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Helping The Poor and Needy

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Published: Sep 1, 2023

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The impact of helping others – a deep dive into the benefits of providing support to those in need.

Compassion is a virtue that ignites the flames of kindness and empathy in our hearts. It is an innate human quality that has the power to bring light into the lives of those in need. When we extend a helping hand to others, we not only uplift their spirits but also nourish our own souls. The act of kindness and compassion resonates in the depths of our being, reminding us of the interconnectedness and shared humanity we all possess.

In a world that can sometimes be filled with hardships and struggles, the power of compassion shines like a beacon of hope. It is through offering a listening ear, a comforting embrace, or a simple gesture of kindness that we can make a profound impact on someone else’s life. The ripple effect of compassion is endless, as the seeds of love and understanding we sow in others’ hearts continue to grow and flourish, spreading positivity and light wherever they go.

The Significance of Compassionate Acts

Compassionate acts have a profound impact on both the giver and the receiver. When we extend a helping hand to others in need, we not only alleviate their suffering but also experience a sense of fulfillment and purpose. Compassion fosters a sense of connection and empathy, strengthening our bonds with others and creating a more caring and supportive community.

Moreover, compassionate acts have a ripple effect, inspiring others to pay it forward and perpetuate kindness. One small act of compassion can set off a chain reaction of positive deeds, influencing the world in ways we may never fully realize. By showing compassion to others, we contribute to a more compassionate and understanding society, one that values empathy and kindness above all else.

Understanding the Impact

Helping others can have a profound impact not only on those receiving assistance but also on the individuals providing help. When we lend a hand to someone in need, we are not just offering material support; we are also showing compassion and empathy . This act of kindness can strengthen bonds between individuals and foster a sense of community .

Furthermore, helping others can boost our own well-being . Studies have shown that acts of kindness and generosity can reduce stress , improve mood , and enhance overall happiness . By giving back , we not only make a positive impact on the lives of others but also nourish our own souls .

Benefits of Helping Others

There are numerous benefits to helping others, both for the recipient and for the giver. Here are some of the key advantages:

• Increased feelings of happiness and fulfilment
• Improved mental health and well-being
• Building stronger connections and relationships with others
• Reduced stress levels and improved self-esteem
• Promoting a sense of purpose and meaning in life
• Contributing to a more compassionate and caring society

By helping others, we not only make a positive impact on the world around us but also experience personal growth and benefits that can enhance our overall happiness and well-being.

Empathy and Connection

Empathy plays a crucial role in our ability to connect with others and understand their experiences. When we practice empathy, we put ourselves in someone else’s shoes and try to see the world from their perspective. This act of compassion allows us to build a connection based on understanding and mutual respect.

By cultivating empathy, we can bridge the gap between different individuals and communities, fostering a sense of unity and solidarity. Empathy helps us recognize the humanity in others, regardless of their background or circumstances, and promotes a culture of kindness and inclusivity.

Through empathy, we not only show compassion towards those in need but also create a supportive environment where everyone feels valued and understood. It is through empathy that we can truly make a difference in the lives of others and build a more compassionate society.

Spreading Positivity Through Kindness

One of the most powerful ways to help others is by spreading positivity through acts of kindness. Kindness has the remarkable ability to brighten someone’s day, lift their spirits, and create a ripple effect of happiness in the world.

Simple gestures like giving a compliment, lending a helping hand, or sharing a smile can make a significant impact on someone’s life. These acts of kindness not only benefit the recipient but also bring a sense of fulfillment and joy to the giver.

When we choose to spread positivity through kindness, we contribute to building a more compassionate and caring society. By showing empathy and understanding towards others, we create a supportive environment where people feel valued and respected.

Kindness is contagious and has the power to inspire others to pay it forward, creating a chain reaction of goodwill and compassion. By incorporating acts of kindness into our daily lives, we can make a positive difference and help create a better world for all.

Creating a Ripple Effect

When we extend a helping hand to others, we set off a chain reaction that can have a profound impact on the world around us. Just like a stone thrown into a calm pond creates ripples that spread outward, our acts of compassion can touch the lives of many, inspiring them to do the same.

By showing kindness and empathy, we not only make a difference in the lives of those we help but also create a ripple effect that can lead to positive change in our communities and beyond. A small gesture of kindness can ignite a spark of hope in someone’s heart, motivating them to pay it forward and spread compassion to others.

Each act of generosity and care has the power to create a ripple effect that can ripple outwards, reaching far beyond our immediate circles. As more and more people join in this chain of kindness, the impact multiplies, creating a wave of positivity that can transform the world one small act of kindness at a time.

Building a Stronger Community

One of the key benefits of helping others is the positive impact it can have on building a stronger community. When individuals come together to support one another, whether it’s through acts of kindness, volunteering, or simply being there for someone in need, it fosters a sense of unity and connection. This sense of community helps to create a supportive and caring environment where people feel valued and respected.

By helping others, we also set an example for those around us, inspiring others to also lend a hand and contribute to the well-being of the community. This ripple effect can lead to a chain reaction of kindness and generosity that can ultimately make the community a better place for everyone.

Furthermore, when people feel supported and cared for by their community, they are more likely to be happier and healthier, both mentally and physically. This sense of belonging and connection can help to reduce feelings of isolation and loneliness, and can improve overall well-being.

In conclusion, building a stronger community through helping others is essential for creating a more positive and caring society. By coming together and supporting one another, we can create a community that is resilient, compassionate, and unified.

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Essay on Helping the Poor

Students are often asked to write an essay on Helping the Poor in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Helping the Poor

Understanding poverty.

Poverty is a global issue. Many people worldwide live under challenging conditions and struggle daily to meet basic needs.

Why Help the Poor?

Helping the poor is important. It’s about compassion, empathy, and making the world a better place. It helps reduce inequality and suffering.

Ways to Help

There are many ways to help. Donating money, food, or clothes can make a big difference. Volunteering time to community service or teaching skills also helps.

Impact of Helping

Helping the poor not only improves their lives but also makes us feel good. It promotes love, unity, and peace in society.

250 Words Essay on Helping the Poor

Introduction, the importance of empathy.

The first step towards helping the poor is cultivating empathy. Empathy allows us to understand the challenges faced by the less fortunate, thereby enabling us to devise effective solutions. It is not about pity; it’s about acknowledging their struggles and working towards alleviating them.

Education: The Key to Change

Education is a powerful weapon in the fight against poverty. By providing quality education to the underprivileged, we equip them with the tools to break the cycle of poverty. It fosters self-reliance, opening doors to better job opportunities and a brighter future.

Creating Sustainable Systems

Merely providing aid is not a sustainable solution. We need to create systems that promote equality and provide the poor with the resources they need to improve their circumstances. This includes access to healthcare, clean water, and affordable housing.

Helping the poor is not a one-time act, but a continuous process that requires collective effort. It is about creating a society where every individual has an equal shot at success. By fostering empathy, promoting education, and implementing sustainable systems, we can make a significant difference in the lives of the less fortunate.

500 Words Essay on Helping the Poor

Helping the poor is not just a moral obligation, but a societal necessity that promotes overall societal growth and development. It is a topic that deserves serious attention, especially in an era where wealth inequality is at its peak.

The Moral Imperative

Economic perspective.

From an economic perspective, helping the poor can stimulate economic growth. The poor, when given the right resources and opportunities, can contribute positively to the economy. They can become consumers, producers, and even innovators, thus driving economic growth. This concept is also known as ‘inclusive growth’, which suggests that including everyone in economic development is beneficial for the economy as a whole.

Social Cohesion

Helping the poor also enhances social cohesion. In societies with high levels of poverty, there is often a corresponding increase in social unrest and crime. By addressing poverty, we can reduce these negative social phenomena, thus fostering peace and unity in the society.

Challenges and Solutions

Secondly, there is the issue of corruption and mismanagement of funds meant for the poor. This can be mitigated by promoting transparency and accountability in the distribution of aid.

In conclusion, helping the poor is a multifaceted issue that involves moral, economic, and social aspects. It is not just about giving handouts, but about empowering the poor to rise above their situation. By addressing the challenges and implementing effective strategies, we can make a significant difference in the lives of the poor and, by extension, the society at large.

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

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Confronting Poverty

Why is it important to reduce poverty, shorter life expectancy.

The result is a death rate for the poverty-stricken between the ages of 25 and 64 that is approximately three times higher than that for the affluent within the same age range, and a life expectancy that is considerably shorter. For example, Americans in the top 5 percent of the income distribution can expect to live approximately 9 years longer than those in the bottom 10 percent. As health expert Nancy Leidenfrost writes in her review of the literature, “Health disparities between the poor and those with higher incomes are almost universal for all dimensions of health.”

However, what we have failed to recognize is that poverty also places enormous economic, social, and psychological costs on the nonpoor as well. These costs affect us both individually and as a nation, although we have been slow to recognize them. Too often the attitude has been, “I don’t see how I’m affected, so why worry about it?”

Poverty Affects Us All

Yet the issues that many Americans are in fact deeply concerned about, such as crime, access to and affordability of health care, race relations, and worker productivity, to name but a few, are directly affected and exacerbated by the condition of poverty. As a result, the general public winds up paying a heavy price for allowing poverty to walk in our midst. A report by the Children’s Defense Fund on the costs of childhood poverty makes this strikingly clear,

The children who suffer poverty’s effects are not its only victims. When children do not succeed as adults, all of society pays the price: businesses are able to find fewer good workers, consumers pay more for their goods, hospitals and health insurers spend more treating preventable illnesses, teachers spend more time on remediation and special education, private citizens feel less safe on the streets, governors hire more prison guards, mayors must pay to shelter homeless families, judges must hear more criminal, domestic, and other cases, taxpayers pay for problems that could have been prevented, fire and medical workers must respond to emergencies that never should have happened, and funeral directors must bury children who never should have died.

When we speak of homeland security, these are the issues that truly undermine us and our security as a nation.

Quantifying the Costs

There have been several attempts to quantify the cost of poverty in terms of a monetary amount. However, the ability to estimate the magnitude of the costs surrounding an issue such as poverty is exceedingly complex. Nevertheless, in a recent study by Michael McLaughlin and Mark Rank, the researchers estimated the expense of childhood poverty with respect to increased health care costs, criminal justice costs, and costs associated with reduced productivity and economic output. McLaughlin and Rank calculated that the overall economic price tag of childhood poverty in the U.S. totaled approximately 1 trillion dollars a year, or 28 percent of the entire federal budget in 2015.

Suffice it to say that poverty exacts a high toll upon both the poor and the nonpoor in our country. In your thinking and discussions of poverty, what are some of the other reasons that may be important for reducing poverty? One line of thinking is to explore and consider the concepts of social justice and fairness with respect to poverty. Is the condition of poverty just? Why or why not? What about childhood poverty or poverty amongst the elderly? Is impoverishment among these groups fair? Should Americans who work full-time still be mired in poverty? Why or why not? There are many approaches to thinking about why reducing poverty is important.

Why poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

Research Investigator of Psychiatry, Public Health, and Poverty Solutions, University of Michigan

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As the Senate prepares to modify its version of the health care bill, now is a good time to back up and examine why we as a nation are so divided about providing health care, especially to the poor.

I believe one reason the United States is cutting spending on health insurance and safety nets that protect poor and marginalized people is because of American culture, which overemphasizes individual responsibility. Our culture does this to the point that it ignores the effect of root causes shaped by society and beyond the control of the individual. How laypeople define and attribute poverty may not be that much different from the way U.S. policymakers in the Senate see poverty.

As someone who studies poverty solutions and social and health inequalities, I am convinced by the academic literature that the biggest reason for poverty is how a society is structured. Without structural changes, it may be very difficult if not impossible to eliminate disparities and poverty.

Social structure

About 13.5 percent of Americans are living in poverty. Many of these people do not have insurance, and efforts to help them gain insurance, be it through Medicaid or private insurance, have been stymied. Medicaid provides insurance for the disabled, people in nursing homes and the poor.

Four states recently asked the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for permission to require Medicaid recipients in their states who are not disabled or elderly to work.

