benefit from housing exploitation; many homeowners do, too, their property values propped up by the collective effort to make housing scarce and expensive. The banking and payday-lending industries profit from the financial exploitation of the poor, but so do those of us with free checking accounts, as those accounts are subsidized by billions of dollars in overdraft fees.

Living our daily lives in ways that express solidarity with the poor could mean we pay more; anti-exploitative investing could dampen our stock portfolios. By acknowledging those costs, we acknowledge our complicity. Unwinding ourselves from our neighbors’ deprivation and refusing to live as enemies of the poor will require us to pay a price. It’s the price of our restored humanity and renewed country.

Matthew Desmond is a professor of sociology at Princeton University and a contributing writer for the magazine. His latest book, “Poverty, by America,” from which this article is adapted, is being published on March 21 by Crown.

An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to the legal protections for undocumented workers. They are afforded rights under U.S. labor laws, though in practice those laws often fail to protect them.

An earlier version of this article implied an incorrect date for a statistic about overdraft fees. The research was conducted between 2005 and 2012, not in 2021.

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Why our definition of poverty matters, a new study finds that different ways of measuring poverty lead to very different conclusions about who should receive aid..

Methods commonly used to measure poverty can lead to vastly different conclusions about who actually lives in poverty, according to a new Stanford University–led study . Based on household surveys in sub-Saharan Africa, the first-of-its-kind analysis published February in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences underscores the importance of accurately defining and measuring poverty. Its findings could help inform how governments, nonprofit organizations, and international development agencies allocate resources and evaluate the effectiveness of poverty-alleviation policies around the world.

“They say you can’t manage what you don’t measure,” said study co-author Eric Lambin , the George and Setsuko Ishiyama Provostial Professor in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment .

“In our study, we find how one chooses to measure poverty can completely change the extent to which programs and policies reach vulnerable populations,” said study lead author Christine Pu , a Ph.D. student in environmental engineering at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.

Comparing definitions

Governments around the world want to support households living in poverty, but it’s not always easy to determine which households need help. For example, two U.S. families of the same size could be classified as poor—and eligible for public support programs like food assistance and subsidized utility services—because their annual income is less than the federal $31,200 poverty guideline. In actuality, the families might have dramatically different overall costs or assets. For example, one might own their home and two cars, while the other might rent their home and depend on public transportation.

The study examined four widely used poverty measurement approaches. Each metric is based on different priorities ranging from reported assets, such as appliances, to self-defined well-being milestones, such as being able to send children to school. Working with colleagues in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Uganda, the Stanford researchers surveyed 16,150 households. Surprisingly, the research revealed almost no agreement in how these approaches ranked households by poverty status. The lack of agreement persisted even among households classified in the bottom 20% in terms of poverty.

Even after controlling for geographic variability, the study found weak correlations between the measurement approaches, indicating that the discrepancies were not simply due to regional differences. The differences in relative rankings were not small either. On average, households’ poverty rankings differed by 25 percentage points. In other words, a household ranked in the 25th percentile by one measurement might be ranked as the most impoverished household or as the median household by another measurement.

“Organizations that adopt a measurement approach without reflecting on how it fits their conception of poverty are, at best, rolling the dice about creating classifications of households that work in alignment with their mission and objectives,” the researchers write. “At worst, these organizations are adopting methodologies that may be wholly inappropriate for their poverty alleviation goals.”

Choosing wisely

One striking example of this conceptual misalignment is the U.S. government’s Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) Program wealth index. The index was designed to explain disparities in health outcomes. However, it is widely used to represent a household’s poverty status. This application can lead to counterintuitive rankings of households. For example, whereas most rural development specialists would consider livestock ownership to be a sign of family wealth, in Ghana and Ethiopia the value of a household’s DHS wealth index goes down for every additional livestock unit they own.

Given the widespread influence of the DHS wealth index, this measurement problem is being propagated and amplified through many applications and decision-making processes. The issue is not unique to the DHS wealth index, but emblematic of a larger problem embedded in many indices and measurement tools.

Overall, the findings suggest that the choice of a measurement approach can lead to very different conclusions about who qualifies for poverty alleviation programs and policies, and how much these efforts achieve. The authors argue that organizations should carefully consider their definition of poverty and select measurement approaches that align with their specific objectives.

This article was originally published on Stanford News . Read the original article .

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Rob Jordan is the associate editor for environment and sustainability at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.

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No Poverty: Why it matters

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals  call for an end to poverty in all its forms everywhere by 2030.

More than 700 million people still live in extreme poverty and are struggling to fulfill the most basic needs like health, education, and access to water and sanitation, to name a few.

That’s a lot of people.

Yes. The overwhelming majority of people living on less than $1.90 a day live in Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa and they account for about 70 percent of the global total of extremely poor people.

Lower middle-income countries, including China, India, Indonesia and Nigeria, are home to about half of the global poor.

However, this issue also affects developed countries. Right now there are 30 million children growing up poor in the world’s richest countries.

Why is there so much poverty in the world?

Poverty has many dimensions, but its causes include unemployment, social exclusion, and high vulnerability of certain population to disasters, diseases and other phenomena which prevent them from being productive.

I’m not poor. Why should I care about other people’s economic situation?

There are many reasons, but in short, because as human beings, our well-being is linked to each another. Growing inequality is detrimental to economic growth and undermines social cohesion, increasing political and social tensions and, in some circumstances, driving instability and conflicts.

Can we actually achieve this goal?

Yes. To end extreme poverty worldwide in 20 years, economist Jeffrey Sachs calculated that the total cost per year would be about $175 billion. This represents less than 1 percent of the combined income of the richest countries in the world.

So what can I do about it?

If you are a young person:

Your active engagement in policymaking can make a difference in addressing poverty. It ensures that your rights are promoted and that your voice is heard, that inter-generational knowledge is shared, and that innovation and critical thinking are encouraged at all ages to support transformational change in people’s lives and communities.

If you are a policymaker:

Governments can help create an enabling environment to generate productive employment and job opportunities for the poor and the marginalized. They can formulate strategies and fiscal policies that stimulate pro-poor growth, and reduce poverty.

If you work in the private sector:

The private sector, as an engine of economic growth, has a major role to play in determining whether the growth it creates is inclusive and hence contributes to poverty reduction.

It can promote economic opportunities for the poor, focusing on segments of the economy where most of the poor are active, namely on micro and small enterprises and those operating in the informal sector.

If you are part of the science and academic community:

The academic and education community have a major role in increasing the awareness about the impact of poverty. Science provides the foundation for new and sustainable approaches, solutions and technologies to tackle the challenges of reducing poverty and achieving sustainable development. The contribution of science to end poverty has been significant. For example, it has enabled access to safe drinking water, reduced deaths caused by water-borne diseases, and improved hygiene to reduce health risks related to unsafe drinking water and lack of sanitation.

SOURCE: The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

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5 Essays About Poverty Everyone Should Know

Poverty is one of the driving forces of inequality in the world. Between 1990-2015, much progress was made. The number of people living on less than $1.90 went from 36% to 10%. However, according to the World Bank , the COVID-19 pandemic represents a serious problem that disproportionately impacts the poor. Research released in February of 2020 shows that by 2030, up to ⅔ of the “global extreme poor” will be living in conflict-affected and fragile economies. Poverty will remain a major human rights issue for decades to come. Here are five essays about the issue that everyone should know:

“We need an economic bill of rights” –  Martin Luther King Jr.

The Guardian published an abridged version of this essay in 2018, which was originally released in Look magazine just after Dr. King was killed. In this piece, Dr. King explains why an economic bill of rights is necessary. He points out that while mass unemployment within the black community is a “social problem,” it’s a “depression” in the white community. An economic bill of rights would give a job to everyone who wants one and who can work. It would also give an income to those who can’t work. Dr. King affirms his commitment to non-violence. He’s fully aware that tensions are high. He quotes a spiritual, writing “timing is winding up.” Even while the nation progresses, poverty is getting worse.

This essay was reprinted and abridged in The Guardian in an arrangement with The Heirs to the Estate of Martin Luther King. Jr. The most visible representative of the Civil Rights Movement beginning in 1955, Dr. King was assassinated in 1968. His essays and speeches remain timely.

