What comes first?
In my first post, I talked about finding and researching the steps that it will take to eliminate poverty for good. The article “Ending Childhood Poverty in America” by Marian Wright Edelman, talks about poverty affecting children in America. In this article she talks about a story of a young boy and girl. In the story the young boy goes to visit a summer food program. The girl is too young to go. After the young boy gets his only meal for the day, he makes a detour. He stops and some trash cans rummaging for food to give to his sister. This story was told to show the severity of poverty and how it affects children. By telling this story, it paints a picture in the readers head of how bad children have it when it comes to poverty.
How bad are children affected by poverty?
In this article, Marian Wright Edelman also gives statistics to show the severity of childhood poverty in America. Mary Wright Edelman is a well-respected woman for her role in the Child’s Defense Fund, and her several humanitarian awards for her work with children. Mary Wright Edelman argues that children are being affected the hardest by poverty. For example, Marian Wright Edelman writes, “More than 1 in 5 children in America (21.1%) were living in poverty in 2014, compared with 13.5% of people ages 18 to 64 years and 10% of those aged 65 years and older. Nearly 1 in 4 children younger than the age of 5 years (23.8%) are poor during some of the years of greatest brain development” (2016). In other words, children are being impacted the most. Poverty is causing children to struggle with their brain development and this will affect them their whole lives. This is important because poverty is causing children to have difficult lives despite their age. In the context of society, this means that children are struggling to enjoy their childhoods because they have to worry about when they will eat next or how they will survive. Every child deserves to have a normal childhood and as of right now, poverty is standing in the way of that happening.
Are there any solutions?
Marian Wright Edelman offers a couple solutions to ending childhood poverty in America. These solutions are important to ending childhood poverty in America. The author states two solutions that will decrease the rate of childhood poverty by a lot and also give children a good life to live. For example, Marian Wright Edelman writes, “children with access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program are more likely to finish high school and are less likely to experience obesity, stunted growth, or heart disease as adults. Children in families who benefit from the Earned Income Tax Credit have higher scores on reading and math tests, are more likely to go on to college, and have higher earnings as adults. Housing vouchers can help families move from areas of concentrated poverty to lower poverty neighborhoods and children who move before age 13 years have higher earnings as young adults. In 2014 tax credits and other safety net programs reduced child poverty by 40%” (2016). In other words, in order to end childhood poverty in America, these solutions need to happen. By moving children to better neighborhoods, it allows for children to thrive later on in life. These solutions will help slowly eliminate childhood poverty. By creating a good and healthy childhood for children, it will benefit them later in their lives.
I believe that the first step to eliminating poverty is to ending childhood poverty and doing a better job of taking care of the young so they can help the next generation not experience what they had to.
Work Cited:
Edelman, M. W. (2016). Ending childhood poverty in America. Academic Pediatrics, 16(3), 1 page