This request is reflective of the fact that many Americans believe that poverty is, by and large, the result of laziness , immorality and irresponsibility.

In fact, poverty and other social miseries are in large part due to social structure , which is how society functions at a macro level. Some societal issues, such as racism, sexism and segregation, constantly cause disparities in education, employment and income for marginalized groups. The majority group naturally has a head start, relative to groups that deal with a wide range of societal barriers on a daily basis. This is what I mean by structural causes of poverty and inequality.

Poverty: Not just a state of mind

We have all heard that the poor and minorities need only make better choices – work hard, stay in school, get married, do not have children before they can afford them. If they did all this, they wouldn’t be poor.

Just a few weeks ago, Housing Secretary Ben Carson called poverty “ a state of mind .” At the same time, his budget to help low-income households could be cut by more than US$6 billion next year.

This is an example of a simplistic view toward the complex social phenomenon. It is minimizing the impact of a societal issue caused by structure – macro‐level labor market and societal conditions – on individuals’ behavior. Such claims also ignore a large body of sociological science.

American independence

Americans have one of the most independent cultures on Earth. A majority of Americans define people in terms of internal attributes such as choices , abilities, values, preferences, decisions and traits.

This is very different from interdependent cultures , such as eastern Asian countries where people are seen mainly in terms of their environment, context and relationships with others.

A direct consequence of independent mindsets and cognitive models is that one may ignore all the historical and environmental conditions, such as slavery, segregation and discrimination against women, that contribute to certain outcomes. When we ignore the historical context, it is easier to instead attribute an unfavorable outcome, such as poverty, to the person.

Views shaped by politics

Many Americans view poverty as an individual phenomenon and say that it’s primarily their own fault that people are poor. The alternative view is that poverty is a structural phenomenon. From this viewpoint, people are in poverty because they find themselves in holes in the economic system that deliver them inadequate income.

The fact is that people move in and out of poverty. Research has shown that 45 percent of poverty spells last no more than a year, 70 percent last no more than three years and only 12 percent stretch beyond a decade.

The Panel Study of Income Dynamics ( PSID ), a 50-year longitudinal study of 18,000 Americans, has shown that around four in 10 adults experience an entire year of poverty from the ages of 25 to 60. The last Survey of Income and Program Participation ( SIPP ), a longitudinal survey conducted by the U.S. Census, had about one-third of Americans in episodic poverty at some point in a three-year period, but just 3.5 percent in episodic poverty for all three years.

Why calling the poor ‘lazy’ is victim blaming

If one believes that poverty is related to historical and environmental events and not just to an individual, we should be careful about blaming the poor for their fates.

Victim blaming occurs when the victim of a crime or any wrongful act is held entirely or partially responsible for the harm that befell them. It is a common psychological and societal phenomenon. Victimology has shown that humans have a tendency to perceive victims at least partially responsible . This is true even in rape cases, where there is a considerable tendency to blame victims and is true particularly if the victim and perpetrator know each other.

I believe all our lives could be improved if we considered the structural influences as root causes of social problems such as poverty and inequality. Perhaps then, we could more easily agree on solutions.

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• Health disparities
• Health gaps
• US Senate health care bill
• US health care reform

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7 Essays About Poverty: Example Essays and Prompts

Essays about poverty give valuable insight into the economic situation that we share globally. Read our guide with poverty essay examples and prompts for your paper.

In the US, the official poverty rate in 2022 was 11.5 percent, with 37.9 million people living below the poverty line. With a global pandemic, cost of living crisis, and climate change on the rise, we’ve seen poverty increase due to various factors. As many of us face adversity daily, we can look to essays about poverty from some of the world’s greatest speakers for inspiration and guidance.

There is nothing but a lack of social vision to prevent us from paying an adequate wage to every American citizen whether he be a hospital worker, laundry worker, maid or day laborer. There is nothing except shortsightedness to prevent us from guaranteeing an annual minimum—and livable—income for every American family. Martin Luther King Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?

Writing a poverty essay can be challenging due to the many factors contributing to poverty and the knock-on effects of living below the poverty line . For example, homelessness among low-income individuals stems from many different causes.

It’s important to note that poverty exists beyond the US, with many developing countries living in extreme poverty without access to essentials like clean water and housing. For help with your essays, check out our round-up of the best essay checkers .

Essays About Poverty: Top Examples

1. pensioner poverty: fear of rise over decades as uk under-40s wealth falls, 2. the surprising poverty levels across the u.s., 3. why poverty persists in america, 4. post-pandemic poverty is rising in america’s suburbs.

• 5. The Basic Facts About Children in Poverty
• 6. The State of America’s Children 
• 7. COVID-19: This is how many Americans now live below the poverty line

10 Poverty Essay Topics

1. the causes of poverty, 2. the negative effects of poverty, 3. how countries can reduce poverty rates, 4. the basic necessities and poverty, 5. how disabilities can lead to poverty, 6. how the cycle of poverty unfolds , 7. universal basic income and its relationship to poverty, 8. interview someone who has experience living in poverty, 9. the impact of the criminal justice system on poverty, 10. the different ways to create affordable housing.

There is growing concern about increasing pensioner poverty in the UK in the coming decades. Due to financial challenges like the cost of living crisis, rent increases, and the COVID-19 pandemic, under 40s have seen their finances shrink.

Osborne discusses the housing wealth gap in this article, where many under the 40s currently pay less in a pension due to rent prices. While this means they will have less pension available, they will also retire without owning a home, resulting in less personal wealth than previous generations. Osborne delves into the causes and gaps in wealth between generations in this in-depth essay.

“Those under-40s have already been identified as  facing the biggest hit from rising mortgage rates , and last week a study by the financial advice firm Hargreaves Lansdown found that almost a third of 18- to 34-year-olds had stopped or cut back on their pension contributions in order to save money.” Hilary Osborne,  The Guardian

In this 2023 essay, Jeremy Ney looks at the poverty levels across the US, stating that poverty has had the largest one-year increase in history. According to the most recent census, child poverty has more than doubled from 2021 to 2022.

Ney states that the expiration of government support and inflation has created new financial challenges for US families. With the increased cost of living and essential items like food and housing sharply increasing, more and more families have fallen below the poverty line. Throughout this essay, Ney displays statistics and data showing the wealth changes across states, ethnic groups, and households.

“Poverty in America reflects the inequality that plagues U.S. households. While certain regions have endured this pain much more than others, this new rising trend may spell ongoing challenges for even more communities.” Jeremy Ney,  TIME

In this New York Times article, a Pulitzer Prize-winning sociologist explores why poverty exists in North America.

The American poor have access to cheap, mass-produced goods, as every American does. But that doesn’t mean they can access what matters most. Matthew Desmond,  The New York Times

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released its annual data on poverty, revealing contrasting trends for 2022. While one set of findings indicated that the overall number of Americans living in poverty remained stable compared to the previous two years, another survey highlighted a concerning increase in child poverty. The rate of child poverty in the U.S. doubled from 2021 to 2022, a spike attributed mainly to the cessation of the expanded child tax credit following the pandemic. These varied outcomes underscore the Census Bureau’s multifaceted methods to measure poverty.

“The nation’s suburbs accounted for the majority of increases in the poor population following the onset of the pandemic” Elizabeth Kneebone and Alan Berube,  Brookings

5.  The Basic Facts About Children in Poverty

Nearly 11 million children are living in poverty in America. This essay explores ow the crisis reached this point—and what steps must be taken to solve it.

“In America, nearly 11 million children are poor. That’s 1 in 7 kids, who make up almost one-third of all people living in poverty in this country.” Areeba Haider,  Center for American Progress

6.  The State of America’s Children  

This essay articles how, despite advancements, children continue to be the most impoverished demographic in the U.S., with particular subgroups — such as children of color, those under five, offspring of single mothers, and children residing in the South — facing the most severe poverty levels.

“Growing up in poverty has wide-ranging, sometimes lifelong, effects on children, putting them at a much higher risk of experiencing behavioral, social, emotional, and health challenges. Childhood poverty also plays an instrumental role in impairing a child’s ability and capacity to learn, build skills, and succeed academically.” Children’s Defense Fund

7.  COVID-19: This is how many Americans now live below the poverty line

This essay explores how the economic repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic 2020 led to a surge in U.S. poverty rates, with unemployment figures reaching unprecedented heights. The writer provides data confirming that individuals at the lowest economic strata bore the brunt of these challenges, indicating that the recession might have exacerbated income disparities, further widening the chasm between the affluent and the underprivileged.

“Poverty in the U.S. increased in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic hammered the economy and unemployment soared. Those at the bottom of the economic ladder were hit hardest, new figures confirm, suggesting that the recession may have widened the gap between the rich and the poor.” Elena Delavega,  World Econmic Forum

If you’re tasked with writing an essay about poverty, consider using the below topics. They offer pointers for outlining and planning an essay about this challenging topic.

One of the most specific poverty essay topics to address involves the causes of poverty. You can craft an essay to examine the most common causes of extreme poverty. Here are a few topics you might want to include:

• Racial discrimination, particularly among African Americans, has been a common cause of poverty throughout American history. Discrimination and racism can make it hard for people to get the education they need, making it nearly impossible to get a job.
• A lack of access to adequate health care can also lead to poverty. When people do not have access to healthcare, they are more likely to get sick. This could make it hard for them to go to work while also leading to major medical bills.
• Inadequate food and water can lead to poverty as well. If people’s basic needs aren’t met, they focus on finding food and water instead of getting an education they can use to find a better job.

These are just a few of the most common causes of poverty you might want to highlight in your essay. These topics could help people see why some people are more likely to become impoverished than others. You might also be interested in these essays about poverty .

Poverty affects everyone, and the impacts of an impoverished lifestyle are very real. Furthermore, the disparities when comparing adult poverty to child poverty are also significant. This opens the doors to multiple possible essay topics. Here are a few points to include:

• When children live in poverty, their development is stunted. For example, they might not be able to get to school on time due to a lack of transportation, making it hard for them to keep up with their peers. Child poverty also leads to malnutrition, which can stunt their development.
• Poverty can impact familial relationships as well. For example, members of the same family could fight for limited resources, making it hard for family members to bond. In addition, malnutrition can stunt the growth of children.
• As a side effect of poverty, people have difficulty finding a safe place to live. This creates a challenging environment for everyone involved, and it is even harder for children to grow and develop.
• When poverty leads to homelessness, it is hard for someone to get a job. They don’t have an address to use for physical communication, which leads to employment concerns.

These are just a few of the many side effects of poverty. Of course, these impacts are felt by people across the board, but it is not unusual for children to feel the effects of poverty that much more. You might also be interested in these essays about unemployment .

Different countries take different approaches to reduce the number of people living in poverty

The issue of poverty is a major human rights concern, and many countries explore poverty reduction strategies to improve people’s quality of life. You might want to examine different strategies that different countries are taking while also suggesting how some countries can do more. A few ways to write this essay include:

• Explore the poverty level in America, comparing it to the poverty level of a European country. Then, explore why different countries take different strategies.
• Compare the minimum wage in one state, such as New York, to the minimum wage in another state, such as Alabama. Why is it higher in one state? What does raising the minimum wage do to the cost of living?
• Highlight a few advocacy groups and nonprofit organizations actively lobbying their governments to do more for low-income families. Then, talk about why some efforts are more successful than others.

Different countries take different approaches to reduce the number of people living in poverty. Poverty within each country is such a broad topic that you could write a different essay on how poverty could be decreased within the country. For more, check out our list of simple essays topics for intermediate writers .

You could also write an essay on the necessities people need to survive. You could take a look at information published by the United Nations , which focuses on getting people out of the cycle of poverty across the globe. The social problem of poverty can be addressed by giving people the necessities they need to survive, particularly in rural areas. Here are some of the areas you might want to include:

• Affordable housing
• Fresh, healthy food and clean water
• Access to an affordable education
• Access to affordable healthcare

Giving everyone these necessities could significantly improve their well-being and get people out of absolute poverty. You might even want to talk about whether these necessities vary depending on where someone is living.