“How Poverty Can Follow Children Into Adulthood” – Priyanka Boghani

This article is from 2017, but it’s more relevant than ever because it was written when 2012 was the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. That’s no longer the case. In 2012, around ¼ American children were in poverty. Five years later, children were still more likely than adults to be poor. This is especially true for children of colour. Consequences of poverty include anxiety, hunger, and homelessness. This essay also looks at the long-term consequences that come from growing up in poverty. A child can develop health problems that affect them in adulthood. Poverty can also harm a child’s brain development. Being aware of how poverty affects children and follows them into adulthood is essential as the world deals with the economic fallout from the pandemic.

Priyanka Boghani is a journalist at PBS Frontline. She focuses on U.S. foreign policy, humanitarian crises, and conflicts in the Middle East. She also assists in managing Frontline’s social accounts.

“5 Reasons COVID-19 Will Impact the Fight to End Extreme Poverty” – Leah Rodriguez

For decades, the UN has attempted to end extreme poverty. In the face of the novel coronavirus outbreak, new challenges threaten the fight against poverty. In this essay, Dr. Natalie Linos, a Harvard social epidemiologist, urges the world to have a “social conversation” about how the disease impacts poverty and inequality. If nothing is done, it’s unlikely that the UN will meet its Global Goals by 2030. Poverty and COVID-19 intersect in five key ways. For one, low-income people are more vulnerable to disease. They also don’t have equal access to healthcare or job stability. This piece provides a clear, concise summary of why this outbreak is especially concerning for the global poor.

Leah Rodriguez’s writing at Global Citizen focuses on women, girls, water, and sanitation. She’s also worked as a web producer and homepage editor for New York Magazine’s The Cut.

“Climate apartheid”: World’s poor to suffer most from disasters” – Al Jazeera and news Agencies

The consequences of climate change are well-known to experts like Philip Alston, the special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. In 2019, he submitted a report to the UN Human Rights Council sounding the alarm on how climate change will devastate the poor. While the wealthy will be able to pay their way out of devastation, the poor will not. This will end up creating a “climate apartheid.” Alston states that if climate change isn’t addressed, it will undo the last five decades of progress in poverty education, as well as global health and development .

“Nickel and Dimed: On (not) getting by in America” – Barbara Ehrenreich

In this excerpt from her book Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich describes her experience choosing to live undercover as an “unskilled worker” in the US. She wanted to investigate the impact the 1996 welfare reform act had on the working poor. Released in 2001, the events take place between the spring of 1998 and the summer of 2000. Ehrenreich decided to live in a town close to her “real life” and finds a place to live and a job. She has her eyes opened to the challenges and “special costs” of being poor. In 2019, The Guardian ranked the book 13th on their list of 100 best books of the 21st century.

Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of 21 books and an activist. She’s worked as an award-winning columnist and essayist.

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About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

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1 (page 1) p. 1 Introduction

• Published: July 2018
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Poverty is a global issue. There are people in every country with a standard of living that is significantly lower than that of others. Nevertheless, the absolute number of people living in poverty has decreased since 1990, especially in the poorest countries in the world. Therefore, there is reason to hope that further poverty reduction can occur. The Introduction outlines the pervasiveness and trends in poverty around the world; the many different causes of poverty that embed themselves in social, political, economic, educational, and technological processes, which affect all of us from birth to death; and considers why poverty matters. Overall, the economy suffers if systematic public policy does not address poverty.

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Global Handbook of Quality of Life pp 317–350 Cite as

Poverty and People’s Wellbeing

• Mariano Rojas 5  
• First Online: 28 November 2014

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13 Citations

Part of the book series: International Handbooks of Quality-of-Life ((IHQL))

What is poverty? How poverty relates to people’s wellbeing? The concepts of poverty and of wellbeing are highly intertwined; however, there is little research on how specific conceptions of poverty relate to people’s wellbeing. This chapter revises the prevailing traditions in conceptualizing and assessing people’s wellbeing and how they end up being implemented in poverty studies. The chapter argues in favor of a subjective wellbeing approach to understand and assess people’s wellbeing. It is not only to get people out of poverty; it is also to get them into a life-satisfying situation. Poverty studies would benefit from placing greater attention to the essential experiences of being well people do have as well as to their overall assessment of life. A better theory of wellbeing could emerge on the basis of this information; and this would reflect in social programs that do really impact on people’s wellbeing.

• Subjective wellbeing
• Conceptions of poverty
• Conceptions of wellbeing
• Poverty-abatement programs

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For example, about 2000 years ago in the famous Sermon on the Mount, known as The Beatitudes, it is said: “ Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven ”. The Beatitudes go further to talk about the meek and about those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. (The Bible, Matthew 5: 3–12)

Rojas and Jiménez ( 2008 ) find that it is not only how much income a person has, but also social comparisons (how a person’s income compares to others) as well as historical comparisons (how a person’s current income compares to past income) do play an important role in people’s own classification as poor. The authors pose the following question: “Do you consider yourself poor?”, which does differ from Ravallion ( 2012 ) question because it points out to an assessment of people’s situation rather than to feelings.

There is a difference between ordinal and cardinal utility; cardinal utility assumes that people’s utility measures their wellbeing. Ordinal utility is a device used to explain choice, however, it relies on this choice being made on the basis of people’s own interest; thus, wellbeing is implicit in this approach (Broome 1991 ).

Regarding the role of a third person, Collard ( 2003 : 2) states that “ Bentham insisted that the measurement of well-being should be firmly based on the concerns and subjective valuations of those directly concerned. Those who wished to superimpose other judgements were dismissed as ‘ipsedixitists’ ”, Collard concludes his work with the following recommendation: “ Beware of the ipsedixitists: don’t allow a few people (even important people) to dictate what is to be included or excluded .” (Collard 2003 : 17)

As expressed earlier, most economics textbooks use the term ‘utility’ rather than the term ‘wellbeing’.

Conservative groups tend to rely more on private and personal initiatives to do good in society; U.S. President George H. Bush used the term ‘a thousand points of light ’ in his inaugural address to refer to the many countrywide private initiatives that could do good in society. The term ‘compassionate conservatism’, used by George W. Bush during his presidential campaign, also reflects this view of relying on private initiatives to help people in need, rather than on big State-administered programs.

www.un.org/millenniumgoals/poverty.shtml

It is very likely for some type of question and for some type of scale to predominate. This is also common for many indicators; for example, when assessing the rate of economic growth economists tend to focus on the gross domestic product rather than on the gross national product.

This survey was financed by Fundación ImaginaMexico , which is a think-and-do Mexican tank interested in promoting grass-roots and municipal-level actions to promote happiness in Mexico.

There was a time where being in wellbeing deprivation was something that happened to people. It was associated to people suffering, being tired and having pain, and having a sense of failure and frustration in life. People were aware of it because wellbeing deprivation was taking place in the realm of people; and the role of the experts was to study it. However, it seems that nowadays poverty studies have become very detached from their original purpose. Now people have to wait for the experts to define the criteria and methodology to measure poverty in order to know whether they are classified as being in poverty or not.

As a matter of fact, a well-known program sponsored by the World Bank’s World Development Report 2000/01 and called ‘voices of the poor’ did run a cross-country project of Consultations with the Poor. The program is highly regarded and deserves a lot of compliments due to its participatory methodology and its interest in going beyond and income perspective in order to study other important aspects in people’s lives (Brock 1999 ; Narayan et al 1999 ; World Bank 1999 ). However, the project took for granted a key aspect: it did not discuss the classification of people as poor, and the survey was applied to those already ‘classified as poor’. In consequence, the program should really be called ‘voices of those classified –by experts- as poor’.

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Acknowledgment

The author would like to express his gratitude to the Josef Popper Nährpflicht foundation for financial support to write this chapter.

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Rojas, M. (2015). Poverty and People’s Wellbeing. In: Glatzer, W., Camfield, L., Møller, V., Rojas, M. (eds) Global Handbook of Quality of Life. International Handbooks of Quality-of-Life. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9178-6_14

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Poverty eradication

Related sdgs, end poverty in all its forms everywhere ....

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The 2030 Agenda acknowledges that eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, is the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development.

