that forty-eight percent of the poor are white, 27% are African Americans, and 22% are Hispanics (Bracey, 1997). Another common belief is that most people are poor because they do not want to work, but, facts show that 7.5 million poor adults work at least 27 weeks out of the year (Hale, 1999). What also must be taken into consideration is that 60% of the poor in the U.S. were not able to work due to their age (to young or to old), or due to disability. This can further be broken down as: 40% were to young 10% were over 65 with the remaining 10% as disabled (Federman, Garner, & Short, 1996). A myth held by many is that most poor get welfare so they aren't really suffering and once they are on welfare they stay on for long periods of time and make no effort to improve the situation. However, most poor citizens do not receive aid from the government, either because they are not eligible, not willing to apply, or do not know that they are eligible. For those families receiving welfare most did not receive aid for more than two years at a time (Thomas, 1997). It is believed by many that:"Welfare mothers are promiscuous. Most are morally weak and undeserving. If women do not want to be poor they should make different choices, and change their behavior. This is the myth of the "culture of single Motherhood"" (Thomas, 1997 pp. 351). Women on welfare are shown to have fewer births in comparison to the rest of the population (Hale 1999). Most welfare recipients are not teenage moms as the media hype and recent myth-driven welfare reforms tend to indicate. In fact, no more than 7% of the U.S. welfare families are headed by teen moms (Thomas, 1997). Another, strongly held myth about the poor is that they are heavy drug and alcohol abusers, statistics show that one out of every four people living in poverty is a substance abuser, many of these are included in the 25% who are mentally ill (Corcoran, 1995). However, the truth is that ba...