There are a lot of medical and social issues that contribute to poverty, and you could write about how disabilities contribute to poverty. This is one of the most important essay topics because people could be disabled through no fault of their own. Some of the issues you might want to address in this essay include:

• Talk about the road someone faces if they become disabled while serving overseas. What is it like for people to apply for benefits through the Veterans’ Administration?
• Discuss what happens if someone becomes disabled while at work. What is it like for someone to pursue disability benefits if they are hurt doing a blue-collar job instead of a desk job?
• Research and discuss the experiences of disabled people and how their disability impacts their financial situation.

People who are disabled need to have money to survive for many reasons, such as the inability to work, limitations at home, and medical expenses. A lack of money, in this situation, can lead to a dangerous cycle that can make it hard for someone to be financially stable and live a comfortable lifestyle.

Many people talk about the cycle of poverty, yet many aren’t entirely sure what this means or what it entails. A few key points you should address in this essay include:

• When someone is born into poverty, income inequality can make it hard to get an education.
• A lack of education makes it hard for someone to get into a good school, which gives them the foundation they need to compete for a good job. 
• A lack of money can make it hard for someone to afford college, even if they get into a good school.
• Without attending a good college, it can be hard for someone to get a good job. This makes it hard for someone to support themselves or their families. 
• Without a good paycheck, it is nearly impossible for someone to keep their children out of poverty, limiting upward mobility into the middle class.

The problem of poverty is a positive feedback loop. It can be nearly impossible for those who live this every day to escape. Therefore, you might want to explore a few initiatives that could break the cycle of world poverty and explore other measures that could break this feedback loop.

Many business people and politicians have floated the idea of a universal basic income to give people the basic resources they need to survive. While this hasn’t gotten a lot of serious traction, you could write an essay to shed light on this idea. A few points to hit on include:

• What does a universal basic income mean, and how is it distributed?
• Some people are concerned about the impact this would have on taxes. How would this be paid for?
• What is the minimum amount of money someone would need to stay out of poverty? Is it different in different areas?
• What are a few of the biggest reasons major world governments haven’t passed this?

This is one of the best essay examples because it gives you a lot of room to be creative. However, there hasn’t been a concrete structure for implementing this plan, so you might want to afford one.

Another interesting topic you might want to explore is interviewing someone living in poverty or who has been impoverished. While you can talk about statistics all day, they won’t be as powerful as interviewing someone who has lived that life. A few questions you might want to ask during your interview include:

• What was it like growing up?
• How has living in poverty made it hard for you to get a job?
• What do you feel people misunderstand about those who live in poverty?
• When you need to find a meal, do you have a place you go to? Or is it somewhere different every day?
• What do you think is the main contributor to people living in poverty?

Remember that you can also craft different questions depending on your responses. You might want to let the interviewee read the essay when you are done to ensure all the information is accurate and correct.

The criminal justice system and poverty tend to go hand in hand. People with criminal records are more likely to be impoverished for several reasons. You might want to write an essay that hits on some of these points:

• Discuss the discriminatory practices of the criminal justice system both as they relate to socioeconomic status and as they relate to race.
• Explore just how hard it is for someone to get a job if they have a criminal record. Discuss how this might contribute to a life of poverty.
• Dive into how this creates a positive feedback loop. For example, when someone cannot get a job due to a criminal record, they might have to steal to survive, which worsens the issue.
• Review what the criminal justice system might be like for someone with resources when compared to someone who cannot afford to hire expert witnesses or pay for a good attorney.

You might want to include a few examples of disparate sentences for people in different socioeconomic situations to back up your points. 

Affordable housing can make a major difference when someone is trying to escape poverty

Many poverty-related problems could be reduced if people had access to affordable housing. While the cost of housing has increased dramatically in the United States , some initiatives exist to create affordable housing. Here are a few points to include:

• Talk about public programs that offer affordable housing to people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
• Discuss private programs, such as Habitat for Humanity , doing similar things.
• Review the positive impacts that stable housing has on both adults and children.
• Dive into other measures local and federal governments could take to provide more affordable housing for people.

There are a lot of political and social angles to address with this essay, so you might want to consider spreading this out across multiple papers. Affordable housing can make a major difference when trying to escape poverty. If you want to learn more, check out our essay writing tips !

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Thinking About Poverty Part 3: Helping the Poor — A Critical Analysis of Poverty Policy in Canada

This paper is a critical analysis of formal policies and programs designed to help people who live in poverty. It is really important for readers to understand that this paper does not propose alternatives (that comes in the final essay in this series) nor does it endorse any existing policies. It is simply evaluative. The focus of this essay is on government policies and programs and specifically those that intentionally target the poor. The question we repeatedly ask here is whether government help is really helping. While redistributive programs no doubt bump some households up over the poverty line, which will reduce measured poverty, is that the solution to poverty? Or do we want the same thing for the poor that we want for ourselves? Namely, a strong, independent life and the personal satisfaction that we are contributing, participating members of our community—on both the production and consumption side of the economic equation.

The OAS grant, originally means-tested and provided to low-income seniors over 70, was changed over the years to be a universal demogrant for seniors over 65 but with a clawback at a relatively high income level. Since most of the OAS grant funds go to non-poor seniors, it can no longer be considered as targeted to the poor. However, under the OAS administrative umbrella, we have the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) for seniors and the Spouses Allowance (SPA) for spouses of GIS recipients. These are definitely targeted to low-income seniors based on the previous year’s income tax return. So that part of the OAS program would clearly bump a number of senior households up over the poverty line and thereby reduce measured poverty. But that is only 24 percent of the overall OAS expenditures. The bulk of OAS, the OAS grant itself, mainly goes to non-poor senior households. Regrettably, the data is not there to determine to what extent the OAS grant is predominantly a shuffling of monies between middle-income households.

One concern with the GIS and SPA is the extent to which they affect the savings rate for employed persons, especially those with average or below average incomes. Within a range of incomes, there may be little incentive to save for retirement if the GIS/SPA component of OAS will make up the difference in any case. In general, while some kind of insurance is needed in case the worst happens, there is the question as to whether this is the most efficient and effective way to accomplish that.

During the 1970s, government officials in Canada declared that housing is a basic “right” for all Canadians and they got involved in helping lower-income households obtain affordable housing. Since that time, we have had persistent shortages of subsidized housing and a chronic lack of affordable housing—both for owner-occupied and rental housing. Indeed, there is a case to be made that, in the area of affordable housing, government “help” may actually be making the problem worse. Social housing has become synonymous with many of the pathologies of urban life—crime, drug abuse, violence, unstable families, and despondency. As well, there are unacceptably long waiting lists for these rent-geared-to-income units. An Ontario auditor report states that the Province does a poor job of transitioning public housing recipients into employment and market housing. The way the system is structured, the auditor argues, provides little incentive for recipients to become self reliant. The biggest problem in the area of housing is on the supply side, as various government restrictions and regulations prevent new housing from being constructed where it is most needed.

Social assistance (or welfare) is regarded as the quintessential example of government helping the poor. The main concern of economists is that the way the welfare system is structured, employment (at least for modest wage jobs) is not an attractive alternative. So financial dependency is identified as a critical problem. More than that, however, is the longer-term damage done to people’s sense of self-worth and of being contributing members of society. As one prominent US social scientist has noted, “The black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and discrimination, began rapidly disintegrating in the liberal welfare state that subsidized unwed pregnancy and changed welfare from an emergency rescue to a way of life.” Review after review (including Auditor reports) have stressed that “pathways to employment” be the centrepiece of a reformed system of helping the poor. Many observers remain pessimistic that systems will change because of the strong vested interests in maintaining the status quo. Many politicians, activists, and especially, well paid bureaucrats benefit from the prevailing structures.

For all of their emphasis, in recent years, on the importance of participation, dignity, and inclusion for poor people, the social justice community seems to have seriously misunderstood what these terms really mean. By focussing solely on people’s role as consumers they have fundamentally shortchanged the poor. How inclusive is it when almost everyone around you is employed (is a producer) and you are not? How does enduring dependency foster self-esteem and dignity of the person? Real participation in society involves making a contribution to the economic production of a society—something that many ignore or even discourage.

The poor are not well-served by policies and programs that disregard the critical role that employment plays in their long-term well-being. The prevailing welfare system in Canada is simply not helpful. The challenge is to find creative alternatives that reward work and help disadvantaged people become real participants in their communities. The real solution to poverty is, then, not merely finding ways to bump people over the line but rather to help people become self-sustaining so that they can pull themselves out of poverty. More on that in the next essay.

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Hardin and Singer’s Arguments about Helping the Poor Opinion Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

The Singer Solution to World Poverty

Lifeboat ethics: the case against helping the poor.

This essay provides a critical look at views that have been presented by Garrett Hardin and Peter Singer on the subject of helping the poor people. The two authors express totally different views about how to deal with those who are poor. I will discuss the claims made by both writers and then conclude by giving my personal stand regarding the claims made by these two writers.

Garret Singer attempts to draw readers’ attention to the fact that it is critical for people to take individual responsibility to assist those who are in need.

He makes a claim that some people are born into poverty while others end up in a state of poverty because choices made in life and that are responsible for placing them where they are. In his explanations, Singer chooses to focus more on those born into poverty rather than those who find themselves in poverty as a result of wrong choices made in the past.

In his argument about taking individual responsibility, Singer points out that those who are wealthy in the society have a noble task to make a contribution to the welfare of the disadvantaged people. However, he recommends that as the wealthier people do what they can to help the poor, they should provide as much as they are able to while being careful not to put themselves in a state of need.

Singer also makes an emotional appeal to the wealthier individuals to consider the fact that the poor can not help themselves and as such, they must help them as a moral duty.

He claims that by making a commitment to give whatever amount of money one chooses to give per day to the course of the poor, it is possible to enable those in the community who happen to be in sincere state of need to live much longer than they would otherwise do.

Hardin on the other hand, is strongly convinced that the best way to help the poor people is by training or showing them how to make wise decisions that will help them to live well. Given that the population growth of the poor is much higher than that of the rich, helping them will also make their state of poverty to get worse.

He claims that giving money to the poor is not the wrong approach to addressing their problems and supports this by saying that those who give money to the poor only help to make their situations even worse. Even though the intentions of the individual helping the poor may be good, the outcome could be very devastating. In the end, rather than saving some of the poor people from their predicaments, more problems will be created.

Further to the above claims, Hardin is also of the opinion that the rich are where they are because of their hard work and good decisions they have made in life. His recommendation is that rather than just dishing out handouts, the rich should take it upon themselves to teach the poor how to make the right decisions and progress in life.

Hardin is very much against the idea of giving out money to the poor and claims that such acts can not offer a lasting solution to that will enable the poor escape poverty. Even though the rich may be able to help the poor by giving out them money, the help may not last long and the poor will remain in a perpetual state of poverty.

As a result, their future lives will not improve and they will continue with their usual struggles. On the contrary, if the poor are taught how to come out of poverty and they succeed, a lasting solution will have been found and their lives will end up being much better.

First of all, I believe that it is always important to treat others the way I would want to be treated if I were in a similar situation. Like Singer I am a believer of the fact that if one person can help another, he or she should not hesitate to do so. After all, helping other people always brings some sense of joy to the person offering the helping.

However, I also believe that if the person or people being helped are doing nothing to come out of their poor state, it is worthless trying to assist them time and again. In a way, this also supports the claims made by Hardin. I see no need of wasting time trying to get people out of trouble if they can not see the need to look for a solution to their own problems.

Although I often feel compelled to respond in a needy situation, I am also of the opinion that I can only do so much and expect the person receiving help to do something to change his or her situation.

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IvyPanda. (2019, July 3). Hardin and Singer’s Arguments about Helping the Poor. https://ivypanda.com/essays/hardin-and-singers-arguments-about-helping-the-poor/

"Hardin and Singer’s Arguments about Helping the Poor." IvyPanda , 3 July 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/hardin-and-singers-arguments-about-helping-the-poor/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'Hardin and Singer’s Arguments about Helping the Poor'. 3 July.

IvyPanda . 2019. "Hardin and Singer’s Arguments about Helping the Poor." July 3, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/hardin-and-singers-arguments-about-helping-the-poor/.