The first Sustainable Development Goal aims to “End poverty in all its forms everywhere”. Its seven associated targets aims, among others, to eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty, and implement nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for all, including floors, and by 2030 achieve substantial coverage of the poor and the vulnerable

As recalled by the foreword of the 2015 Millennium Development Goals Report, at the Millennium Summit in September 2000, 189 countries unanimously adopted the Millennium Declaration, pledging to “spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty”. This commitment was translated into an inspiring framework of eight goals and, then, into wide-ranging practical steps that have enabled people across the world to improve their lives and their future prospects. The MDGs helped to lift more than one billion people out of extreme poverty, to make inroads against hunger, to enable more girls to attend school than ever before and to protect our planet.

Nevertheless, in spite of all the remarkable gains, inequalities have persisted and progress has been uneven. Therefore, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its set of Sustainable Development Goals have been committed, as stated in the Declaration of the Agenda, “to build upon the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals and seek to address their unfinished business”.

The theme of the 2017 High-Level Political Forum was "Eradicating poverty and promoting prosperity in a changing worl” ", and it included SDG 1 as one of the focus SDGs

From Agenda 21 to Future We Want In "The Future We Want", the outcome document of Rio+20, Member States emphasized the need to accord the highest priority to poverty eradication within the United Nations development agenda, addressing the root causes and challenges of poverty through integrated, coordinated and coherent strategies at all level.

In the context of the multi-year programme of work adopted by the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) after the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), poverty eradication appears as an "overriding issue" on the agenda of the CSD each year.

Poverty eradication is addressed in Chapter II of the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (2002), which stressed that eradicating poverty is the greatest global challenge facing the world today and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development, particularly for developing countries.

Priority actions on poverty eradication include:

• improving access to sustainable livelihoods, entrepreneurial opportunities and productive resources;
• providing universal access to basic social services;
• progressively developing social protection systems to support those who cannot support themselves;
• empowering people living in poverty and their organizations;
• addressing the disproportionate impact of poverty on women;
• working with interested donors and recipients to allocate increased shares of ODA to poverty eradication; and
• intensifying international cooperation for poverty eradication.

The General Assembly, in its 1997 Programme for the Further Implementation of Agenda 21 (paragraph 27) decided that poverty eradication should be an overriding theme of sustainable development for the coming years. It is one of the fundamental goals of the international community and of the entire United Nations system.

"Combating poverty" is the topic of Chapter 3 of Agenda 21. It is also in commitment 2 of the Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development.

Agenda 21 emphasized that poverty is a complex multidimensional problem with origins in both the national and international domains. No uniform solution can be found for global application. Rather, country-specific programmes to tackle poverty and international efforts supporting national efforts, as well as the parallel process of creating a supportive international environment, are crucial for a solution to this problem.

The years following the 1992 Rio Conference have witnessed an increase in the number of people living in absolute poverty, particularly in developing countries. The enormity and complexity of the poverty issue could endanger the social fabric, undermine economic development and the environment, and threaten political stability in many countries.

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• January 2015 SDG 1 Goal 1 aims to "End poverty in all its forms everywhere" and its targets aim to: 1.1 By 2030, eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere, currently measured as people living on less than $1.25 a day 1.2 By 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions 1.3 Implement nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for all, including floors, and by 2030 achieve substantial coverage of the poor and the vulnerable 1.4 By 2030, ensure that all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology and financial services, including microfinance 1.5 By 2030, build the resilience of the poor and those in vulnerable situations and reduce their exposure and vulnerability to climate-related extreme events and other economic, social and environmental shocks and disasters 1.a Ensure significant mobilization of resources from a variety of sources, including through enhanced development cooperation, in order to provide adequate and predictable means for developing countries, in particular least developed countries, to implement programmes and policies to end poverty in all its dimensions 1.b Create sound policy frameworks at the national, regional and international levels, based on pro-poor and gender-sensitive development strategies, to support accelerated investment in poverty eradication action
• January 2012 Future We Want (Para 105- 107) Future We Want recognizes that, while there has been progress in reducing poverty in some regions, this progress has been uneven and the number of people living in poverty in some countries continues to increase, with women and children constituting the majority of the most affected groups, especially in the least developed countries and particularly in Africa. Sustained, inclusive and equitable economic growth in developing countries is identified as a key requirement for eradicating poverty and hunger and achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Therefore, Future We Want highlights the importance to complement national efforts of developing countries by an enabling environment aimed at expanding the development opportunities of developing countries. In paragraph 107, Member States recognize the important contribution that promoting universal access to social services can make to consolidating and achieving development gains. Social protection systems that address and reduce inequality and social exclusion are essential for eradicating poverty and advancing the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
• January 2008 2nd UN Decade for Eradication of Poverty The General Assembly declared the Second UN Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (2008-2017) in December 2007 and selected as theme “Full Employment and Decent Work for All”. This Second Decade was proclaimed to support the internationally agreed development goals related to poverty eradication, including the Millennium Development Goals. It has stressed the importance of reinforcing the positive trends in poverty reduction, experienced by some countries as well as the need of extending such trends to benefit people worldwide. This Second Decade recognizes as well the importance of mobilizing financial resources for development at national and international levels and acknowledges that sustained economic growth, supported by rising productivity and a favourable environment, including private investment and entrepreneurship is vital for rising living standards
• January 2002 JPOI (Chap. 2) Chapter 2 identifies eradication of poverty as the greatest global challenge facing the world today and as an indispensable requirement for sustainable development, particularly for developing countries. JPOI recognizes the primary responsibility and role national governments and policies have for ensuring their own sustainable development and poverty eradication strategies. The JPOI at the same time highlights the importance of concerted and concrete measures at all levels to enable developing countries to achieve their sustainable development goals as related to the internationally agreed poverty-related targets and goals, including those contained in Agenda 21, the relevant outcomes of other United Nations conferences and the United Nations Millennium Declaration.
• January 2000 Social Summit +5 As recommended by the World Summit for Social Development, the General Assembly convened a special session in 2000 to revise and assess the implementation of the outcome of the Social Summit and to identify new and further initiatives for social development. The GA held its twenty-fourth special session, entitled “World Summit for Social Development and beyond: achieving social development for all in a globalizing world”, in Geneva from 26 to 30 June 2000. Agreement was reached on a wide array of initiatives to reduce poverty and spur job growth in the global economy. Reducing poverty, promoting job growth, and ensuring the participation of all people in the decision-making process were the main objectives of the agreement. To achieve these goals, countries endorsed actions to ensure improved education and health, including in times of financial crisis. The General Assembly adopted an outcome document entitled “Further initiatives for social development” consisting of a political declaration reaffirming the Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development and Programme of Action of the World Summit for Social Development; a review and assessment of the implementation of the outcome of the Summit; and proposals for further initiatives for social development.
• January 2000 MDG 1 MDG 1 aims at eradicating extreme poverty and hunger. Its three targets respectively read: halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1.25 a day (1.A), achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people (1.B), halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger (1.C).
• January 1997 GA 19th Special Session A GA Special Session (UNGASS-19) was held in June 1997 in order to review and assess progress undergone on Agenda 21. With Resolution A/RES/S-19/2 delegates agreed on the adoption of the Programme for the Further Implementation of Agenda 21. The Programme appraised progress since the UNCED, examined implementation and defined the CSD’s work programme for the period 1998-2002. For the CSD’s subsequent four sessions, poverty and consumption and production patterns were identified as dominant issues for each year by the work programme. Delegates also agreed on the sectoral, cross-sectoral and economic sector/major group themes, endorsed the IPF’s outcome and recommended a continuation of the intergovernmental policy dialogue on forests. Subsequently, the Intergovernmental Forum on Forest (IFF) was established by ECOSOC under the CSD.
• January 1997 1st UN Decade for Eradication of Poverty The First United Nations Decade for Eradication of Poverty was declared for the period 1997-2006 by the UN General Assembly at the end of 1995. As theme for the Decade, the GA established at the end of 1996 the following: "Eradicating poverty is an ethical, social, political and economic imperative of humankind."
• January 1995 Copenhagen Declaration (Social Summit) The Copenhagen Declaration was adopted at the end of the World Summit for Social Development (WSSD), held in March 1995 in Copenhagen. Being the largest gathering of world leaders at that time, this event represented a crucial milestone and pledged to make the conquest of poverty, the goal of full employment and the fostering of stable, safe and just societies overriding objectives of development. Chapter 2 is entirely devoted to eradication of poverty with a particular attention to the strategies to be adopted to achieve concrete results in this matter, to improve access to productive resources and infrastructure, meet the basic human needs of all and to enhance social protection and reduce vulnerability.
• January 1992 Agenda 21 (Chap.3) Chapter 3 of the Agenda describes poverty as "a complex multidimensional problem with origins in both the national and international domains". The Agenda notes that no uniform solution can be found for global application and identifies country-specific programmes to tackle poverty and international efforts supporting national efforts, as well as the parallel process of creating a supportive international environment as crucial tools for a solution to this problem.

