How the poor in the USA live: criteria for determining the poverty of Americans. Poverty in American: is the situation really bad?

In this article we will consider information about the poor in America.

Content

If you rely on a survey conducted by the federal reserve system, almost half (or rather, 44%) of the inhabitants of America claim that they do not have enough funds to compensate for the damage suffered as a result of an emergency. Let us turn to the numbers taking into account the number of poor in the United States, called the public census office.

How the poor in the United States live: criteria for determining the poverty of Americans

They give a picture of poverty in various demographic groups, take into account the structure of the family, age category, racial affiliation and other points. The criterion of poverty is to compare his income (excluding taxes) with needs determined by the concept of “poverty threshold”.

The composition of the family and the number of people in it - The main factor for 48 degrees of poverty threshold. In other words, in a large family, for each of its members, the income of everyone is taken into account, a person lives alone - then only his personal is considered income. At the same time, official statistics do not include the budgets of “unofficial” relations - cohabitation without marriage, same -sex families (even officially registered).
As mentioned above, only “dirty” income is taken into account before taxation is made. Therefore, they fall out of the field of view manuals, housing assistance (For example, we are talking about food coupons, housing subsidies, and manuals from the employer).
Tax loans intended to help those who have low income are not included. That is, social payments in the family of the family are not taken into account.

Such an approach to statistics on the level of poverty levels caused that another technique was proposed that takes into account these factors. Therefore, we can say that it is quite difficult to determine the real level of poverty. But on average, given the errors, the following numbers can be derived:

income in total 24,563 dollars per year - It is the limit for a family with four people.
for three, this amount is 19 105 dollars.
two 15,569 dollars and for one - 12,228 dollars.

According to statistics, about 13% of Americans live behind the threshold of poverty. In the context of demography, it can be noted that a single-linker or a child raising a child without a husband against a background of men or married couples are much more often falling under the category of the poor-there are about a third.

If we talk about the age price, then people are considered to be able-bodied people 18-64 years oldFor which the main source of income is salary. From 65 years is an elderly population that can count on pension payments. According to statistics, elderly people live better: if the percentage of the poor among the able -bodied population is 11.6%, then in an older category it decreases to 9.3%.
Race differentiation is also present. So, among the black people, the poor are 22%, followed by Latin American (19.4%), Asians account for 10.1%, among the white such 8.8%.
The presence of work does not guarantee that a person will avoid poverty, but only implies a lesser probability. Again, according to statistical data, 38.4% of people who have a job are behind the poverty line in the United States.

In America, the population is behind the poverty line

Poverty in American: is the situation really bad?

However, poverty “American” is the concept of stretching. Inexorable statistics demonstrate that the advantageous majority of families from the category of poor people have cars, air conditioners, use microwaves and computers with Internet access, watch satellite television. Plasma TVs are not rare in them.

The poverty of the Americans does not affect nutrition. According to surveys, only about 3-4% of parents from the category of poor people say that their children are starving. 17-18% believe that their nutrition is insufficient.
96% of parents say that their children never starved. This is also confirmed by studies that recorded that children from poor families and those that belong to the middle class consume approximately the same number of minerals, proteins, vitamins.
With housing for poor Americans, everything is also relatively good. Statistics data indicate that there are one for 25 poor people a year, which temporarily loses housing. Less than 10% have a trailer house as housing, almost half - at home or townhouses, a little less - apartments. In addition, in most of these families there are two or more rooms for one person.
For comparison: this is more than the average Swede, the Frenchman or the Englishman has. At the same time, about 20% uses housing that the government rents, and more than 40% rent premises without state support.
Shelters for homeless people, contained with the help of the state and charitable contributions, are sometimes designed for 800 people. These people can use medical services, play sports, children can go to kindergarten, there are even premises for their animals.

In the world, everything is relatively, including poverty. In the sensational report, the special speaker of the UN Philip Olston emphasizes that about 40 million Americans are behind the poverty line. At the same time, we note that the indicator is 13-14% (this is, of course, about the number of people living behind the threshold of poverty) unites the United States and Russia, at the same mark the indicator of poverty in France, and if we talk about the countries of the European Union as a whole,--- And higher, 17%.

What is considered poverty in America is described above. We add for the completeness of the picture the fact that about half of those who belong to the poor use local or federal medical insurance, almost all (90%) children of the poor eat for free in schools, and for not quite lazy and really wanting to increase their income, special Programs to master a new profession. Moreover, these programs are free.

Another point: homeless in the streets. According to statistics, the homeless at one time or another of his life became every two hundredth American. About a third of them are adolescents, almost 40% - a weak half of humanity, about the same - disabled. Moreover, this is only official statistics, compiled according to the data regarding those who turned and registered in shelters.

The authorities have to recognize such a phenomenon and solve this problem, if only because the homeless strongly devastate budgets. For example, the maintenance of one arrested homeless in the cell, his treatment, the work of cops, etc., is spent more than 30 thousand dollars a year. We multiply by the number of homeless people (and it is measured at best with three million) - we can imagine how “beneficial” are homeless to the state.