1. IvyPanda . "Hardin and Singer’s Arguments about Helping the Poor." July 3, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/hardin-and-singers-arguments-about-helping-the-poor/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Hardin and Singer’s Arguments about Helping the Poor." July 3, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/hardin-and-singers-arguments-about-helping-the-poor/.

5 Essays About Poverty Everyone Should Know

Poverty is one of the driving forces of inequality in the world. Between 1990-2015, much progress was made. The number of people living on less than $1.90 went from 36% to 10%. However, according to the World Bank , the COVID-19 pandemic represents a serious problem that disproportionately impacts the poor. Research released in February of 2020 shows that by 2030, up to ⅔ of the “global extreme poor” will be living in conflict-affected and fragile economies. Poverty will remain a major human rights issue for decades to come. Here are five essays about the issue that everyone should know:

“We need an economic bill of rights” –  Martin Luther King Jr.

The Guardian published an abridged version of this essay in 2018, which was originally released in Look magazine just after Dr. King was killed. In this piece, Dr. King explains why an economic bill of rights is necessary. He points out that while mass unemployment within the black community is a “social problem,” it’s a “depression” in the white community. An economic bill of rights would give a job to everyone who wants one and who can work. It would also give an income to those who can’t work. Dr. King affirms his commitment to non-violence. He’s fully aware that tensions are high. He quotes a spiritual, writing “timing is winding up.” Even while the nation progresses, poverty is getting worse.

This essay was reprinted and abridged in The Guardian in an arrangement with The Heirs to the Estate of Martin Luther King. Jr. The most visible representative of the Civil Rights Movement beginning in 1955, Dr. King was assassinated in 1968. His essays and speeches remain timely.

“How Poverty Can Follow Children Into Adulthood” – Priyanka Boghani

This article is from 2017, but it’s more relevant than ever because it was written when 2012 was the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. That’s no longer the case. In 2012, around ¼ American children were in poverty. Five years later, children were still more likely than adults to be poor. This is especially true for children of colour. Consequences of poverty include anxiety, hunger, and homelessness. This essay also looks at the long-term consequences that come from growing up in poverty. A child can develop health problems that affect them in adulthood. Poverty can also harm a child’s brain development. Being aware of how poverty affects children and follows them into adulthood is essential as the world deals with the economic fallout from the pandemic.

Priyanka Boghani is a journalist at PBS Frontline. She focuses on U.S. foreign policy, humanitarian crises, and conflicts in the Middle East. She also assists in managing Frontline’s social accounts.

“5 Reasons COVID-19 Will Impact the Fight to End Extreme Poverty” – Leah Rodriguez

For decades, the UN has attempted to end extreme poverty. In the face of the novel coronavirus outbreak, new challenges threaten the fight against poverty. In this essay, Dr. Natalie Linos, a Harvard social epidemiologist, urges the world to have a “social conversation” about how the disease impacts poverty and inequality. If nothing is done, it’s unlikely that the UN will meet its Global Goals by 2030. Poverty and COVID-19 intersect in five key ways. For one, low-income people are more vulnerable to disease. They also don’t have equal access to healthcare or job stability. This piece provides a clear, concise summary of why this outbreak is especially concerning for the global poor.

Leah Rodriguez’s writing at Global Citizen focuses on women, girls, water, and sanitation. She’s also worked as a web producer and homepage editor for New York Magazine’s The Cut.

“Climate apartheid”: World’s poor to suffer most from disasters” – Al Jazeera and news Agencies

The consequences of climate change are well-known to experts like Philip Alston, the special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. In 2019, he submitted a report to the UN Human Rights Council sounding the alarm on how climate change will devastate the poor. While the wealthy will be able to pay their way out of devastation, the poor will not. This will end up creating a “climate apartheid.” Alston states that if climate change isn’t addressed, it will undo the last five decades of progress in poverty education, as well as global health and development .

“Nickel and Dimed: On (not) getting by in America” – Barbara Ehrenreich

In this excerpt from her book Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich describes her experience choosing to live undercover as an “unskilled worker” in the US. She wanted to investigate the impact the 1996 welfare reform act had on the working poor. Released in 2001, the events take place between the spring of 1998 and the summer of 2000. Ehrenreich decided to live in a town close to her “real life” and finds a place to live and a job. She has her eyes opened to the challenges and “special costs” of being poor. In 2019, The Guardian ranked the book 13th on their list of 100 best books of the 21st century.

Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of 21 books and an activist. She’s worked as an award-winning columnist and essayist.

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About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

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Six benefits of literacy in the fight against poverty

Aug 27, 2020

Literacy, as part of education, is a fundamental human right. Yet there are, according to UNESCO, 781 million illiterate adults (over the age of 15) around the globe. Over 63% of those adults are women. In countries like Niger, literacy rates are as low as 24%.

Fundamental human rights are just that — fundamental. These figures are also important because literacy (and numeracy) is one of the key solutions to ending poverty . As former UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova said in 2015: “The future starts with the alphabet.”

"The future starts with the alphabet." — Irina Bokova, former UNESCO Director-General

Here are 6 benefits of literacy as a tool for breaking the cycle of poverty .

Learn more about our work in education

1. literacy improves health.

Growing research shows positive correlations between adult literacy and lower infant mortality rates. A 2002 study in Bolivia showed that women who attended a literacy program were more likely to seek medical help for themselves and their children when needed. They were also more likely to adopt more preventive health measures, like immunization. A similar study in Nepal connected increased literacy to attitude shifts around family planning.

Literate patients also have an easier time following instructions from their doctors, and literacy is a key benefit during a health crisis. During the West African Ebola epidemic and the major Ebola outbreak in the DRC , being able to read meant the difference between life and death.

We continue to see this now during the global COVID-19 pandemic : With so much misinformation about the novel coronavirus, one of the best — and most cost-effective — responses we have is education, including educating our communities on prevention, symptoms, and what to do if they need treatment. Posters, leaflets, and other materials were created and shared in each of the countries where Concern works , meaning that literacy is one of the key tools in keeping communities safe and healthy.

2. Literacy promotes “lifelong learning” and builds skills

As many of us realize after we’ve graduated, learning is a lifelong journey. The more we learn, the more we’re able to adapt to a fast-changing world. The more we’re able to adapt, the more we can continually improve our standard of living and lead longer, healthier, and more creative lives.

Literacy and numeracy are a prerequisite for a broader education. Students who struggle to read (often due to language barriers in the classroom ) are more likely to drop out of school before they can complete a basic education. This can set off a vicious cycle: literacy rates increase as levels of completed schooling increase.

Think about it: When was the last time you learned a new skill? Or did something new for the first time? Chances are you learned that new skill or task because you could read instructions, books, or other resources to guide you through the process. When we have the confidence to read, we have the confidence to learn, both in and out of the classroom.

How does education affect poverty? It can help end it.

Access to high-quality primary education and supporting child well-being is a globally-recognized solution to the cycle of poverty.

3. Literacy improves the economy and creates jobs

Literacy is a powerful tool against  poverty. If all students in low-income countries had basic reading skills, 171 million people could escape extreme poverty. Illiteracy comes at a high price. According to the World Literacy Foundation, illiteracy costs the global economy $1.5 trillion annually.

Currently, there are 192 million people unemployed around the world. Even more people have jobs but struggle with poor pay or poor working conditions (or both). In both cases, a lack of basic literacy and numeracy skills means that many people are immediately disqualified from a high number of decent livelihoods.

Fact: Illiteracy costs the global economy $1.5 trillion annually.

As part of lifelong learning, literacy skills don’t just mean better job opportunities now. They also set people up with the ability to develop their skills and find better livelihoods in the future.

4. Literacy promotes gender equality

“Every literate woman marks a victory over poverty,” said former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Women are the most powerful agents of change in their communities, and that power is even greater when they can read. For every 10% increase of female students in a country, the gross domestic product increases by an average of 3%.

This is because literate women are also more independent and engaged within their communities. They are also more likely to send their children (especially their daughters) to school. Lenason Dinyero, a farmer and chairman of a local fathers’ group in Malawi, works to save young girls from child marriage so that they can stay in school . As he explains it: “A literate generation will benefit the entire community.”

11 Unexpected barriers to education around the world

Whether online or in-person, millions of kids in the US will head back to their classrooms this month. But over 260 million children around the world won’t be going to school at all. Here are some of the reasons kids miss out on an education.

5. Literacy promotes democracy and peace

Illiteracy, according to Ban Ki-moon, “weakens communities and undermines democratic processes through marginalization and exclusion. These and other impacts can combine to destabilize societies.”

When citizens are literate, they’re more able to follow local politics and be informed of the issues that matter to their communities. They’re also more likely to vote and find other ways of participating in their local democracy.

"Illiteracy weakens communities and undermines democratic processes through marginalization and exclusion. These and other impacts can combine to destabilize societies." — Ban Ki-moon, former UN Secretary-General

Literacy is also a powerful tool in post-conflict situations. A 2004 study in Colombia had people who were affected by conflict write down their experiences and share them with others. By doing this, they were more able to work through trauma and build resilience .

6. Literacy builds self-esteem and overall quality of life

If nothing else, literacy builds self-esteem. Readers who struggle are more likely to have difficulty expressing themselves, even verbally. This can lead to anxiety, depression, or other issues that impact an overall quality of life.

The more able a person is to express themselves, the greater their confidence, their self-esteem, and their chance at living a happy, healthy life.

How Concern improves literacy

Concern’s work towards education for all is rooted in building literacy and numeracy in the communities we work with. In countries like Afghanistan, Somalia, Sierra Leone, and Haiti, we’ve found that a comprehensive literacy program that includes teacher training and mentoring programs has resulted in significant improvement on students’ reading fluency.

Concern’s program in Saut d’Eau, Haiti provided training, coaching, and mentoring to help teachers in their instruction of Creole literacy. Between 2014 and 2016, reading fluency for students in Grade 3 improved by 550%.

But our work doesn’t stay in the classroom. A child’s school, home, and community all play a role in the holistic environment in which they learn. Access to reading materials, especially at home, is important for kids, and we also work with parents to help build a home environment that supports performance in school. As part of our work in Liberia, we’ve found that teaching practices that include reading assignments to be done at home saw a 58% improvement in reading scores for students.

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• Poverty Essay for Students in English

Essay on Poverty

Poverty is a disease that has no cure. The deeper this disease is, the deeper its wound. By the way, man lives under compulsion. But usually one wants to avoid it. Poverty is a condition of extreme poverty for any person or human being. This is a situation when a person starts to lack important things in his life such as the roof, necessary food, clothes, medicines, etc. to continue his life.

The causes of poverty are excessive population, fatal and contagious diseases, natural disasters, low agricultural yields, unemployment, casteism, illiteracy, gender inequality, environmental problems, changing trends in the economy of the country, untouchability, little or limited access to people's rights, Problems such as political violence, sponsored crime, corruption, lack of encouragement, inaction, ancient social beliefs, etc. have to be faced.

Poverty has become a big problem of the world, efforts are being made across the world today to remove poverty, but the problem is that it does not take the name of ending. This problem affects a human's economic and daily life. Poverty teaches man to live like a slave in which he has to change the place over time, in this situation due to the lack of education of the poor, his nature and speech also make a difference. Living in a world of poor people has become a curse. Getting enough money to get food is like getting relief from a curse for the poor, that's why they do not have access to education.

Reasons of Poverty

There are many reasons that have continued with carrying it for a long time. Because of this,  freedom, mental and physical fitness, and lack of security in a person remains. It is very important that in order to live a normal life, the country and the whole world will have to work together to bring proper physical and mental health, complete education, a home for everyone, and other important things.

In today's time, there is the problem of poverty which gives all the pain, pain, and despair to the poor. Due to the lack of money from poverty, I show the lack of many things. Poverty makes children spend life in compulsion. If forced to make bread, sometimes in bringing children's books. At that time he is also unable to raise children.

We can tell poverty in many ways like it has become a common thing in India. Most of the people here are unable to get the things they need. Here a vast section of the population is illiterate, hungry, and forced to live without clothes and a home. About half of India's population suffers from this epidemic of poverty.