Center for American Progress Action

10 Reasons Why Cutting Poverty Is Good for Our Nation

A hand up creates a stronger and more vibrant middle class.

Desmond Brown details 10 reasons why reducing poverty by building a stronger middle class helps Americans of all income levels.

See also: A Strong Middle Class Is Key to Getting Our Economy Moving by Michael Ettlinger and Economic Inequality Is Not Sustainable by Heather Boushey

A new report from the Half in Ten campaign, “ Restoring Shared Prosperity: Strategies to Cut Poverty and Expand Economic Growth ,” examines recent data on poverty in our nation and provides a set of benchmarks to help policymakers stay on target to cut poverty in half in 10 years. The report shows that more than 15 percent of Americans—one in six—fell below the official poverty line in 2010—defined as a family of four with income below $22,314. Child poverty increased noticeably between 2009 and 2010, too, with more than one in five children—22 percent—living in poverty.

Recent U.S. census data and the new Half in Ten report clearly show the debilitating consequences of stagnant wages, high unemployment, and a slow economic recovery. Yet too often we separate the discussion of poverty reduction from debates about the overall U.S. economy. We do so at our own peril. Even before the Great Recession, the economy was not working for average Americans. Between 2003 and 2007 economic productivity and profits were on the rise, even as median wages for the average worker declined and poverty rates rose. The Half in Ten report outlines a new vision for shared economic growth that will restore the relationship between economic productivity and increased wages for workers.

While the millions of children and adults who live in poverty face real and immediate economic hardships, reducing the overall rate of poverty is a public good that will benefit Americans at every income level. Below are 10 reasons why cutting poverty is good for both individuals and the overall economic strength of the United States.

Individuals

Poverty affects more americans than we think.

While 15.1 percent of Americans lived below the official poverty line in 2010, this number is only a snapshot. At the same time more than 100 million Americans were struggling to get by on low incomes, earning below twice the poverty line ($44,700 a year for a family of four), and experiencing many of the same hardships as those officially defined as poor.

In addition, nearly one-third of Americans were cycling in and out of poverty even during the boom years. Between 2004 and 2007 32 percent of Americans had at least one spell of poverty lasting two or more months. During the same period chronic poverty was relatively low, with only 2.2 percent of Americans living in poverty for the entire period. These figures tell us that the poor are not a static group and that widespread economic insecurity has pushed millions of Americans into poverty or at risk of falling into poverty at some point during their lives.

Rising poverty among children is particularly harmful to society

In 2010 more than one in five children— 22 percent —lived below the official poverty line. Children who live in families below the poverty line, even for short periods, are at greater risk of lower cognitive development , educational attainment, increased reliance on public benefits, and increased rates of incarceration. Consequently, children who grow up in poverty are more likely to have lower lifetime earnings due to the poverty-related risks. This means they are far less likely to grow up to become positive contributors to our economy and our society.

Poverty increases health risks

Poor children are much more likely to have lower birth weight , and infants living in poor households face higher rates of food insecurity, which impairs healthy development. As adults, lower-income individuals experience higher rates of illness , disease, and disabilities than those who have higher incomes. They have higher rates of chronic disease such as hypertension, high blood pressure, and elevated cholesterol. These conditions are exacerbated by the frequent lack of health insurance and access to medical care among lower-income individuals. Consequently, the life expectancies for poor individuals are much lower than those with high incomes. One estimate showed that individuals with low incomes had life expectancies 25 percent lower than those with higher incomes.

Poverty weakens families

Low-income and poor families face significant economic pressure as they struggle to pay bills and make ends meet. This economic pressure, coupled with other stressful events that are more prevalent in the lives of poor families, create high levels of psychological distress, including depression among poor parents. As couples struggle to make ends meet, their interactions become more hostile, and they tend to withdraw from each other—leading to fractures in relationships and poor parenting. Job losses, a major cause of poverty, increase a couple’s risk of divorce , especially for African Americans who experience two to three times greater risk of divorce in such circumstances than white couples.

Poverty traps individuals and decreases mobility

Children who grow up in poor families are more likely to be poor as adults compared to children from upper-income families, undermining the American Dream. These poor adults are also more likely to have poor children of their own. Only 6 percent of children born to poor parents (those in the bottom fifth of income earners) grow up to become rich (entering the top fifth of income earners) while nearly half of them (46 percent) remain just as poor.

United States

Poverty costs our economy billions of dollars annually.

High rates of poverty hurt everyone in the United States because it strips limited resources from the government that could be invested in other areas to promote economic growth. Child poverty alone is estimated to cost the U.S. economy more than $500 billion annually in lost productivity, increased health care costs, and higher criminal-justice expenditures.

Poverty weakens the middle class, the engine of America’s economic growth

America’s economic strength is based on a strong middle class with purchasing power to fuel our economy and workforce contributions to increase our economic growth and productivity. The increasing number of Americans who slip from the middle class into poverty places downward pressure on our nation’s revenues due to the impact of lower earnings. Additionally, long periods of poverty produce downward effects on human-capital development by limiting access to education and training and proper health care. As a result, when individuals who have experienced long periods of poverty enter the workforce, their contributions may be restricted or minimal , while others may not enter the workforce at all. The result is low productivity from millions of underskilled Americans alongside a significant reduction in the purchasing power and savings among poor individuals. This results in lower demand from a large segment of our population and less investments to expand and grow the economy.

Poverty weakens communities and access to the American Dream

The long-term impact of concentrated poverty contributes greatly to the increasing income and wealth gap in the United States. Children living in neighborhoods that experienced a 10 percentage-point decline in poverty saw a $7,000 increase in family income as adults compared to those children living in neighborhoods without a reduction in the poverty rate. This cycle of poverty creates generations of individuals who are trapped in economically isolated communities with low incomes. This is at odds with our American values of opportunity for all.

Poverty lowers U.S. long-term competiveness

Poverty also dramatically harms long-term human-capital development, a critical component in our nation’s global economic competitiveness. A substantial body of research shows that children who grow up in poverty underperform in school, have limited access to higher education, and are less likely to be prepared for the high-skilled jobs of the future. With 22 percent of the nation’s children living in poverty, we are imperiling future generations of workers who will be needed to lead U.S. productivity and competitiveness.

Poverty weakens our democracy

Disparities of income, wealth, and access to opportunity are growing more sharply in the United States. The result is a system with unequal voices in which millions of low-income Americans do not fully exercise their rights as citizens. Those who enjoy higher incomes are more likely to make their values known to government officials. Consequently, when Americans with different income levels differ on policy preferences, the policy outcomes strongly reflect the values of the wealthy at the expense of the middle class and the poor . This reality conflicts with the cherished American ideals of equal representation and political equality.

These 10 reasons showing why cutting poverty in half in 10 years is good for our nation underscore the need for a comprehensive set of reforms to create greater opportunity for all and reduce the number of families who live in poverty. Specific strategies must be implemented to reduce the number of children who are born or fall into poverty. The economic consequences will be severe for future generations if we do not take swift action. We know the path to cut poverty, have done it before , and have the policy prescriptions to address the challenges that families and the nation now face.

The new report from Half in Ten outlines a broad policy framework that would help develop more good jobs, strengthen and protect families, and place more Americans on a path to economic stability. We have the blueprint for action. Now we need to act.

Desmond Brown is a consultant for the Center for American Progress Action Fund-led Half in Ten campaign to reduce poverty by half in 10 years.

The positions of American Progress, and our policy experts, are independent, and the findings and conclusions presented are those of American Progress alone. A full list of supporters is available here . American Progress would like to acknowledge the many generous supporters who make our work possible.

