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Lack of knowledge Causes Poverty |
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A parent's lack of education can also cause cycles of poverty. For example, an uneducated parent may be able only to secure employment that places his or her family in low-income or poor economic levels. This family, therefore, will more than likely live in an area characterized by low-incomes and poverty. The children, as a result, will more than likely attend substandard schools. In New York, for example, the average poor student receives only about $1,000 per year in resources at public schools, compared to resource allocations of approximately $3,000 per year per student in more affluent public school districts ("Causes of Poverty" 1). These averages are roughly the same in at least 37 of the 50 states ("Causes of Poverty" 1). Students in low-income and impoverished families and neighborhoods, therefore, often receive sub-standard education and educational facilities. In addition, however, these students also often suffer from insufficient mental and educational stimulation at home due to their parents' lack of education ("Causes of Poverty" 1). As a result, low-income and impoverished children often have lower levels of basic thinking skills in their pre-kindergarten years, which put them further behind in school even before they start. Some researchers contend that poor children often enter as much as a year and a half behind the language abilities of their middle-class peers ("Causes of Poverty" 1). Children with these disadvantages often per |
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Allegretto, Sylvia. "Social Expenditures and Child Poverty: The U.S. is a Noticeable Outlier," Economic Policy Institute (June 23, 2004): . [Last visited on May 26, 2005].(GAO) General Accounting Office. "Job Training and Vocational Education," Almanac of Policy Issues (June 1, 2001): . [Last visited on May 26, 2005].Waldron, Tom, Roberts, Brandon and Reamer, Andrew. "Working Hard, Falling Short: America's Working Families and the Pursuit of Economic Security," Annie E. Casey Foundation (October 2004): . [Last visited on May 26, 2005]."Causes of Poverty in the United States," Pacific Lutheran University (December 2002): . [Last visited on May 26, 2005].Thus, these "sector-based" training programs might be more risky and costly, but they also give the results necessary to ensure the programs' success as well as the success of its participants. Ultimately, the increased education and training of the participants leads to increased employment opportunities and earnings for the parents of low-income and poor children, which results in improved living conditions and educational opportunities for children in poverty, which is ultimately the only way the cycle of poverty can be broken. Currently, the federal government does operate several educational and training programs for welfare recipients and the working poor. However, as the General Accounting Office (GAO) stated in 2001, despite the $11.7 billion spent on these programs, federal job training policy remains fragmented and inefficient (GAO 1). Ultimately these programs are not run in such a manner that they ensure they will lift their target populations out of poverty (GAO 1). Moreover, their benefits often seem to fade after four to five years (GAO 1). Thus, many researchers h |
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