A poor person lives his life without possession of basic things like food for two times, clean water, house, clothes, proper education, etc. There are many reasons for poverty in India. Incorrect distribution of national income is also a reason. People in the low-income group are much poorer than those in the high-income group. Children of poor families never get proper education, nutrition, and a happy childhood environment. The main cause of poverty is illiteracy, corruption, growing population, weak agriculture, the growing gap between rich and poverty, etc.

Measures to Control Poverty

Corruption has to be erased.

Unemployed will have to give proper employment

A growing population will have to be stopped

Farmers have to be given proper facilities for farming

Education should be provided to children for proper education

Poverty is not just a human problem but it is a national problem. It should be solved by implementing some effective methods on a quick basis. Every person should be united by ending corruption. A problem has been created in which he does not get even the basics. That is why at present, many measures are being taken to prevent poverty so that the standard of living of people around the world can be improved.

Short Essays on Poverty

Poverty is akin to being a slave, as a person cannot achieve anything he desires. It has various faces that alter depending on who you are, where you are, and when. It can be defined in various ways depending on how a person feels or experiences it.

Poverty is a state that no one wants to be in, but it must be removed owing to cultural norms, natural disasters, or a lack of adequate education. The individual who is experiencing it frequently wishes to flee. Poverty is a call for poor people to earn enough money to eat, have access to education, have adequate shelter, dress appropriately, and take steps to protect themselves from social and political violence.

It's a problem that goes unnoticed yet significantly impacts a person's social life. Poverty is an entirely avoidable problem, but there are various reasons why it has persisted in the past.

Poverty robs people of their freedom, mental health, physical well-being, and security. Everyone must strive to eradicate poverty from the country and the world, ensuring appropriate physical and mental health, full literacy, a home for all, and other necessities for living a simple life.

When a person cannot do anything according to his will, he is said to be in poverty. Many different faces alter depending on who you are, where you are, and time. It can be characterized in a variety of ways, depending on how the person feels or what they have achieved. Poverty is a circumstance that no one wants to be in, even if it is forced upon them due to a lack of experience, nature, natural disasters, or a lack of suitable education. Humans have won it, but they prefer to stay away from it. Poverty is a call for needed clothing and protection against social and political violence for the poor to earn enough money to buy food, receive an education, and find a suitable place to live.

This is an unseen problem that harms a person's social life. Even though numerous factors have contributed to its long-term persistence, poverty is a perfectly preventable problem. As a result, a person's freedom, mental and physical well-being, and sense of security are all compromised. It is critical to bring poverty and poverty from worldwide to work together to live everyday life, provide adequate physical and mental health, complete education, a home for everyone, and other essential things.

FAQs on Poverty Essay for Students in English

1. What are the Effects of Poverty?

When people are not able to afford their basic necessities. For example medications and hospital fees are impossible to afford for that means they choose crook ways of obtaining money i.e. stealing, robbery, etc.  

2. What are the Possible Ways to Remove Poverty?

Since India is a developing country, eliminating poverty here is much tougher than in other countries but still some measures can be taken and government assistance would be much helpful in this step which requires some relevant planning and policies for those who fall under the poverty line. Another major factor of poverty is illiteracy and unemployment. Therefore education is the most efficient tool to confine the poverty line in the country. 

3. What is the Poverty Line?

The Below Poverty Line (BPL) signifies the state of people who fall under poverty status. It also symbolizes an economic drawback. In addition, it is used for people who are in need of help and assistance from the government.

4. What are the causes of poverty?

Poverty has several causes, including a lack of access to essentials such as water, food, shelter, education, and healthcare. Poverty is also caused by inequities such as gender or ethnic discrimination, bad governance, conflict, exploitation, and domestic violence. These disparities not only cause a person or a society to fall into poverty, but they can also prevent people from receiving social assistance that could help them get out of it. Due to political upheaval, past or present conflict, corrupt authorities, and lousy infrastructure that restricts access to education, clean water, healthcare, and other essentials, children and communities in fragile states confront greater poverty rates.

5. What can we do to put an end to extreme poverty?

We can aid in the eradication of extreme poverty by determining what causes it in a particular community and then determining what needs to change. Because poverty manifests itself differently in different regions and is caused by different circumstances, the work to end extreme poverty differs depending on the situation. More economic resources are needed to assist people in increasing their income and better providing for themselves and their families. To ensure that poverty does not return, the work must be sustainable, regardless of the solution. As a result, the community must be involved at every stage.

6. What criteria are used to assess poverty?

Each country's government determines poverty levels by conducting home surveys of its citizens. The World Bank, for example, assists and may conduct their surveys, although data collecting is time-consuming and slow. New high-frequency surveys are being created and tested, leveraging estimations and mobile phone technologies. If you want to learn more about these topics, download the Vedantu App that has been specifically designed and curated for students by experts.

7. What is the poverty cycle?

Poverty can be a catch-22 situation. To escape poverty, a person requires access to possibilities such as education, clean water, local medical services, and financial means. Poverty creates a generational cycle if these critical factors are not there. If parents cannot afford to take their children to school, they will struggle to find work when they grow up. Even natural disasters and conflicts can exacerbate the poverty cycle by bringing more people.

8. What are the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)?

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a set of goals for countries worldwide to work together in a global partnership for the benefit of people, the environment, and prosperity. The Sustainable Development Goals aim to abolish extreme poverty for all people everywhere by 2030 and to reduce the proportion of people living in poverty in all forms by at least half. In September 2015, the United Nations member states accepted this objective as one of 17 to end extreme poverty.

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White and Blue Press

The Importance of Helping The Poor

Lucy , Daily Life Writer October 13, 2016

Imagine waking up in the morning on the hard ground, or going to bed with no food in your stomach. Imagine the feeling of loneliness weighing down on you or feeling helpless as you walk around the eerie streets each night. Homeless people can experience these struggles and feelings for some people this is their lives. For these reasons, seventh graders at St. Robert School have decided to step in to help and give love to those people who need it most.

A few weeks ago, a small group of seventh graders along with their teacher Mr. Brehm went on a service trip. Maggie, one of the seventh-graders who went on the trip, explained, “We fed food to the poor, and we toured a cathedral as well as visiting a museum.” To be more specific, their teacher Mr. Brehm noted, “We [go] to the Cathedral of St. John, and we get a tour. Then we go to open door cafe, part of the cathedral, and we serve lunch to homeless people [and struggling ones]. Then we go to the Roman museum to get a docent-lead tour of various works of art.” The Roman museum concluded the kids’ day of service. A new group of 7th graders will continue making trips here on the first Tuesday of each month for the remainder of the year.

Service can affect people in many different ways. Maggie commented on her experience saying, “It was very reflective, and it was eye-opening to see the people that were less fortunate. When we visited the cathedral and visited the poor, I felt happy because I was helping people out.” For Maggie her experience made her feel a bit sad as well as she sympathized with those who are less fortunate, but she also experienced happiness because she is helping people through her work.

Mr. Brehm, who organizes this trip, sees great importance in the experience. He noted that service matters “Because it is a way to live the beatitudes, and that is important for them to learn because it is one of the core messages of Jesus.” Doing service not only makes one a better person but improves one’s faith life.

Service can help people emotionally, physically, and improve their connection with God. Maggie said, “I would recommend it because it was a good experience because I got to help people.” Mr. Brehm, who has done past service including serving at a soup kitchen and attending a mass with the sisters of charity in Chicago, also explained, “It was a good experience because what I did helped me to see Christ in the poor.” He also noted that experiences with certain people really impact him as a person.

All in all, service is a great way to stay emotionally and faithfully strong. It can impact the way we see people and situations and encourage others to step in and help. Service will have something to offer, and leave you walking away thinking about the world around you. I can’t wait to go on my first service trip next month and experience this opportunity. Go online or ask friends to sign up for service today to help other people and grow as a person.

Lucy is a current 8th grader at St. Robert. This year she is Editor-in-Chief of the White and Blue press, and she is very enthusiastic to see what this...

The student news site of St. Robert School

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kacey • Dec 7, 2016 at 11:08 am

more people should sign up for service projects. It’s a great way to help the less fortunet. I also think it was great that they do this. It was also a great story! 🙂

Stella • Nov 7, 2016 at 2:54 pm

Nice story Lucy! I think it was really eye opening to hear how we can help people less fortune to than us

Abby • Oct 24, 2016 at 4:51 pm

Good job I agree that together as a community we can do more to help.

Mrs. Schroeder • Oct 22, 2016 at 1:41 pm

Interesting article. I especially liked the introductory paragraph. It helped me to build a connection of how the people who are served must feel. I am happy to learn that the seventh grade students at St. Robert’s are improving the lives of others.

Jillian • Oct 21, 2016 at 10:51 am

Loved this Lucy! Great job with all the details! It was very inspiring!

Jillian • Oct 21, 2016 at 10:48 am

Great article Lucy!! I love all the details that you put into it! Although I haven’t been on service yet, I look forward to going and making connections to this.

Madeline • Oct 21, 2016 at 10:42 am

This story is really well written! You used the quotes really well.

Sylvia • Oct 21, 2016 at 9:44 am

Great article! My mom works at the open door cafe. I’ll recommend this to her!

Natalie • Oct 21, 2016 at 9:20 am

Love the story honey!!! Your story is inspiring to all

Cat • Oct 21, 2016 at 9:19 am

I like your details! Your article really shows how some people and less fortunate than us so we should help them out.

Katie • Oct 21, 2016 at 9:17 am

Great story Lucy! I haven’t gone on the service trip yet but I am glad to hear it was a useful trip.

becky womack • Oct 15, 2016 at 3:35 pm

you have inspired me lucy. as a parent and adult I need to make more of an effort to be of service in my own life.

What do you think? Leave a respectful comment.

Laura Santhanam Laura Santhanam

• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/why-the-u-s-is-rethinking-its-approach-to-poverty

Why the U.S. is rethinking its approach to poverty

At least one Saturday each month, Arlean Younger volunteers handing out boxes of donated food at church. Last time, she helped distribute provisions to more than 100 people. At the end of the shift, she took home a box, too — for herself and Mylie Jai, the little girl she has been taking care of since infancy.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, the number of American households in poverty was shrinking. In 2019, 34 million people lived in poverty , a decrease of 4.2 million individuals from a year earlier, according to the Census Bureau. Children made up a substantial portion of those in low-income households, according to the latest available data from a recent National Academies of Sciences study. A year since the coronavirus began its deadly rampage in the U.S., economic stresses have pushed millions more households to the brink, with some estimates suggesting it also forced an additional 2.5 million more children into poverty.

At the end of 2020, more than 50 million people were facing hunger, up 15 million from the year before, according to data from Feeding America , an anti-hunger organization. Millions of Americans have turned to food banks, with four out of 10 doing so for the first time during the pandemic.

Each month, Younger earns roughly $2,000 from her job at a company that hires home health aides. But the money is spent almost as soon as her deposit clears. Rent gobbles up $800. Utilities cost $300. Water adds $130. And $400 goes for the gas she needs to reach her health care clients. There are credit card bills and the new cost of daycare for Mylie Jae, whose school, the cost of which is normally subsidized by the state, shut down. The COVID-19 pandemic has made everything more precarious, including her own work.

Younger’s role is usually that of a manager but often demands more than overseeing client needs and people’s schedules. She supervises eight employees. Because of pandemic-driven demand, Younger said she often cares for clients herself, working far more than 40 hours, sometimes seven days a week. She drives up to 40 minutes each way to reach the clients farthest from her house; the costs are always greater than what her company reimburses her. She feels like she is struggling to provide a good home for the girl who calls her “Mama.”