Desmond Brown

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This report discusses contested concepts that relate to how we might understand poverty from a sociological/social theory perspective. It finds that:

• some sociologists have tended to explain poverty by referring to people’s moral failings, fecklessness or dependency cultures, while others have argued that it can be better understood as a result of how resources and opportunities are unequally distributed across society;
• some sociologists have pointed to the declining influence of social class in the UK, yet research shows that social class and processes of class reproduction remain important – the opportunities open to people are still influenced, to a large extent, by their social class positions;
• sociologists point to the importance of stigma and shame in understanding the experience of poverty; and
• the ways that those experiencing poverty can be negatively stereotyped by institutions such as public or welfare delivery services has also been shown to be important in stigmatising and disadvantaging those experiencing poverty.

This report is one of four reviews looking at poverty from different perspectives.

• Sociological thinking focuses on the structure and organisation of society and how this relates to social problems and individual lives.
• In looking to explain poverty, sociologists have often tried to balance the relative importance of social structures (how society is organised) and the role of individual agency – people’s independent choices and actions.
• Sociologists are interested in how resources in society are distributed.
• Some sociologists, especially those writing in the 1970s and 1980s, have tended to explain poverty by referring to people’s moral failings, fecklessness or dependency cultures. Others have argued that poverty can be better understood as a result of the ways in which resources and opportunities are unequally distributed across society.
• Some sociologists have pointed to the declining influence of social class in the UK. Yet research has shown that social class and processes of class reproduction remain important, particularly for the continuity of poverty over time and across generations.
• On a related topic, sociologists have pointed to the importance of stigma and shame in understanding the experience of poverty. A particular concern is with how the spending patterns of those in the greatest poverty are often subject to stigmatisation.
• The ways in which institutions such as public or welfare delivery services can negatively stereotype those experiencing poverty has also been shown to be important in stigmatising and disadvantaging those experiencing poverty.
• To a large extent, people’s social class positions still influence the opportunities open to them. Starting out life in poverty means a greater risk of poverty in later life.

Much sociological theory is directed at understanding social change. Social theorists throughout history have rarely talked about poverty as such, but nonetheless their insights into the economic ordering and structure of society offer valuable ideas for understanding poverty. Marx and Engels, writing in Victorian Britain, pointed to the stark divide between the impoverished working classes who had nothing to sell but their labour and the capitalist classes who, by virtue of owning the means of production, were able to exploit this labour to their profit.

Sociologist Max Weber, writing around the turn of the 20th century, pointed to the importance not just of economic factors in producing and sustaining inequality, but also the influence of power, status and prestige in perpetuating dominant relations. Emile Durkheim, on the other hand, emphasised the functional necessity of social inequality for the well-being of society. Echoes of these early theoretical ideas can be seen in sociological thinking, to a greater or lesser degree, right up to the present day.

This review analysed sociological theories and concepts on the causes of poverty, focusing on how to understand poverty from a sociological perspective.

Poverty and the ‘undeserving poor’

Much sociological thinking on poverty, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, has revolved around the relative importance of social structures and individual agency in explaining the prevalence and perpetuation of poverty over time. The social and political propensity to mark out some people as being somehow responsible for their own hardship has a long history. In many accounts, particularly popular and political ones but also some academic studies, the emphasis has been on the supposedly ‘undeserving poor’, citing individual behaviours, supposed fecklessness or moral failings as key causes of poverty.

More recently, it has been argued that the welfare system is responsible for encouraging and supporting claimants into welfare dependency. Further recent variations of these ideas point to ‘cultures of worklessness’, ‘troubled families’ or families who have never worked as key explanations for poverty. Sociologists have been keen to use empirical evidence to challenge these dominant, individual and often psychological explanations for poverty. They point to the importance of the broader context and the kinds of opportunities open to people as being more important than individual behaviours and choices in explaining and understanding poverty.

The close association made between poverty and individual behaviours means that it can sometimes be difficult to disentangle poverty from related issues such as unemployment or receipt of welfare. This is especially the case in some current popular and political discourse, which ignores the fact that not all unemployed people are poor and nor are all of those experiencing poverty out of work. The tendency to conflate poverty with other social issues such as unemployment, welfare receipt or substance abuse, or to uncritically cite these conditions as explanations of poverty, is tied up with the tendency to portray poverty as a problem created by those experiencing it. It is also indicative of a more general tendency to downplay the significance of poverty altogether.

The ‘cultural turn’, consumption and social class

Sociologists use the concept of social class extensively in their research, and most agree that social class has an economic base. In recent years, some have argued that social class distinctions have become more complex and fuzzy and less significant for lifestyles and life experiences. It has been suggested that opportunities for identity formation have opened up and become more reflective of individual choice than they were in the past. It is argued that individuals now have greater control over their own destinies. Consumption practices (what people buy and consume) are often cited as a key mechanism by which people can demonstrate their individuality and create their own individual identities.

Consumption, however, has also become an increasingly important element of distinction and stratification. Those experiencing poverty often find it difficult to partake in expected consumption behaviours. Furthermore, wider society often subjects the spending habits and patterns of those in the greatest poverty to stigmatisation.

So, while access to consumption might seem to open up opportunities for people to construct their lifestyles and identities in ways reflecting their own individual preferences and choices, it can also reinforce and support social class divisions and distinctions. Furthermore, social class positioning continues to be an important influence on many, if not all, aspects of people’s lives, including educational attainment, jobs and leisure activities.

Poverty, stigma and shame

Poverty and material deprivation are important drivers of stigma and shame. The depiction of those in poverty as ‘the other’ often occurs through the use of particular language, labels and images about what it means to be in poverty. These processes take place at different levels and in different sections of society. Those working in welfare sectors, for example, might negatively – and mostly mistakenly – point to individual character traits and behaviour when explaining the key reasons for unemployment. This is a process of negatively stereotyping those who are disadvantaged. While these labels are often applied from the top down, towards those experiencing poverty by those who are not, people in poverty can also buy into and perpetuate such stereotypes and stigmatisation. This is the consequence of the pressure those in poverty face to disassociate themselves from the stigma and shame associated with poverty.

Capitalism and the changing labour market

For a long time, successive governments have lauded work as the best route out of poverty. Yet the changing face of the labour market and work itself means that employment is no longer a guaranteed passport away from poverty, if indeed it ever was. In the current context, working conditions for many have worsened, public sector jobs have rapidly declined, unemployment and underemployment have been increasing, and low-paid and part-time work have proliferated. Low-paid work, or ‘poor work’ as it is sometimes referred to, is now an integral and growing aspect of the contemporary labour market. It is a particular problem for those countries which have followed an economy based on aggressive free-market principles. As a result, in-work poverty is an increasingly important explanation for contemporary poverty.

Sociology provides a powerful tool for thinking about poverty. ‘Thinking sociologically’ can help us to better comprehend social issues and problems. It allows us to understand personal troubles as part of the economic and political institutions of society, and permits us to cast a critical eye over issues that may otherwise be interpreted simplistically or misinterpreted. In looking at poverty, myths and misconceptions dominate both popular and political discussions. Sociological thinking can be helpful in trying to disentangle poverty from a range of related concepts and largely pejorative discussions about a variety of social problems.

Some attention has recently been devoted to the discussion of rising inequality. In the current context, economic inequality is getting more extreme, with those at the very top growing ever richer while the majority are finding life increasingly harsh and poverty rates are increasing. Much of the sociological evidence reviewed in this study has been concerned with the reproduction of (social class) inequalities over time. Research has shown that the majority of the British public accept that wealth can buy opportunities, but conversely most also believe in the notion of a meritocracy and that hard work is the best way to get on in life. Yet evidence shows that true equality of opportunity simply does not exist.

Using a framework of inequality (and equality) allows scope to think more closely about issues of class perpetuation and their relationship with poverty. It is not happenchance that countries with low rates of relative income poverty tend to have a strong focus on equality. Sociological theory can alert people to how a growing emphasis on individual responsibility and behaviour might make class inequality and the importance of opportunity structures less obvious. Despite this, it remains the case that where people start out in life continues to have a significant influence on where they are likely to end up. Starting out life in poverty means a greater risk of poverty later on in life.

About the project

This review analysed sociological theories and concepts on the causes of poverty and ways to understand poverty from a sociological perspective. The review was necessarily only partial, as the size of the field under consideration did not allow for a systematic review of all relevant literature. Hence, the review concentrated on what the authors deemed to be the most relevant debates for understanding poverty sociologically.

