Poverty in the United States

Despite the apparent wealth of the United States, an economic system has been created that ensures that a large portion of Americans live in poverty.  Everyday, the United States dedicates more resources to the billions in poverty around the world than it does within its own confines.  (1)  Poverty is largely based off of political policies and economic structure, rather than the individual’s shortcomings or failures.  The association between poverty and an individual's shortcomings or failures is largely a commonly held misperception of poverty.  Mainstream popular research of social scientists has been emphasized on the individual attributes and demographic characteristics of the poor, which has been used to explain why individuals experience poverty.  Such short fallings have been attributed to the individual’s “laziness, lack of effort, and low ability” by such social sciences.  These conclusions have fueled the negative connotation of poverty in society, and have not drawn focus to more important factors related to poverty such as unemployment or discrimination.  (2)  According to Rank, cross-sectional research has also demonstrated a close association between lower levels of education, lack of marketable skills, and physical disability with poverty.  Due to lower levels of education, individuals have less marketable skills to perform tasks in the job market.   However, this is a result of the decline in the public school systems throughout the United States.
           As reported in the Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC) and the Current Population Survey (CPS) conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, the median household income has showed no change from $43,318 between 2002 and 2003.  The median household income for black households remained unchanged at $30,000 a year, in addition to Asian households at $55,500 a year.  Hispanic households declined in income approximately 2.6 percent between 2002 and 2003.  (3)  However, the number in poverty has increased between 2002 and 2003.  The poverty estimates are based solely on income before taxes, without extra benefits such as Medicare or public housing.  (4)  This is important to note, because according to the 2000 census, the city's demographics consisted of 52.97% European American, 42.92% Black or African American, 0.21% Native American, 1.55% Asian, 1.28% Hispanic, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 0.63% from other races, and 1.68% from two or more races. (5)  This is important because a significant quantity of the citizens of Cincinnati are minorities. 
          According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the poverty rate was 12.5 percent with nearly 35.9 million people in poverty in 2003.  The total population in 2003 was approximately 290,809,777, which makes one in every eight people living in poverty.  (6)   The poverty rate was up nearly 1.2 million people from 2002.  The poverty rate remained unchanged for Hispanics, non-Hispanic Whites, and Blacks, although it rose for Whites and Asians.  For children under the age of 18 years old, the poverty rate raised from 16.7 percent in 2002 to 17.6 percent in 2003.  (7)