What Is Poverty?

What is Poverty?

What is poverty? When you first hear this word, what is the first thing that comes to your mind; the children in Africa, the homeless in the United States, or people that just don’t have much at all? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary it states that “poverty is the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions.” But is this what it means to you or just a broad generalization and definition that some refers to it as? The United States seems to me like we are slipping into another great depression. And in the times that we are in right now, it could take what it seems like about twenty to thirty years to rise up out of this.

According to the United States Census Bureau “there are over thirty seven million living in poverty in the U.S. alone, over thirteen million of these are children eighteen years of age or younger.” “In New York city alone, over twenty percent of the residents within the city limits live below the poverty level, and make less than twenty thousand dollars a year to support themselves.” (Ebsco) But when you hear the word poverty do you just think about the United States or do you not even think about your own country but another? For example, Africa is the largest poverty stricken country in the world. With over eight hundred million people going to bed hungry each night, three hundred million of which are children. This clearly shows that Africa alone has over 22 times the amount of people that suffer from poverty than the United States does not even counting any place else. On top of that Africa also has very poor water supplies causing over “forty three percent of African children not being able to have a safe adequate water supply.” When comparing the two countries it is obvious that African people that are labeled to be in poverty have it much worse than the people in the United States that are known to be in poverty. For example children in Africa might kill for a dumpster to go through like the children have here in the United States making it almost like a luxury to the so called people in poverty in the United States. Much of Africa where poverty is very severe there is nothing but flat, dry, desert land with nothing. While in the U.S. there are streets, buildings, dumpster, food thrown out daily, and much more. It is almost hard to compare the type of poverty in both places mainly due to the vast differences between the two.

In my thoughts on poverty its means something more than just not to have the right amount of materials possessions. Poverty to me is barely making it home sometimes at night. Whether your home is a small beat up little house in the worst part of town or a thrown out washer or dryer box sitting in a dark alley or underneath a bridge that your hoping won’t get hauled off tomorrow by the recycling place cause if it does you then would cease to have