Global Poverty Studies and Their Importance Essay

Poverty is a burning issue nowadays because it exists not only in separate countries or regions but throughout the world. Even in rich countries, such as the United States and Great Britain, poverty causes serious problems, like alcohol and drug abuse, violence, premature morbidity, and stress. All these factors influence the society and the economy negatively, cause enormous underdevelopment and bring about different forms of social and political protest, which, in many cases, end up with violence and destruction.

Global poverty arises an intent interest as the world economy is becoming more and more globalized. According to Martell (2017), “large-scale global processes of economic restructuring have a big impact on our individual lives. The global economy and distribution of wealth effect, for example, our chances of unemployment, alongside our material circumstances generally” (6). That is why one should admit that in the modern world, poverty is not only a lack of jobs and money but also a many-sided and complex global phenomenon. It depends on macroeconomic factors and should be treated globally.

As a fundamental science, sociology explains various social phenomena. When the roots and causes of a problem have been described, the issue can be solved, and sociology becomes an applied science. Global poverty is worth consideration because it is a problem, to which there is still no solution. Moreover, the gap between the rich and the poor has become larger globally. According to Townsend (2014), “poverty is deep-seated in many rich and not only poor countries and seems destined to get worse in both groups of countries” (p. 3). It means that the rich are growing more prosperous, and the poor are becoming poorer. This tendency is unfavorable for the world economy as people in need have no time or money for education and self-development. They do underpaid jobs and get little money. Such individuals are inclined to crimes. To reduce the growth of poverty, well-grounded, and scientifically based, macroeconomic measures need to be taken.

The most difficult thing in discussing and scientifically explaining the phenomenon of poverty is that there is no macroeconomic approach to it. In fact, sociologists have not yet worked out a proper global conception, or a system of measures, which could eliminate or even reduce poverty. For this purpose, “myopic and piecemeal preoccupation with particular cultural and regional meanings of the word <…> has to be relinquished” (Townsend, 2014, p. 3). It means that the current scientific view of the poverty issue is too narrow and insufficient.

To reach good results, there should be thorough sociological research on global poverty. As poverty depends mainly on the state of the economy and job market, such inquiries will have a visible practical effect. It will provide sociologists and governments with instruments to give people more well-paid jobs and reduce the number of the poor. According to Bhalla and Lapeyre (2016). “studies show a positive correlation between economic and social indicators, for example, between economic vulnerability, social-relation deprivation, bad housing, health conditions and weak social participation on the one hand, and employment status on the other” (p. xii). That is why, when the causes have been studied on a complex scientific basis, there will be some opportunities to combat poverty effectively.

All these facts make one conclude that poverty is a serious issue that should be treated and studied globally. In addition, the above-mentioned facts show that there is no adequate scientific approach to the topic. That is why this problem requires a thorough scientific discussion, which will demonstrate how to eliminate poverty and its consequences – social diseases, such as crime, suicide, sex, and racial discrimination, premature morbidity, exposure, and drug abuse.

Bhalla, A.S., & Lapeyre, F. (2016). Poverty and Exclusion in a Global World . London, England: Macmillan Press Ltd.

Martell, R. (2017). The Sociology of Globalization . Cambridge, England: Polity Press.

Townsend, P. (2014). The International Analysis of Poverty . New York, NY: Routledge.

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Ending Poverty Through Education: The Challenge of Education for All

About the author, koïchiro matsuura.

From Vol. XLIV, No. 4, "The MDGs: Are We on Track?",  December 2007

T he world made a determined statement when it adopted the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000. These goals represent a common vision for dramatically reducing poverty by 2015 and provide clear objectives for significant improvement in the quality of people's lives. Learning and education are at the heart of all development and, consequently, of this global agenda. MDG 2 aims to ensure that children everywhere -- boys and girls -- will be able to complete a full course of good quality primary schooling. MDG 3 targets to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015. Indeed, learning is implicit in all the MDGs: improving maternal health, reducing child mortality and combating HIV/AIDS simply cannot be achieved without empowering individuals with knowledge and skills to better their lives. In addition, MDG 8 calls for "more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction". The MDGs on education echo the Education for All (EFA) goals, also adopted in 2000. However, the EFA agenda is much broader, encompassing not only universal primary education and gender equality, but also early childhood education, quality lifelong learning and literacy. This holistic approach is vital to ensuring full enjoyment of the human right to education and achieving sustainable and equitable development. What progress have we made towards universal primary education? The EFA Global Monitoring Report 2008 -- Education for All by 2015: Will we make it? -- presents an overall assessment of progress at the halfway point between 2000 and 2015. There is much encouraging news, including: • Between 1999 and 2005, the number of children entering primary school for the first time grew by 4 per cent, from 130 million to 135 million, with a jump of 36 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa -- a major achievement, given the strong demographic growth in the region. • Overall participation in primary schooling worldwide grew by 6.4 per cent, with the fastest growth in the two regions farthest from achieving the goal on education -- sub-Saharan Africa, and South and West Asia. • Looking at the net enrolment ratio, which measures the share of children of primary school age who are enrolled, more than half the countries of North America, Western, Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean have rates of over 90 per cent. Ratios are lower in the Arab States, Central Asia and South and West Asia, with lows of 33 per cent (Djibouti) and 68 per cent (Pakistan). The challenge is greatest in sub-Saharan Africa, where more than one third of countries have rates below 70 per cent. • The number of children out of school has dropped sharply, from 96 million in 1999 to around 72 million by 2005, with the biggest change in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia, which continue to harbour the largest percentages of children not in school. South and West Asia has the highest share of girls out of school. The MDG on education specifies that both boys and girls should receive a full course of primary schooling. The gender parity goal set for 2005, however, has not been achieved by all. Still, many countries have made significant progress. In South and West Asia, one of the regions with the widest disparities, 93 girls for every 100 boys were in school in 2005 -- up from 82 in 1999. Yet, globally, 122 out of the 181 countries with data had not achieved gender parity in 2005. There is much more to be done, particularly in rural areas and urban slums, but there are strong trends in the right direction. This overall assessment indicates that progress in achieving universal primary education is positive. Countries where enrolments rose sharply generally increased their education spending as a share of gross national product. Public expenditure on education has climbed by over 5 per cent annually in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia. Aid to basic education in low-income countries more than doubled between 2000 and 2004. Progress has been achieved through universal and targeted strategies. Some 14 countries have abolished primary school fees since 2000, a measure that has promoted enrolment of the most disadvantaged children. Several countries have established mechanisms to redistribute funds to poorer regions and target areas that are lagging in terms of access to education, and to offset economic barriers to schooling for poor households. Many countries, including Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, India and Yemen, have introduced specific strategies to encourage girls' schooling, such as community sensitization campaigns, early childhood centres to release girls from caring for their siblings, free uniforms and learning materials. These strategies are working and reflect strong national commitment to achieving universal primary education. Enrolment, however, is only half the story; children need to stay in primary school and complete it. One way of measuring this is the survival rate to the last grade of primary education. Although data are not available for every country, globally the rate of survival to the last grade is 87 per cent. This masks wide regional variations, with medians of over 90 per cent all over the world, except in South and West Asia (79%) and sub-Saharan Africa (63%). Even then, some children drop out in the last grade and never complete primary education, with some countries showing a gap of 20 per cent between those who enter the last grade and those who complete it. One of the principal challenges is to improve the quality of learning and teaching. Cognitive skills, basic competencies and life-skills, as well as positive values and attitudes, are all essential for development at individual, community and national levels. In a world where the acquisition, use and sharing of knowledge are increasingly the key to poverty reduction and social development, the need for quality learning outcomes becomes a necessary essential condition for sharing in the benefits of growing prosperity. What children take away from school, and what youth and adults acquire in non-formal learning programmes, should enable them, as expressed in the four pillars of the 1996 Delors report, Learning: The Treasure Within, to learn to know, to do, to be and to live together. Governments are showing growing concern about the poor quality of education. An increasing number of developing countries are participating in international and regional learning assessments, and conducting their own. Evidence shows that up to 40 per cent of students do not reach minimum achievement standards in language and mathematics. Pupils from more privileged socio-economic backgrounds and those with access to books consistently perform better than those from poorer backgrounds with limited access to reading materials. Clear messages emerge from these studies. In primary education, quality learning depends, first and foremost, on the presence of enough properly trained teachers. But pupil/teacher ratios have increased in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia since 1999. Some 18 million new teachers are needed worldwide to reach universal primary education by 2015. Other factors have a clear influence on learning: a safe and healthy physical environment, including, among others, appropriate sanitation for girls; adequate learning and teaching materials; child-centred curricula; and sufficient hours of instruction (at least 800 hours a year). Initial learning through the mother tongue has a proven impact on literacy acquisition. Transparent and accountable school governance, among others, also affects the overall learning environment. What then are the prospects for achieving universal primary education and gender parity? The EFA Global Monitoring Report 2008 puts countries into two categories depending on their current net enrolment rate: 80 to 96 per cent, and less than 80 per cent. For each category, it then assesses whether current rates of progress are likely to enable each country to reach the goal by 2015. Noting that 63 countries worldwide have already achieved the goal and 54 countries cannot be included in the analysis due to lack of adequate data, the status is as follows: Out of the 95 countries unlikely to achieve gender parity by 2015, 14 will not achieve it in primary education and 52 will not attain it at the secondary level. A further 29 countries will fail to achieve parity in both primary and secondary education. The international community must focus on giving support to those countries that are currently not on track to meet the MDGs and the EFA goals, and to those that are making progress. On current trends, and if pledges are met, bilateral aid to basic education will likely reach $5 billion a year in 2010. This remains well below the $9 billion required to reach universal primary education alone; an additional $2 billion are needed to address the wider context of educational development. Ensuring that adults, particularly mothers, are literate has an impact on whether their children, especially their daughters, attend school. In today's knowledge-intensive societies, 774 million adults are illiterate -- one in four of them women. Early learning and pre-school programmes give children a much better chance to survive and succeed once they enter primary school, but such opportunities are few and far between across most of the developing world, except in Latin America and the Caribbean. Opportunities for quality secondary education and ongoing learning programmes provide motivation for students to achieve the highest possible level of education and view learning as a lifelong endeavour. The goals towards which we are striving are about the fundamental right to education that should enable every child and every adult to develop their potential to the full, so that they contribute actively to societal change and enjoy the benefits of development. The challenge now is to ensure that learning opportunities reach all children, youth and adults, regardless of their background. This requires inclusive policies to reach the most marginalized, vulnerable and disadvantaged populations -- the working children, those with disabilities, indigenous groups, linguistic minorities and populations affected by HIV/AIDS.

