Season 1, Episode 33: Poverty is Violence

That Social Work Lady

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Poverty is violence. Here are a few quick stats:

• The poverty rate in U.S. is close to 12%, meaning 1 in 8 Americans live at or below the poverty level.
• 1 in 6 children in the U.S. are living in poverty
• The poverty rate for single-mother households is 31%, meaning almost 1 in 3 single mothers live in poverty.
• 11 million children, or about 1 in 9 of all children in the U.S., live at 50 percent below the federal poverty line.
• 37% of children raised in poverty do not finish high school.
• People who do not earn a high school diploma by age 20 are 7 times more likely to be persistently poor between ages 25 and 30.
• Children who grow up impoverished complete fewer years of schooling and earn much lower income than people who did not grow up poor.
• Children who grow up poor in the U.S. are more likely to be in poor health.

It cost more to be poor in American than it would to cover the cost of health care and secondary education for every American. If that's true, and it is, why is poverty so prevalent in this country? Why won't we do the work to eradicate poverty from sea to shining sea.
Poverty exists in these United States of America because there are both political and economic structures that sustain it. That's right. Poverty is a sustained system of oppression that is reinforced by the very system we thought were created in order to eliminate or at least minimize the effects poverty has on American citizens. It costs more to keep people poor in America than it would to provide a comprehensive social safety net similar to those provided in EVERY OTHER WESTERN SOCIETY on this planet.