Poverty and America

Many vivid pictures come to mind with the words poverty and welfare, and they are usually not pretty ones. Almost sixty-five years later after the construction of several powerful programs instigated by Federal and local governments, non-profits and even local churches, there is still no end in sight to this epidemic. Is there any hope of ever ending poverty or should we as Americans succumb to the fact that we just need to do our best to help ameliorate it and lessen the burden on society and individuals? In 1998, The State of Human Development defined poverty as:

More than a lack of what is necessary for material well being, poverty can also mean the denial of opportunities and choices most basic to human developmentùthe desire to lead a long, healthy, creative life; to have a decent standard of living (Kilty and Segal, 25).

The most basic measure of poverty was established in the 1960s and is called the "poverty line" or the Federal Poverty Measure (Meltzer 10). Today, the poverty level income established for a family of four is $18,850 (2004 Federal Poverty Guidelines,) or an hourly wage of under $10.00 per hour. Most government programs shift their

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f the largest initiatives aimed at eliminating poverty through the creation of a welfare program, and Jacob Weisberg clearly outlines them as follows: In 1935 FDR signed the first federal poverty assistance law called the Aid to Dependent Children Act and established what became the core federal welfare (open ended payments from the government to single mothers with dependent children) during the Great Depression (51-52). Post WW2, in 1962, JFK urged Congress to raise welfare payments and renamed FDR's program Aid to Families with Dependent Children(AFDC) and welfare, in turn, took on more ownership at the state level, requiring community work and training so that welfare would be in Kennedy's words, "a hand up, not a hand out" (55). In 1965, President Johnson's "War on Poverty" increased welfare spending and eligibility requirements were tightened and at the same time, benefits increased. In June of 1994, Bill Clinton proposed his own welfare plan hoping to end permanent dependence on welfare. This changed the welfare system and laws completely. The old system was not working and the stats and research numbers attested to that fact in more ways than one. Clinton added almost $10 billion in new spending for comm
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2178
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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