Poverty Rates Are Higher in Families With Only One Adult.

Learning Objectives

1. Describe racial/indigenous differences in the poverty rate.
2. Discuss how family structure is related to the poverty rate.
3. Explain what poverty and labor force participation data imply about the belief that many poor people lack the motivation to work.

Who are the poor? Although the official poverty charge per unit in 2010 was 15.ane pct, this rate differs by the important sociodemographic characteristics of race/ethnicity, gender, and age, and it also differs by region of the nation and by family construction. The poverty rate differences based on these variables are critical to agreement the nature and social patterning of poverty in the U.s.a.. We wait at each of these variables in plow with 2010 census data (DeNavas-Walt, et, al., 2011).

Race/Ethnicity

Here is a quick quiz; delight circle the correct respond.

• Most poor people in the United States are

  1. Black/African American
  2. Latino
  3. Native American
  4. Asian
  5. White

What did you circle? If you are like the bulk of people who reply a similar question in public opinion surveys, you would accept circled a. Blackness/African American. When Americans think about poor people, they tend to picture African Americans (White, 2007). This popular image is thought to reduce the public'south sympathy for poor people and to lead them to oppose increased government aid for the poor. The public's views on these matters are, in turn, thought to play a fundamental role in authorities poverty policy. It is thus essential for the public to have an accurate understanding of the racial/ethnic patterning of poverty.

The nigh typical poor people in the United States are non-Latino whites. These individuals incorporate 42.4 percentage of all poor Americans.

Unfortunately, the public'south racial paradigm of poor people is mistaken, as census data reveal that the most typical poor person is white (non-Latino). To be more precise, 42.four per centum of poor people are white (non-Latino), 28.vii pct are Latino, 23.1 percent are black, and 3.seven percent are Asian (meet Effigy two.2 "Racial and Ethnic Composition of the Poor, 2010 (Per centum of Poor Persons Who Belong to Each Grouping)"). Equally these figures show, non-Latino whites certainly comprise the greatest number of the American poor. Turning these percentages into numbers, they account for xix.half-dozen 1000000 of the 46.2 1000000 poor Americans.

It is too truthful, though, that race and ethnicity bear upon the chances of being poor. While only 9.9 percent of non-Latino whites are poor, 27.four per centum of African Americans, 12.i percent of Asians, and 26.vi percent of Latinos (who may exist of any race) are poor (come across Figure 2.three "Race, Ethnicity, and Poverty, 2010 (Percentage of Each Group That Is Poor)"). Thus African Americans and Latinos are almost three times as probable as not-Latino whites to be poor. (Because in that location are so many non-Latino whites in the United states, the greatest number of poor people are non-Latino white, even if the pct of whites who are poor is relatively depression.) The higher poverty rates of people of color are so striking and important that they accept been termed the "colors of poverty" (Lin & Harris, 2008)

Figure 2.2 Racial and Ethnic Limerick of the Poor, 2010 (Percent of Poor Persons Who Belong to Each Grouping) Source: Information from DeNavas-Walt, C., Proctor, B. D., & Smith, J. C. (2011).Income, poverty, and wellness insurance coverage in the United States: 2010 (Current Population Report P60-239). Washington, DC: US Demography Bureau.

Figure 2.iii Race, Ethnicity, and Poverty, 2010 (Percent of Each Grouping That Is Poor) Source: Data from DeNavas-Walt, C., Proctor, B. D., & Smith, J. C. (2011).Income, poverty, and health insurance coverage in the U.s.a.: 2010 (Current Population Report P60-239). Washington, DC: US Census Bureau.

Gender

One affair that many women know all also well is that women are more likely than men to exist poor. According to the census, 16.ii per centum of all females live in poverty, compared to but 14.0 percent of all males. These figures translate to a large gender gap in the actual number of poor people, every bit 25.2 million women and girls live in poverty, compared to only 21.0 million men and boys, for a difference of iv.2 one thousand thousand people. The high rate of female poverty is called the feminization of poverty (Republic of iceland, 2006). We volition meet additional prove of this design when nosotros expect at the department on family structure that follows.

Age

Turning to age, at any one time 22 percent of children under age eighteen are poor (amounting to 16.4 million children), a effigy that rises to almost 39 percent of African American children and 35 percent of Latino children. About 37 percentage of all children live in poverty for at least 1 year before turning 18 (Ratcliffe & McKernan, 2010). The poverty rate for US children is the highest of all wealthy democracies and in fact is 1.5 to 9 times greater than the corresponding rates in Canada and Western Europe (Mishel, et. al., 2009). As high as the US childhood poverty rate is, twice-poverty data over again paint an even more discouraging film. Children living in families with incomes below twice the official poverty level are chosen low-income children, and their families are called low-income families. Almost 44 percent of American children, or some 32.five million kids, live in such families (Addy & Wright, 2012). Most two-thirds of African American children and Latino children live in low-income families.