Lawmakers in the U.S. have for years debated how to track poverty, and child poverty in particular. Now, in the midst of a pandemic, when the country is caught in a deep recession that has forced families deeper into financial difficulty amid widening inequalities, “it’s not surprising” that politicians have found renewed interest in curbing this hardship, said Rebecca Blank, a macroeconomist who worked on anti-poverty policy for the the Clinton and Obama administrations and now serves as chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Chart by Megan McGrew

Along with what it provides in COVID relief, the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan signed into law by President Joe Biden this month offers one of the most sweeping anti-poverty packages in recent memory. Along with one-time stimulus checks to most children and adults and an extension of unemployment benefits, the legislation increases the child tax credit to between $3,000 and $3,600, depending on the age of the child, and makes that money available over the course of the year rather than only at tax-filing time. It offers housing vouchers for those nearing homelessness, as well as health care subsidies for people whose states have not expanded Medicaid.

One estimate by the Urban Institute suggests these measures will cut child poverty in half for children, and significantly for families experiencing job loss.

READ MORE: How to help kids build resilience amid COVID-19 chaos

In the pandemic, advocates have an opportunity to generate sufficient political will for the U.S. to not only sew up some of the holes in its social safety net, but make it big enough to catch more families and individuals in need. “One thing we know out of American history is when we expand these programs, it tends to be in response to more than just the very poor having need,” Blank said. “When need is more expansive, people are more willing to think about new things.”

The bill only guarantees the expanded tax credit for a year, though Democrats have promised to extend the benefit. The question now: Could this become permanent? If the tax credit expires, the child poverty rate will double again by 2022. Many Republicans, who are seeking to regain control of Congress in the next midterm elections, have voiced concerns about supporting continued assistance, citing costs or because the measures don’t do enough to incentivize work. But advocates say the idea of a long-standing safety net has now entered the conversation, and there are a number of small models of success across the country and over time that lawmakers can draw from when considering solutions.

How the U.S. has attempted to address poverty

For years, the United States has maintained a stubbornly high rate of child poverty compared to other developed countries, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reported in November 2019 . Traditionally, Americans have bristled at giving taxpayer money to alleviate poverty, especially if that means the government will assume a greater role in people’s daily lives. But not making a serious investment in solving the problem comes with major costs.

Lack of a political will has obstructed greater progress on child poverty are cold and straightforward, said Cara Baldari, vice president, family economics, housing and homelessness at First Focus on Children, a child advocacy organization. “Kids can’t vote,” she said. That has helped perpetuate a trend in the U.S. where children are more likely than adults to live in poverty because a child’s fortune matches that of the grown-up who cares for them.

Child poverty affects an estimated 9.6 million children and costs the U.S. as much as $1.1 trillion each year, according to a 2019 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine . Studies suggest children accumulate these costs over the course of a lifetime due to worse health outcomes that end up adding up to expensive treatment and lost productivity in the job market. Children who grow up in poverty are more likely to report lower incomes, worse health outcomes and less likely to experience social and emotional turmoil.

In the 2016 National Survey on Children’s Health, parents reported that 25.5 percent of children have experienced economic hardship “somewhat” or “very often.” By that measure, poverty is the most common adverse childhood experience in the United States — more common than divorce or separation of parents or living with someone struggling with alcohol or substance use. These events offer a heightened risk of trauma that can have potentially lasting effects on a child’s physical, mental and emotional health, according to Child Trends , a research organization focused on studying child development and well-being.

Other countries have made explicit moves in recent years to tackle those kinds of issues. In 2019, Canada’s Poverty Reduction Act became law , part of a $22 billion package to create poverty reduction targets and funnel resources toward programs that can help meet the social and economic need. The country is on track to reduce child poverty by half, according to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. New Zealand has also released intermediate and long-term targets designed to cut child poverty dramatically within a decade. In both countries, people receive direct monthly payments to give families a cushion against poverty.

The U.S. hasn’t yet gotten that far, instead operating multiple policies entangled in a way that sometimes pits them against one another. To stem hunger, the federal government funds Supplement Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP benefits. To help working families, the Earned Income Tax Credit refunds money to individuals based on what was earned and household need. And those who qualify to receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families are often flagged to receive job training or help securing employment. But families often bump up against income thresholds, earning too little to live comfortably but too much to receive government benefits. Younger, 49, has been caring for Mylie Jai for five years, ever since she offered help to a friend who had just given birth and was hopping between rundown motels in Jackson, Mississippi, without a stable home, car or job. Mylie Jai is now in preschool, and Younger is her official legal guardian. Younger was told she earns too much money to qualify for SNAP benefits, she said.

The Mississippi Department of Human Services normally covers the cost of Mylie Jai’s school, but in late February, the building was shut down after pipes burst in a historic snowfall and ice storm. Younger was forced to instead send Mylie Jae to a small daycare operated by a friend, but the state’s vouchers got caught in bureaucratic red tape, so she said she had to come up with $90 per week out of pocket.

Medicaid covers Mylie Jai’s doctor visits, Younger said, but she herself visits a community health center if she gets sick and cannot afford health insurance, despite being a health care worker.

Arlean Younger, 49, of Jackson, Mississippi, works full-time (and often logging extra hours) for a company that hires home health aides. But she struggles to make ends meet for herself and Mylie Jai, 5, for whom she is the legal guardian. Photos courtesy of Arlean Younger

Those ill-fitting pieces are problematic, said Beryl Levinger, a child policy expert and professor at Middlebury Institute, and policymakers need to take a more holistic approach, rather than hunt for a silver bullet that doesn’t exist.

Levinger also served as a researcher on a new report from child advocacy group Save the Children that used data to analyze which states offered kids the best and worst COVID-19 responses . Minnesota, Utah and Washington state ranked highest while Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas were among the lowest. This latest report suggested 6 million more children endured hunger during the pandemic, and a quarter of children lacked resources for remote learning, which made completing school work virtually impossible for many families. The report urged states to protect child care, which has unraveled during the pandemic, and address child hunger through SNAP and other federal programs.

“This problem will not end even when the last of the vaccine is distributed,” the report said. “The additional benefits and supports for these children and families will need to be made permanent until all children have access to the food they need.”

The debate over cash payments

Created as part of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, the child tax credit offered a $500-per-child nonrefundable credit to ease the tax burden of middle-income households. Since then, it has become more tightly woven into the U.S. social safety net over time, said Elaine Maag, who studies programs for low-income families and children for the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute. Decades later, she said the policy has evolved and holds the potential to become a permanent fixture to help families.

But government programs, no matter how well designed or executed to fit a certain set of circumstances, often miss the mark, Maag said, because life is messy. She pointed to SNAP benefits as an example. With them, a person may have food, but if they get sick, do they have money to pay for a doctor’s visit or to fill a drug prescription? A mountain of research that suggests direct cash payments are the most effective way to alleviate poverty and documents a “growing understanding that people know how to solve their problems the best way,” Maag said. “Cash can be used to meet all your needs.”

Of all of the provisions in the latest relief bill, the $1,400 cash payments have the most potential to reduce poverty, according to the Urban Institute’s analysis. In recent years, there has been growing discussion of using a universal income to alleviate poverty, but it is not politically popular. Democratic presidential candidate and philanthropist Andrew Yang campaigned on this idea, but just a fraction of Democrats supported it, much less the country overall. In a July 2019 poll from PBS NewsHour, NPR and Marist , only 26 percent of Americans said they supported giving each U.S. adult $1,000 per month, a proposal that was more popular among Democrats than Republicans.

Despite robust evidence supporting the use of direct payments, Americans historically do not like to give people tax-payer dollars unless society deems them to be deserving, Maag said. Since the Great Depression, older adults, people with disabilities or some survivors of people who die have received cash benefits. But distributing cash payments to families or other more specific groups is an easier political sales pitch than to do so for all able-bodied adults, Maag said.

So for generations, the U.S. has pursued anti-poverty policies that are very specific about how people spend their resources, said Aisha Nyandoro, chief executive of Springboard to Opportunities, a direct service organization. “Why not try something different?”

That is what Nyandoro’s organization did in 2018 when it founded the Magnolia Mother’s Trust. The project gave $1,000 per month for 12 months to Black mothers living in extreme poverty in Jackson, Mississippi. The goal was to target systemic problems by empowering women with cash payments so they could decide how to improve their lives. The project has grown from helping 20 women to more than 200. During that time, Nyandoro said she has witnessed women pay off debt, return to school, cook more nutritious meals for their families and become better parents.

Tamara Ware was one of those women. In late February 2020, she had to leave her job at a child care facility, afraid she might bring the coronavirus home to her three daughters, ages 13, 14 and 17, who were struggling in school even before the virus forced classrooms to close and instruction to go virtual. She had been earning $11 per hour and had no savings to pay for food or housing.

When the COVID-19 pandemic forced Tamara Ware, 36, of Jackson, Mississippi, out of her job at a child care facility, Ware said she did not know how she could afford to raise her three daughters, age 13, 14 and 17. But when she received $1,000 per month for a year from the Magnolia Mother’s Trust, Ware said she could focus on being a more patient, present and understanding parent. For the first time in years, she threw a birthday party for her daughter, Erianna, in July. Photos courtesy of Tamara Ware

Within weeks, Ware was accepted into the trust. She found tutoring help for her daughters and counselors for them to address trauma they had endured, including the grief and loss of Ware’s twin sister, who had been shot and killed eight years earlier. She threw a party to celebrate her daughters’ birthdays, something she hadn’t been able to afford to do in years. She became a more patient and understanding mother, she said, and developed a deep sense of community with other mothers who worked to overcome struggles that had ensnared them for years.

“I could be in the moment,” Ware said. “Look, I ain’t gotta worry about nothing this month.”

She graduated from the program last month, and it gave her a chance to build her own business as a child care provider.

“My head is in the right direction,” Ware said. “I have the tools I need now.”

Many women in the program report feelings of joy, Nyandoro said. Often, that is because they struggled to survive. With a guaranteed income in place, the women’s focus could broaden beyond meeting basic needs and tapping to what they actually wanted in life.

“If you have lived a life of scarcity so often, joy is something you feel like you haven’t been allowed either. You’re constantly trying to survive,” she said. “You tell yourself dreams are something for other people.”

What works?

After the implementation of the “Great Society” programs in the 1960s, such as Medicaid and federal funding for education, the U.S. saw its child poverty rate cut in half. If successful, advocates say the American Rescue Plan could help bring the U.S. and other countries closer to a global goal set in motion by the United Nations (long before COVID-19) to end extreme child poverty by 2030 and cut child poverty rates in half worldwide.

Researchers behind a pilot universal income program that gave participants in Stockton, California, $500 a month released data that showed a 12 percent increase in full-time employment after one year, and 62 percent reported paying off debt, a 10 percent increase from before the program began.

The biggest spending category was food, their research showed, followed by merchandise, utilities and auto costs, which all have an impact on someone’s ability to get and keep a job, researchers said.

More than 40 mayors across the country who are part of a Mayors for Guaranteed Income initiative are launching similar programs.

“COVID-19 has made it very, very clear that you could play by all the rules, that you could be working, and that still may not be enough,” Michael Tubbs, the mayor of Stockton, told the PBS NewsHour in December.

Some economists reviewing Stockton’s pilot have also pointed out the complicated questions that arise around deciding who is eligible for these kinds of programs and how to reach them. Certain requirements may unintentionally cut out people who need help most, in favor of people who don’t have as much need. And cash can only go so far in solving structural issues like access to health care and education.

During the pandemic, fighting poverty has drawn some bipartisan support. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, proposed the $254 billion Family Security Act to replace some existing programs with a monthly child allowance — $350 for each young child and $250 for every school-aged child. But the cost of this program would mean making choices about discontinuing others, and some experts have raised concerns about the possible unintended consequences of replacing programs, such as TANF, that have been used to connect families to other services. That could lead to families falling through the cracks and needs going unmet.

But some critics say these programs don’t go far enough to incentivize work as a way to alleviate poverty. Robert Rector, a welfare policy expert for the conservative Heritage Foundation, said he doesn’t think the pandemic justifies the child poverty policies passed into law. Instead, he said, the U.S. already has “a very large welfare state,” adding that roughly $500 billion he said is currently devoted to poverty-alleviation programs should be “more efficient” and “targeted to be more supportive of work.”

READ MORE: How the economic relief law narrows the equity gap for farmers of color

The policies targeting child poverty in the American Rescue Plan represent “an enormous expansion of the welfare state” and are only exceeded by the Affordable Care Act, Rector said.

