Poverty is most commonly associated with adults, however poverty causes greater stress on the building blocks of a child’s life. When discussing the issues of poverty, it is common that adults and what they are doing is what is discussed yet the children and the effects on the children are overlooked. One in five children live in poverty, which translates into fourteen million children throughout the United States. Throughout this post I will talk about the effects of child poverty on their emotional, physical, and mental well being, as well as the misconceptions our society has on impoverished people, Why they remain impoverished and the struggles they face when trying to overcome the challenges of being impoverished is one topic that is important to consider. No one deserves to live in poverty struggling to get by, yet we see it everywhere we go.
The poverty threshold is what the government decides is the minimum amount of money a family can live on for a year. For 2016 the Poverty Threshold for a household of two is $16,020 and for each additional member of the household you would add $4.160. This is based off of a minimalist lifestyle which does not include emergency money or expenses that may include things such as glasses, car payments, gas, charges that parents have to pay to schools, or other small costs that seem like everyday expenses. Nor does this poverty threshold allow for someone to be capable of saving money for emergencies or personal expenses. Income Poverty is when a family’s income fails to meet the federally established minimum which will cover a family’s cost of living. There is also Extreme Poverty wherein a person lives on $1.90 a day. This is most commonly seen in third-world countries, yet over 702 million people live in extreme poverty each year.
The issue with the poverty threshold is that it isn’t a realistic amount for any person to live on, the author Jillian Berman says “I don’t think anyone gets any sense of economic security from living at that line, it’s a measure of absolute deprivation” (Berman). There is a calculator known as the EPI Calculator (Economic Policy Institute calculator) which calculates for regional cost of housing, child care, health care, clothing, transportation, and other basic needs. All of these things are calculated on a regional level allowing someone to know the minimum they would have to make annually in order to live in a certain area. According to this calculator the cheapest city in America to live in would be Simpson County Mississippi, and in this county for two parents and one child it would cost an average of $44,617 a year. This is double what the national poverty threshold says is a livable salary, and it is reportedly the cheapest city in the United States. So what does that say about those living at the poverty threshold anywhere else and how on earth are we expecting people to survive on less than half of what is actually necessary for survival.
When allowing families to survive in these conditions we are putting the children in these families at risk for: inadequate nutrition, fewer learning experiences, instability in residences, exposure to environmental toxins, family violence caused by stress, dangerous neighborhoods along with less access to friends and health services. All of these things will follow these children into their later lives. There have been hundreds of studies which follow the effects of poverty on children and how these effects follow children into their later lives, including inabilities to produce relationships with others and emotional well being and self care. These are things that children should not have to experience or deal with. Allowing families to live in poverty is allowing the future of our country to be held back by issues developed by a corrupt understanding of survival.
The physical health of impoverished children suffers due to many factors. Their environments are more likely to be contaminated with toxins, One of the most dangerous toxins is lead which is found in old houses that were built before it was discovered lead was toxic. The paint chips containing lead taste almost sweet making it common for toddlers to chew on and eat the paint that chips off of the walls. Lead is also found in old piping putting the lead into the water in the homes allowing them to ingest and bathe in the toxin slowly poisoning their systems. The owners of these homes, whether it be landlords or the family itself, are less likely to take care of these issues simply because they cannot afford to. Landlords may avoid the issue of removing sources of lead if they are not forced to by the government or local authorities and these families cannot afford to move to different homes so they are left to deal with the issue however they can. Lead effects the nervous system and if exposed in early childhood lead hinders neurological development causing Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder and other neurological disorders. In a high enough dose, or through long enough exposure to lead, it will eventually lead to death.
Other ways that a child’s physical health can be compromised is through malnutrition. It’s hard to get all of the necessary nutrients into a child’s diet when food is barely affordable. Childhood years are important for physical and mental development and much of these have to do with having a diet that fulfills their needs and allows for their body and mind to grow. Lacking nutrients in the diet overall weakens the immune system opening children up to thing such as weight loss, gastrointestinal infections, poor brain development memory deficiency and reduced problem solving skills. If a family cannot afford health care then the child’s physical ailments may never get the chance to be noticed and treated.
Weight loss affects children in the way that their bodies no longer have stored energy, children need to have fat because it provides an extra source of energy. While an excessive amount is not good for children too low an amount of fat is also not good for body and brain development. Not enough body fat can stunt bone growth halting the children’s potential to grow to the height and build they are meant to be. Brain development when undernourished can also be stunted causing children to develop Attention Deficit Disorder, a decreased intelligence quotient (IQ), memory deficiency and poor problem solving skills. These things happen during malnutrition because the body is so busy directing its limited amounts of energy to involuntary bodily functions that there is no extra energy left to power the brain. Our bodies need large amounts of energy to function and when not all of the energy is available the body uses the energy for the functions that our bodies cannot work without.