The poverty charge per unit for US children is the highest in the Western world.

At the other end of the age distribution, ix percent of people aged 65 or older are poor (amounting to about iii.5 million seniors). Turning effectually these historic period figures, almost 36 percent of all poor people in the United States are children, and almost 8 percent of the poor are 65 or older. Thus more than 43.4 percent of Americans living in poverty are children or the elderly.

Region

Poverty rates differ effectually the country. Some states have higher poverty rates than other states, and some counties within a state are poorer than other counties within that land. A bones way of agreement geographical differences in poverty is to examine the poverty rates of the four major regions of the nation. When we do this, the South is the poorest region, with a poverty rate of 16.9 percent. The W is next (fifteen.3 percent), followed by the Midwest (13.9 percent) and so the Northeast (12.viii percentage). The South'south high poverty rate is thought to be an important reason for the high charge per unit of illnesses and other health problems it experiences compared to the other regions (Ramshaw, 2011).

Family Structure

There are many types of family structures, including a married couple living with their children; an unmarried couple living with one or more children; a household with children headed by simply one parent, unremarkably a woman; a household with 2 adults and no children; and a household with only one developed living alone. Beyond the nation, poverty rates differ from i type of family structure to another.

Not surprisingly, poverty rates are higher in families with one adult than in those with two adults (because they often are bringing in 2 incomes), and, in ane-adult families, they are higher in families headed by a woman than in those headed by a man (because women generally have lower incomes than men). Of all families headed by just a adult female, 31.vi percent live in poverty, compared to only 15.8 percent of families headed by but a man. In contrast, only six.2 per centum of families headed past a married couple live in poverty (see Figure 2.4 "Family unit Structure and Poverty Rate (Per centum of Each Type of Construction That Lives in Poverty)"). The figure for female person-headed families provides additional prove for the feminization of poverty concept introduced earlier.

Figure ii.4 Family Structure and Poverty Rate (Per centum of Each Blazon of Structure That Lives in Poverty) Source: Data from DeNavas-Walt, C., Proctor, B. D., & Smith, J. C. (2011).Income, poverty, and health insurance coverage in the United States: 2010(Current Population Report P60-239). Washington, DC: US Census Bureau.

We saw earlier that 22 percent of American children are poor. This effigy varies according to the blazon of family construction in which the children live. Whereas only xi.6 percent of children residing with married parents alive in poverty, 46.9 percent of those living with only their mother live in poverty. This latter figure rises to 53.3 percent for African American children and 57.0 percent for Latino children (United states of america Census Bureau, 2012). Yet regardless of their race or ethnicity, children living just with their mothers are at particularly great hazard of living in poverty.

Labor Strength Status

As this chapter discusses later, many Americans think the poor are lazy and lack the motivation to piece of work and, every bit is oftentimes said, "really could work if they wanted to." However, government data on the poor testify that most poor people are, in fact, either working, unemployed but looking for work, or unable to work because of their age or wellness. Tabular array 2.1 "Poverty and Labor Force Participation, 2010" shows the relevant information. We discuss these numbers in some detail because of their importance, so please follow along advisedly.

Table 2.1 Poverty and Labor Forcefulness Participation, 2010

Total number of poor people	46,180,000
Number of poor people under historic period 18	16,401,000
Number of poor people ages 65 and older	three,521,000
Number of poor people ages 18–64	26,258,000
Number of poor people ages 18–64 who were:
Working full- or part-time	ix,053,000
Unemployed but looking for piece of work	3,616,000
Disabled	4,247,000
In the armed forces	77,000
Able-bodied simply non in the labor strength	ix,254,000

Let'south examine this table to come across the story information technology tells. Of the roughly 46.two million poor people, almost twenty million were either nether historic period xviii or at least 65. Considering of their ages, we would non await them to be working. Of the remaining 26.iii million poor adults ages 18–64, almost 17 million, or about two-thirds, brutal into one of these categories: (a) they worked full-time or office-fourth dimension, (b) they were unemployed but looking for work during a yr of very loftier unemployment due to the nation'southward unpleasing economic system, (c) they did not piece of work because of a disability, or (d) they were in the armed forces. Subtracting all these adults leaves about nine.three million able-bodied people ages 18–64.