“You want to be compassionate to be people who need assistance, but you don’t want free handouts where an individual can take advantage of the charity extended to them,” he said.

In the 2019 report, researchers suggested expanding benefits to target food and housing insecurity, along with the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit, and creating a child allowance, as Romney’ proposed, which the study found would have the biggest impact on low-income households. Families who claim children as dependents could receive these funds as deposits from the Social Security Administration or even the Internal Revenue Service, according to proposals currently before policymakers. They predicted that those measures could stabilize families in need and reduce child poverty by almost half in the U.S. On a basic level, putting targets in place would help policymakers see if programs like these are making a difference in reducing child poverty, such as how many children and households receive SNAP benefits or if the Census Bureau develops a more accurate measure of poverty based on who actually gets benefits or has health care coverage due to household income.

Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., said he sees increased interest in alleviating child poverty as “investing in the future of our country.” While U.S. politics are still intensely polarized, people can still rally behind children, added Davis, who authored the Child Poverty Reduction Act.

“We are at a tremendous crossroads right now in the future of our country, and so, this will help to move America forward and not move America backwards,” Davis said.

That includes people like Younger. She said she feels one major setback away from economic catastrophe, and doesn’t know how long she can keep herself and Mylie Jai afloat.

“Any help at the time of need we’re in right now, I’m thankful for,” Younger said.

She doesn’t allow Mylie Jai to attend birthday parties because she is afraid she might get sick. Her daughter plays with baby dolls and imaginary friends, and loves to play in the park.

For Younger, having a little more money could release her from being pinned down into survival mode each day. She could focus more fully on the moments she spends with Mylie Jai and be empowered to help her secure a better future.

“What would help me is to make sure the little girl I take care of every day grows up to be a prosperous adult,” Younger said.

Laura Santhanam is the Health Reporter and Coordinating Producer for Polling for the PBS NewsHour, where she has also worked as the Data Producer. Follow @LauraSanthanam

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Is Education the Cure for Poverty?

by Jared Bernstein

April 22, 2007

Economists may disagree a lot on policy, but we all agree on the "education premium" -- the earnings boost associated with more education. But what role can education play in a realistic antipoverty policy agenda? And what are the limits of that role?

First, it depends on whether you're talking about children or adults, and schooling versus job training. And second, the extent to which education is rewarded depends on what else is going on in the economy.

As Greg J. Duncan's companion piece (page A20) suggests, investment in early childhood has immense benefits. And at the other end of the schooling spectrum, college graduates' wage advantage over those with only a high-school diploma went up dramatically in the 1980s and early '90s. But the premium that high-school graduates enjoy over dropouts has been flat for decades. In 1973, high-school grads earned about 15.7 percent more per hour than dropouts, 15.9 percent in 1989, 16.1 percent in 2000, and 15.5 percent last year. And for adult workers, the historical record for job-training programs is pretty dismal, though more recent initiatives -- with their focus on more carefully targeting training for local labor markets -- show much more promise.

Nobody doubts that a better-educated workforce is more likely to enjoy higher earnings. But education by itself is a necessary insufficient antipoverty tool. Yes, poor people absolutely need more education and skill training, but they also need an economic context wherein they can realize the economic returns from their improved human capital. Over the past few decades, the set of institutions and norms that historically maintained the link between skills and incomes have been diminished, particularly for non-college-educated workers. Restoring their strength and status is essential if we want the poor to reap the benefits they deserve from educational advancement.

What Research Shows

Julie Strawn of the Center for Law and Social Policy, reviewing an extensive sample of basic education and training programs, concluded that education alone is much less successful in raising employment and earnings prospects than education combined with a strategy of focused job training (with an eye on local demand), "soft skills," and holding out for quality jobs.

One study found that a year of schooling raised the earnings of welfare recipients by 7 percent, the conventional labor economics finding. But given that many of these workers entered the job market in the $6- to $8-an-hour range back in the 1990s, you're talking about moving families closer to the poverty line, not pushing them significantly above it.

Strawn reports that when education is combined with multidimensional job training, readiness, and a quality job search, the returns more than double. One Portland, Oregon, program resulted in a 25 percent increase in earnings, a 21 percent increase in employment, and a 22 percent reduction of time spent on welfare (all compared with a control group that didn't get the services).

This finding makes intuitive sense: Programs that combine general education with training specific to both the individual and his or her local labor market work better than ones that fail to combine these activities. (They're also more expensive, but you get what you pay for.) Yet to get to the nub of the strengths and limits of education and poverty reduction, we need to go back to first principles and think about how they interact with the realities of the political economy.

Education is only a partial cure for poverty because of all the other recent changes in the labor market. At least half of the inequality increase has taken place within groups of comparably educated people, and since 2000 that proportion has been increasing. Income-inequality data show that the concentration of income in 2005 is the highest it has been since 1929. Yet research that Lawrence Mishel and I conducted shows that since the late 1990s, the college wage premium has been flat. In real terms, college wages were up less than 2 percent from 2000 to 2006. Even among the highly educated, only some are getting ahead, and lots aren't.

In short, we are not living in a meritocracy, where we can reliably count on people being fairly rewarded for their improved skills. So we need additional mechanisms in place to nudge the invisible hand toward outcomes that are more meritocratic and just.

SKILL DEMANDS FOR THE WORKING POOR

Education is a supply-side policy; it improves the quality of workers, not the quality or the quantity of jobs. A danger of overreliance on education in the poverty debate is that skilled workers end up all dressed up with nowhere nice to go.

Some economists contend that faster rates of technological advance require ever more highly skilled workers, and that demand shifts lead to low wages for the low skilled. But our work at the Economic Policy Institute suggests that while technological changes have always been an important factor in the labor market, the rate of change now is no greater than in the recent past. Technological change is one of the reasons we've doubled the share of college grads but continued to see their unemployment rates in the 2 percent range -- we produce and absorb a lot of college grads.

Our economy, however, is still very much structured to produce lots of low-wage jobs. In fact, according to the occupational projections by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the low-wage sector of our economy will be the source of much job growth over the next decade. The American economy will continue to employ significant numbers of retail salespersons, waiters and waitresses, food-prep workers, home health aides, maids and housekeepers, etc. Of the 30 occupations adding the most jobs to our economy, those requiring the least training make up half of the total.

The question, thus, is not whether jobs for those with only high-school degrees or even some college will exist or be plentiful in our future (they almost certainly will be); the question is whether the quality of these jobs will help reduce or reinforce working poverty.

In our most recent version of "The State of Working America," we borrow a technique from economists Sheldon Danziger and Peter Gottschalk for analyzing the roles played by multiple determinants of poverty. Their method parses out the roles of race, family structure, economic growth, and inequality, and we add the role of education.

As the chart on the right shows, family poverty rates did not fall much between 1969 and 2000, because major factors were offsetting one another. Improved education lowered family poverty by almost 4 percentage points, a considerable effect. But economic growth and inequality had considerably larger effects. Growth in the overall economy lowered poverty rates by 5.7 points, while inequality raised it by 5.1 points. Family structure added 3 points to family poverty rates over these years, and race added 1 point.

Decompositions of this type are far from definitive; they tend to hold one factor constant and see how things change, then do the same for another factor, etc. But in this case, the results are demonstrative of the main point regarding education in the poverty debate: It's an important part of the story, but it's not the whole story, or even the most important part.

EDUCATION PLUS

Demand -- the extent of overall growth, how taut the labor market is -- matters, as does the extent and nature of inequality, as does the quality of jobs. In the late 1990s, poverty fell to historic lows for those with the lowest education levels, including African Americans and single mothers. Did skills rain from the heavens? Did employers suddenly shed their advanced-skill requirements? Of course not. It was good old-fashioned full employment forcing employers to bid wages up to get -- and keep -- the workers they needed. And yes, this interacted with welfare reform and a significant expansion of work supports, like the Earned Income Tax Credit, subsidized health and child care, and the minimum-wage increase.

In fact, one could be forgiven for thinking that, except for some of the punitive aspects of welfare reform, we briefly got poverty reduction right during the late 1990s. The one-two punch of full employment and expanded work supports worked to meet the expanding labor supply with even faster growing labor demand, and the subsidies helped to close part of the gap between what people earned and what they needed.

But notice how all of this is unwinding in the 2000s. Unemployment is low, but other indicators -- such as labor-force participation and real wage trends -- suggest we're not yet at full employment; there's been no expansion of work supports, and even some retrenchment of supports such as the State Children's Health Insurance Program and child care, policies clearly associated with helping the working poor get ahead. The outcome has been predictable and depressing, especially in contrast to the progress we made in the 1990s.

And if education is one key antipoverty strategy, then programs demanding that beneficiaries "work first" often sacrifice the promise of increased returns to education and training on the altar of take-any-job. This approach is not only stingy; it's also shortsighted, as it threatens to diminish the likelihood that those who want to "play by the rules" will realize their economic potential.

Helping the poor receive more education is part of the answer. Whatever their skill level, workers need a context wherein they can be rewarded for their skills, where the benefits of the growth they help to create flow freely their way. This means having a set of protections, institutions, regulations, and social norms in place to keep the greedy fingers of inequality from picking the pockets of the working poor.

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October 1, 2015

The Way to Help the Poor

Money and good intentions are not enough to fight poverty effectively. We also need data about what works and what doesn't

By Dean Karlan

You can't make money without money. That was the exciting and intuitively obvious idea behind microloans, which took off in the 1990s as a way of helping poor people out of poverty. Banks wouldn't give them traditional loans, but small amounts would carry less risk and allow entrepreneurs to jump-start small businesses. Economist Muhammad Yunus and Bangladesh's Grameen Bank figured out how to scale this innovation and won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for their work.

The trouble is that although microloans do have some benefits, recent evidence suggests that on average they increase neither income nor household and food expenditures—key indicators of financial well-being.

That a program could be celebrated for more than 20 years and lavished with money and still fail to help people out of poverty underscores the paucity of evidence in antipoverty programs. Individual Americans, for instance, spend $335 billion a year on charity, yet most people give on impulse or a friend's recommendation—not because they have evidence that their giving will do any good. Philanthropies also often give money to projects without really knowing if they are successful.

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Fortunately, we are living in the age of big data: decisions that used to be made on instinct can now be based on solid evidence. In recent years social scientists have begun to marshal the tools of big data to ask the hard questions about what works and what doesn't. The goal is to turn philanthropy into a science, where money gets directed to programs for which there is strong evidence of their effectiveness.

I learned about microloans in 1992, on what was supposed to be a short detour from a career in hedge funds. As a 22-year-old intern in El Salvador for one of the largest microlenders, I was struck by how little the organization knew about their effect on clients—usually women—and the local economy.

They knew that many customers were coming back for more loans and saw “client retention” as proof of their success. Why else would customers keep borrowing if it was not helping? But the microlenders did not have any serious evidence that the loans were helping women get their families out of poverty. When I asked about evidence on impacts, I was directed to a perfunctory questionnaire. I wondered: maybe repeat borrowing is not good if the client's business does not continue to grow. Perhaps true success would be to provide one loan to help someone in need and then down the road to discover the borrower to be stable enough not to need another.

Here was a huge nongovernmental organization pulling in large grants to help the poor, with no real measurement of whether their efforts were working. For-profit businesses have benchmarks to know how they are performing, but most donors are not accustomed to asking charities about their results. Sometimes they ask what proportion of money goes to overhead, but that number is mostly meaningless. The question that needs to be asked—and that needs to be asked every time someone writes a check to a charity or a government commits to a multimillion-dollar aid project—is, Will this actually work to alleviate poverty? In other words, how will people's lives change, compared with how their lives would have changed without the program?

This question knocked me off my Wall Street track and into graduate school for economics. One of my professors, Michael Kremer, had just started conducting randomized controlled trials to learn what programs work to help kids stay in school and improve the education they receive. He was borrowing this method from health and other sciences—randomly assigning schools to either receive a particular resource (the treatment group) or remain as they would have been otherwise (the control group) and then comparing school performance across these two groups.