Gastrointestinal infections are highly dangerous for children because depending on the type of infection their bodies could not be allowing them to absorb nutrients. There are cells in the large and small intestine that absorb nutrients as they are digested, but gastrointestinal infections stop this process. So that even if the child started to get fully nourished they still would lack vitamins due to their body not being capable of absorbing them.
The mental health of these children is one of the most important things to bring to the attention of the communities and regions where poverty is seen. It has been seen study after study that impoverished children suffer more frequently from behavioral problems. Behavioral problems can be classified in two different dimensions: externalizing behavior and internalizing behaviors. Externalizing Behaviors are shown through harming others rather than the self. ”Internalizing behaviors are actions that direct problematic energy toward the self. In other words, a person who shows internalizing behaviors does things that harm himself as opposed to lashing out at others”(Fraser). These actions could include: eating disorders, depression, cutting, substance abuse, even an inability to form relationships with others.
Parents may have one child who relies on externalizing behaviors to cope and another who relies on internalizing behaviors. While the child who chooses to externalize their emotions may be considered the problem child both children need help and intervention before they harm themselves or others. Dealing with emotions by either harming oneself, or another person, isn’t how problems should be dealt with. However, children are incapable of knowing other ways to express how they are feeling. This leaves them to be labeled as either depressed, a loner, bully, or trouble starter. The issue of these children’s mental health is important because they can receive help for physical ailments and find ways of coping with stress. But once a child gets into the habit of externalizing or internalizing their feelings, and behaviors, they become accustomed to dealing with situations using these methods. Neither of these behaviors lead to good results either way, the children are going to be stuck with actions that only lead them deeper into trouble and self harm. Habits are like addictions in the way that a person or child goes back to what they know, whether it’s holding emotions and issues in until they are physically sick from stress, or releasing anger and frustrations on themselves or others. Either way children do not deserve to suffer these consequences. If our systems cannot help the children to be comfortable in their homes then we should at least get them help and support to cope with the issues that they face at home.
Many people, when thinking of those living in poverty, will say things like, “Why don’t they get another job?” In most cases it’s not that families in poverty don’t have one or both parents working but that they are simply not making enough to cover family expenses. The cost of living has gone up and the minimum wage has yet to be brought up to make it a liveable wage. “In order to be able to afford to live anywhere in the country, workers have to be making more than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, according to EPI. There’s nowhere in America where two parents earning the federal minimum wage, which amounts to about $30,000 per year collectively, can make enough to support a family of three or four .“ (Berman). In other cases one or both of the parents are not working due to a physical inability or because there is no companies around them hiring for new work. The Social Work Degree Center writes“In 2008, 64% of those in poverty were unable to work due to being too young or too old, due to a disability of some kind, or because they simply could not find a job” (SWDC). It is not that people living in poverty are lazy and want to be in their situations. It is an unfortunate set of circumstances that over half of American’s have faced at one point in their life. It’s just that for some they were given opportunities and helped along the way while others are continually forced to live in poverty
Much of the impoverished community consists of the homeless, and while people judge the homeless calling them lazy and incapable they fail to think of the reasons that many people are homeless. In 2009 the National Coalition For the Homeless (NCH) reported that 50% of homeless women ran away from domestic violence with no one to support them after they had gotten away. There are over 67 thousand homeless veterans on the streets of America who are homeless due to mental and physical injuries they sustained protecting our country. Almost half of the homeless teenagers have run away from home or been kicked out of their homes due to being gay, lesbian or bisexual.It is not that the homeless want to be living on the streets but how is someone who was forced out of their home, for whatever reason it might be, supposed to find a job when they have nowhere to go at night to clean themselves up in order to be clean and presentable for work the next day. The bias placed on these people puts them into a catch-22 situation that is nearly impossible for them to get out of.
Poverty has more effects than just not being able to afford food or bills all of the time. It has physical, mental, and emotional tolls that can be severe and lifelong. Poverty has affected over half of the populations of the United States at some point in their life yet many people’s understanding of poverty is summed up as people who are too lazy to work and take from the government. While in some cases this statement may be true it is not nearly as common as people think that it is. Poverty is an issue in the United States and it has not been going anywhere for the past fifty years. It’s time that people gained an understanding and compassion for the struggles families and children go through rather than simply writing it off as laziness.
Works Cited
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Berman, Jillian. “Federal Poverty Line Doesn’t Adequately Reflect Cost Of Living In America, Analysis Finds.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 05 May 2016.
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