Globally, the world has set its sights on sustainable human development, the only prospect for reducing inequalities and improving the quality of life for present and future generations. In this perspective, Governments, donors and international agencies must continue working jointly towards achieving universal primary education and the broader MDG agenda with courage, determination and unswerving commitment. To find out more about the EFA Global Monitoring Report 2008, please visit ( www.efareport.unesco.org ).

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Essay on Poverty Eradication

Students are often asked to write an essay on Poverty Eradication in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Poverty Eradication

Understanding poverty.

Poverty refers to the state of not having enough resources to live a decent life. It’s a significant issue affecting millions worldwide.

Causes of Poverty

Poverty is caused by factors like unemployment, lack of education, and economic instability. These factors prevent people from earning a sufficient income.

Steps Towards Eradication

Poverty eradication involves steps like providing quality education, creating job opportunities, and promoting economic stability. These steps help people to earn a decent living.

Role of Individuals

Everyone can contribute to poverty eradication. We can donate, volunteer, or help in creating awareness about poverty and its solutions.

Eradicating poverty is a big challenge, but with collective efforts, it’s achievable. Let’s all contribute to a poverty-free world.

250 Words Essay on Poverty Eradication

Introduction.

Poverty eradication stands as one of the most pressing issues that humanity faces today. It is a complex problem that requires a multifaceted approach, involving economic, social, and political strategies.

The Scope of Poverty

The World Bank defines extreme poverty as living on less than $1.90 per day. However, poverty extends beyond mere monetary measures, encompassing elements like access to quality education, healthcare, and basic human rights.

Economic Strategies

Economically, poverty eradication involves creating opportunities for the poor. This could be achieved through policies that promote job creation, fair wages, and entrepreneurship. Microfinance initiatives can empower the impoverished to start their own businesses, fostering economic independence.

Social Strategies

Socially, poverty eradication requires improving access to education and healthcare. Education equips individuals with the skills needed for better employment prospects, while good health is essential for productivity and income generation.

Political Strategies

Politically, governments need to ensure that policies are inclusive and equitable. This includes implementing progressive taxation, strengthening social safety nets, and promoting gender equality.

In conclusion, poverty eradication is not a task for the faint-hearted. It requires a holistic approach, with concerted efforts from governments, civil society, and individuals. By working together, we can make significant strides towards a world free from poverty.

500 Words Essay on Poverty Eradication

Poverty eradication is a global challenge that requires concerted efforts from all sectors of society. Despite the remarkable progress made in reducing extreme poverty, millions still live below the poverty line, struggling to meet their basic needs. This essay explores the concept of poverty eradication, its importance, strategies to achieve it, and the challenges faced.

Understanding Poverty Eradication

Poverty eradication implies the complete elimination of poverty in all its forms. It’s a multidimensional issue, encompassing not just financial poverty but also other aspects like lack of access to health services, education, and opportunities. The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 1 aims to “end poverty in all its forms everywhere” by 2030, signifying the global commitment towards this cause.

Importance of Poverty Eradication

Poverty eradication is crucial for sustainable development and human dignity. It’s not only a moral imperative but also a key to unlocking human potential and societal progress. Eliminating poverty can lead to improved health, increased productivity, and reduced crime rates. Moreover, it can foster social cohesion and political stability, contributing to peace and security.

Strategies for Poverty Eradication

Addressing poverty requires a comprehensive and multifaceted approach. First, economic growth must be inclusive, ensuring that the benefits reach the poorest sections of society. This can be achieved through job creation, fair wages, and social protection measures.

Second, investment in human capital is crucial. Access to quality education and healthcare can enable individuals to break the cycle of poverty and lead productive lives.

Third, promoting social inclusion and reducing inequality are fundamental. Policies should aim to eliminate discrimination and empower marginalized groups, enabling them to participate fully in society.

Lastly, it’s essential to build resilience against shocks such as economic crises, conflicts, and natural disasters, which can push people into poverty.

Challenges in Poverty Eradication

While the path towards poverty eradication is clear, several challenges persist. Economic disparities, both within and between countries, hinder progress. Structural issues, such as corruption, political instability, and inadequate infrastructure, can exacerbate poverty.

Climate change poses another significant challenge. Its impacts, such as extreme weather events and food insecurity, disproportionately affect the poor, undermining efforts to eradicate poverty.

Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has reversed some of the gains made in poverty reduction, highlighting the vulnerability of progress and the need for robust social protection systems.

Poverty eradication is a daunting task, but not an impossible one. We have the knowledge, resources, and strategies needed to overcome this challenge. What’s required is the political will, global cooperation, and a commitment to justice and equity. By addressing poverty, we can build a more prosperous, sustainable, and equitable world.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on Rural Poverty
• Essay on Democracy and Poverty
• Essay on Causes of Poverty

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500+ Words Essay on Importance of Education in English

Education is essential to life as it helps us understand the world and enhance knowledge. Education is considered as the key to a successful life. A person who is not educated finds it difficult to find a job, is not able to build a career, and is unsuccessful in every aspect of life.

The essay on the importance of education is a popular topic assigned to students in school. This essay topic highlights the importance of education in our lives and how it can open the doors to success. To help students with their essay writing, we have listed some samples of how to write an essay on the importance of education.

‘The pen is mightier than the sword’. – Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Essay on Importance Of Education in English

Education is important for a person, his family, and society. Today, we are living in a digital world, where education is essential for survival. Education makes us knowledgeable, develops skills, and makes us intelligent. Education paves the way toward a successful life. It prepares us for real-world challenges and improves our understanding of people and developments around us. Education is important for personal, social, and economic development. A well-educated person can significantly contribute to the economic growth and development of his family and society.

Why is Education Important?