His approach gave me an idea about how to return to the microlending questions that had brought me to academia in the first place. When I presented my questions and described a simple experiment that could address them, I thought that I was proposing a side project, not a dissertation. I had just finished reading complicated papers for two years, papers that often tackled empirical questions with fancy econometrics, and I assumed a dissertation must do the same. But I still remember Kremer's response: ask an important question and do not worry about whether your method is complicated and demonstrates “smarts.” Just worry about answering the question well.

So off I went in my fourth year of graduate school to South Africa to set up my first experiment on the question of whether microlending is effective. I trained a team that would seek individuals who wanted a loan from a microlender. Of the ones who qualified, I randomly assigned them into treatment and control groups and provided the lender with the list of those assigned to treatment. The lender would approach them and offer them loans. It seemed fairly straightforward.

Instead the research project failed miserably. Each time I passed names to the lender, it would take months for them to find the potential client, and sometimes they never would. And then the lender poached my best team member, killing my best shot at gathering more people for the project.

It turns out to be difficult for academics at universities to carry out studies far away with the level of detail that good scientific trials require. You need reliable staff on the ground who understand the science but who also have the social skills to work with partners and manage field operations.

By 2002, as I was starting out as a professor, I founded a nonprofit called Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) to help fill these knowledge gaps in finance, health, education, food, and peace and postconflict recovery. IPA connects my curious number-crunching academic colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale University, and the like, with a trained staff of more than 500 people working in 18 countries on randomized controlled trials. We have now conducted upward of 500 trials. A chief insight has been that simple interventions that take human behavior into account can have outsized effects. Putting chlorine dispensers right next to water sources, to make it easy to remember and publicly observable, increases use of clean water sixfold. Adding a simple bag of lentils to a convenient monthly immunization camp for families in India roughly sextuples rates of full immunization for kids (while making the entire process cheaper because more families show up). And cheap and simple text message reminders can be effective in helping people accomplish their goals, from saving money to completing their medication regimens. Naturally not everything works. We must figure out what works and what doesn't.

We have also learned that information is only part of the solution. Having strong relationships with local governments, nonprofits, businesses and banks keeps the academic experts working on questions that matter and gets answers into hands of the people who can use them.

Over the years microloans kept nagging at my colleagues and me. Fifteen years after my first study attempt in South Africa, we now have seven randomized trials completed on traditional microloans and one on consumer lending back in South Africa. The seven projects are spread out around the world and have been conducted by different researchers with similar research designs: in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ethiopia, India, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco and the Philippines. These studies found some benefits of microloans, such as helping families weather hard times, pay off goods over time and even make small investments in businesses. But there was no average impact on the main financial well-being indicators—income and household and food expenditures. To the chagrin of microloan critics, there also were no big negative effects.

So what does work to increase income for the world's poorest?

We just recently studied another program that addresses some of the shortcomings of microloans. One sad failure of many programs (including microloans) has been in reaching the poorest of the poor—known in the field as the ultrapoor. They live on less than what $1.25 would buy in the U.S. a day, and they account for more than a billion people, or one seventh of the world's population. The things keeping them poor are usually complicated enough that no one individual fix is going to help, but one program being run in Bangladesh by BRAC, the world's largest nonprofit organization, and a few other places stands out. It saw extreme poverty as a complex problem deserving of a complex solution. Its “graduation” approach, designed to move the extreme poor out of their current conditions, offers a package of six items:

A “productive asset,” that is, a way to make a living (livestock, beehives to make honey or supplies to start a simple store).

Technical training on how to use the asset.

A small, short-term regular stipend, to meet immediate needs for daily living so the individual does not have to sell the asset while learning how to use it.

Access to health support, to stay healthy enough to work.

A way to save money for the future.

Regular (usually weekly) visits from a coach, to reinforce skills, build confidence and help participants handle any challenges they encounter.

The Ford Foundation and Consultative Group to Assist the Poor in Washington, D.C., came to me with an ambitious idea: test an identical program, implemented by different organizations in multiple places. We ended up conducting similar studies in six places: Ethiopia, Ghana, Honduras, India, Pakistan and Peru. What we found was unprecedented—everywhere the program worked, it worked well. When we came back a year after the program had ended, we found the impact had lasted: people had more money to spend and food to eat. When we calculated the costs (labor, asset costs, transportation and overhead) as compared with the benefits, the overall returns were positive in five out of six countries—ranging from 133 percent in Ghana to 433 percent in India. In other words, every dollar invested in India yielded $4.33 more food and spending for ultrapoor households.

The one exception was Honduras, where the productive asset most used by the local organization—chickens—was an outside breed that was not resistant to local disease and so became sick and died. This was a humanitarian failure, but it demonstrated that the asset is an essential component of the program. Remove that component, and the other five components did not generate positive impacts on their own. As the programs are expanding in Ethiopia, India and Pakistan, we hope to learn more about how to make this program work better, either by reducing costs or by improving the services.

There is no panacea in the fight against poverty. Even a graduation program for the ultrapoor, which is ready to scale and yields an excellent return for a charitable buck, is not going to transform the ultrapoor into car-buying middle-class households. The vision statement for Innovations for Poverty Action is appropriately modest: more evidence, less poverty. We are not going to end poverty, but with proper evidence we can make important strides.

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Helping Poor People

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Life is more meaningful if you live not only for yourself but also help others. Nevertheless, people sometimes forget about others and selfishly pursue only their interests. Helping poor people is one of the best things everyone can do. Poor people are an integral part of our society, and everyone should not turn a blind eye towards them but should think over what they can do to help. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to discuss how people can help poor individuals within society and what I personally have done to contribute to that.

Unfortunately, there are many poor people in any society, which is why they need much help from those who have a better life. The inequality gap between the rich and poor has been growing from year to year, irrespective of the fact that governments have been trying to do something to improve the situation. Everyone can help others in some way. First, I would like to mention that helping poor people is related to personal sacrifice. An individual might not give all their money to the poor person but allocate some part of it. It is about volunteering and the desire to make a difference. I would like to mention that helping poor people is not that easy, as it might be a heart-breaking experience. Sometimes, a person can decide to donate money and have nothing to do with it, due to the feeling of deep distress for those who are not that successful in life.

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Since I was a child, my mother and teachers at school have always tried to encourage me to help poor people by giving them toys and clothes that I would not use anymore. In addition to that, I was told that it was nice to give poor people food when possible and never to ignore them, as no one knows what future they will have. If not for the goodwill of some kind individuals, many poor people would not be able to stay alive.

Some individuals think that there is nothing they can do to help poor people, and that it is the job of the government to give them the money gained from tax payments. Nevertheless, I can state that everyone can contribute by volunteering, and this should not be something that a person has to do every day all year round. It would be very helpful to volunteer to build a shelter for homeless people or help provide food for those who are taking their first steps. If everyone tried to do at least one small thing from his or her side in order to help poor people, there would be much less inequality in the world.

I would like to share my personal experience. During the class, I gained very useful information and skills that I can use further in my life while helping poor people. My instructor has assigned me to work with Mr. Paul. We have been working for 13 hours together on the project related to building a house to poor people. We were assigned to a very challenging project and had to meet a deadline so that poor people would have a place to stay in the cold. My task was to help to renovate the building that was allocated by the government in order to become a home for poor people. I must state that I was very impressed that with the help of volunteers we have managed to accomplish this big task and build a good home for poor people. Once I started working on that project, I realized that I felt passionate about it and wanted to help as much as possible by doing the best job ever. I was not working on the project alone but with my peers and many volunteers who sacrificed their time and efforts to help build a home for poor people. It required much strength and leadership. I was impressed with Mr. Paul, who not only taught me the basic things but also was very patient towards me, even though I could not do everything perfectly from the first time.

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In conclusion, I would like to mention that building a house for poor people is one of the most fascinating experiences I have ever had in my life. Moreover, I would state that I recommend everyone to participate in such a project in their life, as it is not only about helping others but also about helping oneself to realize that they can be a valuable member of society and bring many good things to the world. Many people think that they can become happy if they earn a lot of money and buy many things, but, in fact, I have found happiness while helping poor people. II did not want any payment for that, and I felt that I had accomplished one of the major goals in my life when our team, together with Mr. Paul, told that the house was ready to move in. I was happy to see that poor people finally had a nice home to live in, and I even almost cried when I saw them dancing with happiness. I believe that helping poor people is one of the best gifts a person can give.

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Essay on How to Help Poor and Needy People

Leaving a life that is meaningful is something that everyone needs. However, it is not something going into a spiritual quest. All the spiritual quests are going away from life. Unfortunately, you cannot find the meaning of life by going away from life.

In fact, it can be found only in finding the meaning here in life, not going to some lonely place to meditate. You can find the real essence of life only when you help others because you are living with others and your relationship matters.

Why should you help others?

You are living in this world because there are other people. Can you imagine living on this huge earth alone? Undoubtedly, you will go crazy if you find yourself alone in this world.

Life takes place in relation to others. Whether it’s someone from India or someone from Russia, that does not really matter, it is the same human being. Your idea of separate human is just an idea; otherwise, you all are inter-related and inter-connected.

Hence, by helping the poor, you can make this world a better place to live. People would love to be around you and people will bless you. Blessing never comes from the gods, in fat. It can only come from living beings. Hence, you must help people if you want a blessed life.

How can you help poor people?

If you look at the world closely, then you will see that there is inequality. Governments and other organizations are trying to fix this gap but it will make sense only when you find a way to contribute to the world.

There are many people who even don’t not have food to eat. Now, that is something sad because it is a basic thing that every living being must-have. But humans have become the only creatures that are starving. No other animals and birds are starving.

You would also find kids without education. A world that is not educated would slowly drift away to a bad state. If you want the growth of the world, then you should and must educate poor kids who do not have money to have a good education.

There are people who are also struggling to have shelter and clothes; the world is an utterly depressing place to live now. You must find some way to give shelters to poor people. You might not be able to build a home but you can contribute to the community center to feed and give shelter to the people who live differently in the community.

How should you approach?

• You can help people in many ways. For instance, you can take part in cultural exchange programs or you can simply join awareness campaigns to educate poor people
• You can help someone having medical treatment and medicines thus giving someone life. There is nothing better than giving life to people
• You can see help from NGOs and other organizations that are working towards the betterment of the poor community

In fact, there are a number of ways and means to help poor people. All you need to have is the compassionate heart and a loving mind.

It is time to understand the essence of life by finding the ways to help people because you can only find spiritual satisfaction by h going the people. Poor people might have been born poor but they have all the right to live a rich and beautiful life. You should be instrumental.

If you are interested in social works then donate for  Get Do Help Portal . This portal is dedicated for social works and all earning by this portal like earning by AdSense or advertisement, use only for help needy and poor people. So you can share you hand with us by advertise at our website or by donate few cent to us. Get do help portal is managing by  RS Seo Solution  and Bit Web Soft. We are giving our about 10% every month to help people who is requesting us for help through Get Do Help. So if you have any question then please feel free to contact us or you can contact me “Suraj Anjaana” also through EzineArticles profile.

Article Source:  https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Suraj_Anjaana/186602

Syllad | The Rising Meghalaya

Syllad is a fully digital news portal from Meghalaya. With tagline “Syllad-The Rising Meghalaya” Syllad brings voices of Meghalaya to the rest of the world.

November 14, 2020 at 10:43 PM

December 26, 2020 at 11:07 PM

Sir a m a farmer from Tanzania seeking for financial aid worth 100,000 $ to buy farm equipment to work in my country

April 21, 2021 at 12:43 AM

Hi Sir. Can you please help.. I am struggling you a lot for food and medical expenses… I had met with major car accident and lost my walking sence due to spinal cod injury now I am paralized below neck level.. I lost my job also… My mother was only support after my accident.. She also passed away seeing my condition… No I am struggling a lot for food and medical treatment… Can you please help me… You can cross check my medical reports and after that if you wish you can help me… This is my watsapp number +918489421139

September 23, 2022 at 1:22 AM

There are a number of ways and means to help poor people. All you need to have is a compassionate heart and a loving mind. people like Mr. Tej Kohli and Dr. Ruit are helping poor people as per their capacity. We should do our bit as well.

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