So one way of helping to reduce poverty would be creating more jobs. How? That's the problem. In the beginning of the century, then US president Franklin Roosevelt created government-created jobs to fight the economic crisis and consequently poverty. How is it possible to create jobs now? The answer to that question would certainly reduce the number of poor. Bertha Davis suggests that "[s]timulation of national economic growth [ ] does indeed create new jobs"(89). .
Another consequence of economic crisis is the increase of housing rents, which seriously affects the increase of a number of poor. In recent years the housing prices have skyrocketed. As Mark McCauslin mentions, "everybody has felt the crunch, but poor people have been hit the hardest. Studies show that most people living in poverty spend more than half their income on housing". He continues pointing out that these people had to sacrifice other necessities, like food or clothing to be able to pay their rent (14). Peter H. Rossi agrees with McCauslin noting that "Census Bureau of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, has recorded in city after city declines in the proportion of housing renting for 40% or less of poverty-level incomes"(182), which of course is related to the increase of apartment rents. Is there any way to solve this particular problem? Same Rossi suggests increasing benefits for low incomes, noting that except SSI no other benefits have been increased (190). McCauslin also suggests increasing funds on "public housing" writing that "low-income housing has been disappearing-(16).
How do personal problems affect poverty level? Many researchers have found that people having problem with education have much more tendency to become poor. Thomas L. Kenyon, for example found in his researches that about 27, 000, 000 Americans are illiterate and about 35, 000, 000 "read below survival level". Furthermore, he points out that illiterate people earn 42 percent less than high school graduates.
