Poverty: Not always with us

Poverty: Not always with us

In 2000, 147 government leaders had pledged to cut the world's percentage of people living in dire poverty, that is making less than $1.25 a day, in half using the poverty level in 1990 as their baseline. Many of the other goals set by the United Nations, that they call the "millennium development goals", have not been met, but this one has. In just 20 years the world's poverty level has been cut in half. This got people thinking, it we could cut the poverty level by 50 percent in twenty years, could we get rid of the other half in the next 20 years?

At a press conference in April 2013 the president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, wrote the number 2030 on a piece of paper, held it up to the audience and said that that was the year we would completely eradicate poverty. However, he was not the first person to make this pledge. Earlier that year Barack Obama had said that within the next two decades there would be no more poverty. Many other people of influence have said this in the past, as well. While things are looking good, and great progress is being made, it will be quite the challenge to completely eradicate poverty in the next 20 years. Despite the apparent difficulty, it is a challenge that many world leaders are willing to take on.  

The U.S. Is Losing a Generation to Poverty

The U.S. Is Losing a Generation to Poverty

For the first time since the Great Recession, poverty has declined. From last year to this one poverty in the United States has decreased by .5 percent from 15 percent to 14.5 percent and child poverty has also decreased by almost 2 percent. While these numbers are not very substantial, it is a step forward and had some people quite happy. Despite this seemingly good news, however, poverty rates are still higher than they were before the recession, this is just the first time they've gone down. At the current rate it would take until 2020 for the poverty rate to be at the 2000 level.

The article talks about the qualifications of being in poverty, this formula was made by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. That was 30 years ago, and the world has changed quite a bit. It is a little less obvious now who is and is not in poverty. It has become quite a common struggle in the United States, with our poverty rate higher than other developed nations such as France and the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, children are also the poorest demographic group in the US. Children in poverty are at risk of developmental delays due to malnourishment, and these developmental delays limit their future potential. The article concludes by urging that it should be realized that poverty is less widespread than we think.