Children Living In Poverty

Imagine, if you can, living in a hut with one room with a dirt floor, little or no protection against the elements, no running water or electricity in a community with dirt roads, no doctors or medical facilities, no police protection, no schools, no jobs, where the average annual income is often as little as one dollar per day, famine and death are constant companions and grinding deprivation is so severe that parents are often forced to sell their children into servitude or prostitution, and child mortality is extremely high. It really is a bleak picture.

Life expectancy in many places is very short, as low as 33.2 years in parts of Africa (where AIDS has had a devastating effect), compared to the 80 little elsewhere in the world.

There are too many places on earth where there is no law, no safety or security, where violence by the power is simply considered the rightful spoils of controlling the government and where there little or no freedom because of government repression.

The World Bank describes the nature of poverty as follows:

Poverty is hunger. Poverty is the lack of housing. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not able to go to school and do not read. Poverty is not having a job, is fear for the future, living one day at a time. Poverty is losing a child to a disease caused by unsafe water. Poverty is powerlessness, lack of representation and freedom.

globalissues.org reports that "The World Bank defines extreme poverty as living on less than U.S. $ (PPP) a day, and moderate poverty as less than $ 2 per day. It has been estimated that in 2001, 1.1 billion people had consumption levels below $ 1 per day and 2.7 billion live on less than $ 2 per day. "

If poverty means the existing $ 1.00 to $ 2.00 per day in much of the world, what it looks like today's America, where it is usually defined on the basis of income ? At the risk of oversimplification, the income thresholds currently used by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services range from $ 9.800 for a single person to $ 33,600 for a family of eight in the 48 contiguous states and DC It is slightly higher Alaska and Hawaii. What is important is the striking contrast with earnings of $ 365 to $ 730 annually for those that the World Bank says are living in poverty around the world.

But income is not the only measure. The following criteria are used to describe poverty in a study entitled, The Myth of Widespread American Poverty By Robert E. Rector, who defined on the basis of material hardship:

> The individual does not often eat or is significantly undernourished due to an inability to afford or obtain sufficient food.

> The individual lives in housing that is severely overcrowded (more than 1.5 persons per room) is
serious disrepair, or is not safe.

> Everyone has an important affect health care, health status requires treatment and can not afford or not to obtain medical care.

If you think about it, the average American lives better than tribal leaders do in many other parts of the world. The living standards of Americans, including many who are defined by our government as living in poverty is generally much higher than many leaders in Africa and other under-developed societies.

Mr. Rector also noted, "Many popular conceptions about poverty in this country are inaccurate, particularly the image of poverty as a static and inflexible ... ... ... .. We have not only triumphed over poverty as it has historically been understood, but that triumph was so great that we have trouble remembering what it means to be poor or even for b.