Poverty And Unemployment In North America

Poverty and Unemployment in America

The wet snow has been falling for two continuous days now. A large three-story building, which has not been kept in good condition, is located at the outskirts of town in a run down neighborhood. No tracks are visible from the front window, either meaning that no one has visited the house, no one has left the house, or the snowfall is so thick that it covers any sign of tracks instantly. In this case, the family has not made any attempt to leave the house. Until the weather warms up somewhat, the family will be staying inside because they can not afford proper winter wear to survive the cold weather.

With ten people in the family, it is often difficult to support everyone. After the father was cut from his previous job, the family moved to my hometown during the fall in hopes to start over again. Because the community is small, the job opportunity is limited; thus making it difficult to find a way to support themselves. The family, therefore, is living off of welfare and food stamps. The children attend school as often as they can; their ages ranging from kindergarten to junior year in high school. One of the girls happens to be my age and in the same class. When they are not present in school, we can often assume that they are either working to help support the family or at home with the two little ones because they have no money to afford a babysitter.

Hunger is a part of this family's daily life because sometimes there is not enough money to buy the amount of food they need. Money is so scarce that they often have difficulties paying their bills each month. I noticed that stealing became a second nature when members of the family wanted something. Instead of working towards or asking for it, they would steal anything from food to money to clothes. The clothes that they did have were thin and patched. Most of the clothes were handed down from older children after they grew out of them. They wanted to be accepted by the community so they did what they could to fit in, even if it meant theft.

Both parents were able to find jobs in the community. The mother was offered a job at the hotel across the street. This happened to be convenient for her because, for one thing, she did not need a vehicle to drive there. It was also never that busy, so she was able to bring her two younger children with her to work and let them run around while she cleaned the rooms. The father found a job opening as a janitor at the local factory in town, the American Crystal Sugar Company. It is the community's mainstream of income, processing sugar from sugar beets that is shipped out to the companies in the region. The older children found part time jobs at the local drug store or grocery store. Because the children were so involved in their work situation to bring in money, they did not have time to develop their social lives while they were attending school. Every member of the family helps out in any way they can to support the others, even if it means sacrificing their education or social life.

America experiences much of the unemployment and poverty crisis. Poverty is present and takes place all around us. The media does display individuals and families who experience poverty though often times they are people in other countries. Many Americans, however, do not realize that unemployment and poverty occurs directly in our own country. People may be oblivious to it because they already have a skema of what poverty is. Society often believes that poverty is when children run around in scrubby clothes, barefoot. Each child looks sickly with no ounce of fat on the body. The homes are shacks with dirt floors and possibly no windows or a door. This is the image that is often portrayed on television and in magazine articles. Poverty does happen in places where we would not expect to find it, it may even occur in our own town.

With the many faces of poverty always changing from place to place and throughout time, Poverty has been described in many ways. Poverty is a vague term just like "fat", "tall", "smart", or "friendly", and is therefore has more than one definition. Poverty is the condition of having insufficient resources or income. The range from having everything, before poverty is an issue, to having nothing, when poverty hits, is a continuous spectrum with no obvious cause. The criteria for a person being in or out of poverty is simply a measurement of a major component of poverty and comparing it to an arbitrary level. In America the commonly used component is salary, as it is relatively easy to determine compared to other factors that could be more meaningful but more difficult to measure. "In the United States, extreme poverty is traditionally defined as having an annual income that is less than half of the official poverty line" ("Poverty" 1). The most commonly used way to measure poverty is based on incomes or consumption levels. A person is considered poor if his or her consumption or income level falls below some minimum level necessary to meet basic needs. The minimum level is usually called the "poverty line."

According to John Peterson, during the year of 2002, 34.6 million Americans fell below the poverty line. This was a 1.7 million increase from the previous year. Also, the number