Attacking Child Poverty Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Attacking Child Poverty - Essay Example 1). Marshall suggests that the USA ignores the issue of childhood poverty when announcing its economic achievements, and when comparing these achievements to other capitalist nations. However, the rapidly increasing rate of childhood poverty in the USA is breaking with stereotypes of the situation. For example, regardless of ethnicity, White, Black and Latino figures are increasing at a similar rate (Sherman, , p.2). Also, there appears to be more incidence of childhood poverty amongst suburban and rural children than those in metropolitan areas (Sherman, ). The thesis statement for this paper is: Child welfare policies are outdated lacking a pro-social approach to prevent poverty. This paper will present a synthesis of articles that critique policies targeting childhood poverty, and will provide an analysis of those policies and the recommendations put forward by the articles. Firstly, a definition of poverty will be presented. Secondly, USA policies aimed at halting childhood poverty will be assessed. Next, recommendations to change the situation of childhood poverty the will be outlined and evaluated. Finally, a conclusion shall show how this review and critique has answered the thesis statement. The definition of poverty as decided by the government of the USA is set by the Census Bureau and considers the income of families with children and their size, with adjustments for consumer inflation (Sherman, ). For example, a family of four is believed to be living in poverty if the family income is less than $14 335 per year; for a family of two their income would need to be less than $ 9 137 per year to be thought of as living in poverty (Sherman, , p. 1). Hence, other industrialized nations appear to have less distance between their socio-economic classes and this enables their poor to maintain a higher standard of living as compared to those in poverty in the USA. The child welfare system appears to lack