Doing some arithmetic, we thus run across that virtually 37 million of the 46.two million poor people nosotros started with, or 80 percent, with were either working or unemployed only looking for work, too young or likewise old to work, disabled, or in the armed forces. Information technology would thus be inaccurate to describe the vast bulk of the poor equally lazy and defective the motivation to work.

What most the 9.3 million athletic poor people who are ages 18–64 but not in the labor force, who etch only 20 percent of the poor to brainstorm with? Well-nigh of them were either taking care of small children or elderly parents or other relatives, retired for health reasons, or in school (US Census Bureau, 2012); some too left the labor force out of frustration and did not wait for work (and thus were non counted officially as unemployed). Taking all these numbers and categories into account, it turns out that the percentage of poor people who "really could work if they wanted to" is rather miniscule, and the common belief that they "really could work if they wanted to" is nothing more than a myth.

People Making a Departure

Feeding "Motel Kids" Near Disneyland

But blocks from Disneyland in Anaheim, California, more than 1,000 families live in cheap motels often used past drug dealers and prostitutes. Because they cannot afford the deposit for an flat, the motels are their only alternative to homelessness. As Bruno Serato, a local Italian eating house owner, observed, "Some people are stuck, they have no money. They demand to live in that room. They've lost everything they have. They have no other choice. No choice."

Serato learned most these families back in 2005, when he saw a boy at the local Boys & Girls Gild eating a bag of potato chips as his only food for dinner. He was told that the boy lived with his family in a motel and that the Boys & Girls Gild had a "motel kids" program that collection children in vans subsequently school to their motels. Although the children got free breakfast and lunch at school, they often went hungry at night. Serato soon began serving pasta dinners to some 70 children at the club every evening, a number that had grown past spring 2011 to about 3 hundred children nightly. Serato also pays to take the children transported to the club for their dinners, and he estimates that the food and transportation cost him about $2,000 monthly. His program had served more than than 300,000 pasta dinners to motel kids by 2011.

Two of the children who eat Serato's pasta are Carlos and Anthony Gomez, 12, who live in a cabin room with the other members of their family unit. Their father was grateful for the pasta: "I no longer worry as much, about them [coming home] and there being no food. I know that they eat over there at [the] Boys & Girls Guild."

Bruno Serato is merely happy to exist helping out. "They're customers," he explains. "My favorite customers" (Toner, 2011).

For more information about Bruno Serato's efforts, visit his clemency site at www.thecaterinasclub.org.

Central Takeaways

• Although people of color have higher poverty rates than non-Latino whites, the about typical poor person in the United States is non-Latino white.
• The US childhood poverty rate is the highest of all Western democracies.
• Labor strength participation information indicate that the conventionalities that poor people lack motivation to work is in fact a myth.

For Your Review

1. Why do you think the majority of Americans presume poor people lack the motivation to work?
2. Explain to a friend how labor forcefulness participation data indicate that information technology is inaccurate to remember that poor people lack the motivation to work.

References

Addy, South., & Wright, V. R. (2012). Basic facts about low-income children, 2010. New York, NY: National Center for Children in Poverty.

DeNavas-Walt, C., Proctor, B. D., & Smith, J. C. (2011). Income, poverty, and health insurance coverage in the U.s.: 2010 (Current Population Reports, P60-298). Washington, DC: U.s. Census Bureau.

Iceland, J. (2006). Poverty in America: A handbook. Berkeley, CA: University of California Printing.

Lin, A. C., & Harris, D. R. (Eds.). (2008). The colors of poverty: Why racial and ethnic disparities persist. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

Mishel, L., Bernstein, J., & Shierholz, H. (2009). The state of working America 2008/2009. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press.

Ramshaw, E. (2011, July 10). Major wellness problems linked to poverty. New York Times, p. A21.

Ratcliffe, C., & McKernan, South.-Thou. (2010). Babyhood poverty persistence: Facts and consequences. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.

Toner, Thou. (2011, March 24). Making sure "cabin kids" don't go hungry. CNN. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/03/24/cnnheroes.serato.motel.kids/index.html.

US Census Agency . (2012). Poverty. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from http://www.demography.gov/hhes/www/cpstables/032011/pov/new02_100.htm.

US Census Bureau. (2012). Current population survey. 2012 annual social and economic supplement. Washington, DC: Author.

White, J. A. (2007). The hollow and the ghetto: Space, race, and the politics of poverty. Politics & Gender, three, 271–280.

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