Poverty In The United States

Throughout the last century, poverty has been a major issue in the society of the United States. The government has tried to help those who are living in poverty through numerous acts including Franklin D. Roosevelt's plans to get the country out of the depression or the welfare reform in 1996. Although the government has sought to ease poverty, mainly by creating government anti poverty programs, their methods are in fact ineffective. The Federal governments anti poverty programs as a majority is not working, the programs may very well work for a few people out of thousands, but that is unquestionably not enough. Furthermore the government's methods to eliminate poverty have caused people to become dependent on government anti poverty
Former assistant secretary in the Department of Health and Human Services, Peter Edelman, argues that "inequality in the distribution of wealth is a major cause of poverty," he also adds that the problem is getting worse (Capitalism Causes Poverty). "Twenty years ago, the wealthiest one percent had as much income as the poorest 20 percent of the population; today, that one percent controls as much wealth as the poorest 35 percent" (Capitalism Causes Poverty). This is one illustration of how it is harder today for those in poverty to rise higher in society because the wealthiest people control a substantially larger amount of money than they did before. Also the article from the Economist, Meritocracy in America, shows this uneven balance in wealth by stating "In 2001 the top 1% of households earned 20% of all income and held 33.4% of all net worth" (Meritocracy in America). The article also declares that the top 1% has not controlled this much wealth since before the depression (Meritocracy in America). Once again this shows how it has become incredibly hard for people to achieve a state of living above the poverty level. More evidence to support this argument, once again, comes from the article Meritocracy in America. The article proclaims that between 1979 and 2000 "the income of households in the lowest fifth grew by 6.4% while that of households in the top fifth grew by 70%. The family income of the top 1% grew by 184%. Back in 1979 the average income of the top 1% was 133 times that of the bottom 20%; by 2000 the income of the top 1% had risen to 189 times that of the bottom fifth" (Meritocracy in America). Again this shows how hard it is to ascend to a higher level in society. A study was done by Thomas hertz, an economist at American University in Washington DC. He studied families over