Mahatma Gandhi said about the importance of education, ‘Real education consists in drawing the best out of yourself. What better book can there be than the book of humanity?’ Education is a silent and peaceful weapon that can bring success without harm. The power of education, knowledge, and ideas is more influential and enduring than the force or violence the sword represents.

Education empowers us by providing specialized knowledge, relevant skills, and critical thinking abilities. We are more likely to engage in constructive and positive activities when we understand things in our ways. Education can tell us what is important and what is not to live a successful and peaceful life. It shows the difference between love and hate.

A society needs to have an educated populace so that people are informed and engaged in civic activities. Informed citizens contribute to the democratic process and are better equipped to address societal issues peacefully. Countries like Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, etc. have the largest number of educated people. This is why these countries are consecutively on top of the Literacy and Human Development Index charts.

Education Leads to Success

By becoming knowledgeable and developing skills, we can deal with real-world situations. Dealing with challenges is part of life and growth. The more challenges we face, the stronger our cognitive and creative thinking develops. For example, when we prepare for an exam, we are told to solve sample papers, mock tests and previous year’s exam papers to adapt to the exam environment better. By doing so, we have already experienced the examination feeling and know we are stronger and more intelligent than before.

Education offers us career opportunities. An educated person is more likely to get better job offers than someone who is not educated. For someone who is looking for specialised and higher-paying jobs, higher levels of education can help them achieve success.

Education Helps in Sustainable Development

Modern problems require modern solutions. Today, there are several global crises like climate change, pollution, health and safety issues, poverty and unemployment, biodiversity loss, terrorism, etc. It is very important to overcome these and many other global problems to achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs). Education is the only way that can help us achieve sustainable development goals.

Education makes us aware of regional and global issues and with enhanced knowledge, we will be able to come up with better and environmentally friendly solutions.

Education Can Create a Better World

Education has the power to change the world and make it a better and safer place for every living being. With improved knowledge, skills and social abilities, we can make informed decisions, participate actively in our communities, and contribute meaningfully to society.

Education is a key tool in the fight against poverty. It provides us with the skills needed for employment and economic participation, breaking the cycle of poverty across generations. A well-educated population is more likely to have access to better job opportunities and higher incomes.

A well-educated populace is very important for the smooth functioning of democratic societies. Education instils civic values, critical thinking, and a sense of responsibility, enabling us to actively participate in the democratic process and contribute to the development of just and accountable governments.

Education serves as a beacon of hope. It promises a better future. It is a fundamental entitlement for every human being on Earth, and to withhold this right is morally wrong. The absence of education in young people is a significant detriment to humanity. As the world faces new challenges, we need to understand those challenges and come up with sustained solutions to make this world a better place.

Essay on Importance of Education in 150 Words

Education plays an important in shaping a person’s future. It empowers our minds, nurtures critical thinking, and fosters a well-rounded perspective. The purpose of education is not limited to gaining knowledge and skills only. It equips us with essential skills for personal and societal development.

It is a catalyst for economic growth, breaking the shackles of poverty. Moreover, education promotes social equality, fostering inclusivity and understanding. In an interconnected world, educated citizens contribute to global harmony, innovation, and environmental sustainability.

Today, the Indian Government has made elementary education compulsory for children in the age group of 6 to 14 years. It means every parent or guardian has to provide elementary education to their children. There are public schools and public libraries available where these students can obtain free education with schemes like Mid-Day Meal, National Means cum Merit Scholarship Scheme, Skill Development Scheme, etc.

10 Lines to Add in Essay on the Importance of Education

Here are 10 lines to add to the essay on the importance of education.

1. Education is important to become successful in life.

2. Education can help bring peace and prosperity in life.

3. A well-educated population contributes to the overall progress and prosperity of a nation.

4. Education fosters critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity, essential for innovation.

5. It promotes social cohesion by fostering understanding, tolerance, and empathy among diverse groups.

6. Accessible education is a powerful tool for promoting equality and reducing societal disparities.

7. Informed and educated citizens are better equipped to participate in democratic processes.

8. Education enhances economic opportunities, leading to personal and collective financial stability.

9. Lifelong learning is important for adapting to technological advancements and evolving career landscapes.

10. Ultimately, education empowers individuals to contribute positively to their communities and the world at large.

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Essay on Importance of Education- FAQs

What is a short essay on education.

Education empowers us by providing specialised knowledge, relevant skills, and critical thinking abilities. We are more likely to engage in constructive and positive activities when we understand things in our ways. Education can tell us what is important and what is not to live a successful and peaceful life. It shows the difference between love and hate. A society needs to have an educated populace so that people are informed and engaged in civic activities. Informed citizens contribute to the democratic process and are better equipped to address societal issues through peaceful means.

Que. 2 What are some lines on education?

Education lays the foundation of a successful life. Education helps us understand the world around us. Education is the key to success. An educated person can adapt to the changing environment and can also influence the world around him with his intelligence and knowlege. Education makes us an intelligent and knowledgeable person. An educated person understand the world better than someone who is not educated. Education and literacy are not the same.

Que. 3 How can education help achieve sustainable development goals?

Accessible and quality education creates a skilled and knowledgeable population capable of addressing various challenges. Accessible and quality education fosters a skilled and knowledgeable population capable of addressing various challenges. Accessible and quality education fosters a skilled and knowledgeable population capable of addressing various challenges. Accessible and quality education fosters a skilled and knowledgeable population capable of addressing various challenges.

Que. 4 Can education lead to a successful life?

Education is considered as the key to successful. Through education, we develop critical thinking skills, allowing us to analyze situations, make informed decisions, and solve complex problems. Education opens doors to a wide range of career opportunities by providing the necessary qualifications and skills sought by employers in various industries. Personal growth is equally important to foster qualities like discipline, perseverance, and self-motivation, which are crucial for success.

Que. 5 How can education help eradicate poverty?

Education provides us with the necessary knowlegde and skills, which are applied to solve real life problems. Education can help eradicate poverty as people become knowleable and intelligent by stuyding. Knowlege and skills are important for us to escape poverty through better employment opportunities and economic participation.

This was all about an essay on education. We hope we were able to cover all the important points of this topic. For more information on such informative and creative essay topics, follow GeekforGeeks.

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$100M donation to Spelman highlights importance of HBCUs after court decision

In 2014, every young girl who wished to attend Spelman College dreamed of receiving a powder blue envelope from the college in the mail. I received my acceptance letter on Christmas Eve. However, then came the more pressing issue: How will I pay for Spelman?

Thankfully, I, as well as so many others in my incoming freshman class, received scholarships to attend the college in Atlanta. The scholarships were made possible thanks to the generosity of people who recognized the powerful impact their philanthropy can have on the lives and goals of Spelman students.

That’s why I was so happy earlier this year to see my alma mater receive a $100 million donation – the largest single donation ever to a historically Black college or university (HBCU). The donation by Ronda Stryker, a businesswoman and philanthropist, and her husband, Greenleaf Trust Chairman William Johnston, will change the lives of students who dream of attending the women’s college, but may, like I did, wonder how they will pay for it.

Such a generous donation to an HBCU is especially important in the aftermath of last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down affirmative action in college admissions, potentially shutting the door to higher education for many students of color. And with March designated as Women’s History Month, I am reminded of the opportunities Spelman provides for women from across the world.

Spelman College is like a young Black girl’s oasis, one that nurtures her into womanhood while providing her with the tools to succeed, whether she decides to be a doctor, foreign policy adviser, educator, playwright or human rights activist – all of which Spelman has produced. Unsurprisingly, for the past 17 consecutive years, the college has been ranked as the No.1 HBCU by U.S. News & World Report .

After coming into Spelman College as a 17-year-old who had never been on an airplane and had lived in an extremely rural town all her life, I learned many lessons from the college that prepared me to enter the professional world. I was educated in how I take up space in the world as a Black woman as well as how I help create opportunities for future young women. Thanks to Spelman, today I’m helping advance social justice and support children’s rights at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

I’m grateful that Spelman will continue to provide educational opportunities, serving as a beacon to not only the Black community, but Atlanta, the nation and the world. With the Supreme Court’s successful attack on affirmative action, we must support the nation’s HBCUs now more than ever.

La’Candis Brown is a social media strategist for the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Photo at top: Giles Hall on the campus of Spelman College in Atlanta. (Credit: Lamont Baldwin)