. Money is obviously the most important thing needed to stay out ofpoverty so it would be safe to say that if people made more money, there would be lesspoverty in the US. When people think of poverty they usually think of starving people in countries likeSomalia and Ethiopia. Well, there are starving people here in the US as well. Poverty isjust measured a little different here. Poverty is determined by comparing pretax cashincome with the poverty thresholds. These thresholds are updated each year by theCensus Bureau to determine who and how many people are in poverty. The people that are in poverty come in many races, ages, and sexes in all differentregions. Different races have very different poverty levels. Minorities brought the USranking in the world way down. “A failure to address the health needs of the country’s minorities and poor caused theUnited States to miss a top 10 mother’s rank around the world” (Save the ChildrenFoundation)On average, blacks and Hispanics have poverty much higher lower than whites do andthat is why they brought our country down in this category. Blacks have levels at28.8%, Hispanics have levels at 21.2%, while whites are at only 13.2%. This is only anaverage but the more color you have the higher poverty levels there are. Age is a fairly big factor on the average poverty levels in America. Children under18 are at 18.9% while the elderly are at only a surprising 10.5%. Social Security mightplay a little role in that figure. Middle aged people have poverty levels just over theelderly. So, on average, the older you are, the lower poverty levels you have. Thismight be because when old people live in poverty they die but, nonetheless, old peoplelive in lower poverty levels than young people. Sex also plays a major role in the poverty level scales in America. Families headedby females had a poverty level all the way up at 38.7% while families headed by maleshad...
