In order to find solutions to poverty in America, we must first define what poverty is, who are most affected, and what factors cause it. The American Heritage Dictionary defines poverty as “the state of being poor; lacking the means of

It is my belief that the best way to reduce the level of poverty in this nation is to increase the political support for social welfare. Many people below the poverty level just need a bit of financial help to get them started in the right direction. In my opinion, welfare money can assist them with this. Proper welfare laws that require recipients to seek employment within a certain time period seem to be most effective in the reduction of poor people in this country

Unfortunately, not all people believe this way. Many people say that poor people are poor because they don’t try to work. They believe that many of the poor just take advantage of the welfare system and look at it as free money. One ignorant view of some better off people is that I had to work hard for my money, they should have to as well. Some people believe that social welfare should be eliminated all together. These beliefs are known as blaming the victim. Many of these people don’t think about the disadvantages that people living in poverty have, particularly with educational opportunities.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the percent of Americans under the poverty level has steadily dropped from 15.1 percent in 1993 to 11.8 percent in 1999 (U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, Series P60-210, Table B-1). The attention paid to the problems of poverty in our society and reform of the social welfare legislation in many states led to this decrease. Continued attention to these issues should only reduce the poverty level further. Unfortunately, I believe that the government is beginning to lose public interest in such programs as they are not discussed as much lately in politics. When searching for information on welfare reform and poverty on the internet, I encountered several pages which had recently been removed from the servers. In my opinion, this shows that social welfare and poverty are not currently near the top of legislators priorities. Ignoring the problem could lead to a rise in the level once again.

Perhaps the single most important factor in the decrease of poverty in our country is the social welfare programs. Although it is impossible to eliminate poverty from our society, social welfare programs, if implemented properly, could vastly reduce the level of poverty. Currently,

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