McFadden 1

Garrett McFadden
Mrs. Davis
English Composition II
17 April 2015
Nobody Deserves a Bad Start
Poverty in America is an occurrence that is awful and no person should have to go
through it. Child poverty is even worse. There are young children throughout the United States
that are helpless with the hand they are dealt. In most states a child must be at least fifteen years
old to work. Until that point, all children are doing is spending money instead of making any
income. One city in particular that has a high child poverty rate in New Orleans with a child
poverty rate of close to 39 percent. That is 78,000 children living under the poverty line in a
single city (Wendland). If the government would allow children to work at a younger age,
possibly 14 years old, then they could help their families with food and other bills. The
government has attempted to solve the problem of child poverty for many years. Since 2008,
there has been a substantial positive impact on child poverty and poverty as a whole. There are
multiple factors that cause child poverty such as single mothers, and unstable jobs, which leads
to outcomes such as poor education and poor location.
Fathers often do not stick around for biggest responsibility of a lifetime, a child. This
leaves mothers single with another mouth to feed and another person to put a roof over their
heads. There are child care payments that are supposed to come from the father, but often these
payments are never received. When a man leaves a woman during pregnancy, there is a process
to get the child care payments. First, the government must find the father, often this cannot even
be done. After finding the father, there is a whole court system to go through. This cost time and

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money, the majority of these, now single, mothers cannot afford the court process. The most
often occurrence of this particular situation is when a man and women get pregnant when they
are only a teenager. The Denver Post published an article about poverty and teen pregnancy that
stated that the teen birth rate in 2012 was 39.7 out of 1,000. This leaves these teens parents to
help care for the child which, unless their parents are wealthy, also puts their parents below the
poverty line (McGee and Robins). Single mothers under the poverty line have it worse than
others in poverty. Not only do they have a child to raise, they also have to find a job to provide
for the both of them. Businesses claim that they do not discriminate between men and women in
the work place, but that is false. It is harder for a women to get a higher salary job in most
instances than it is for a male. The problem in discriminating in work places is a problem that
needs to be solved that will dramatically help with child poverty.
Parents job insecurity is one of, if not the, biggest causes of child poverty. The U.S.
government recently opened up more job opportunities for those who are on welfare which
seems like it could work. Workers on welfare switch jobs often. Only 17 percent of these
workers on welfare will be with the same company after three years of work, and 13 percent of
them were considered full time (Riccardi). This leaves the rest of the workers on welfare often
looking for jobs and taking the first job opportunity that they can find, these jobs are usually
paying minimum wage. Tegan Wendland stated that although 82 percent of families in the city
have at least one working parent, high poverty persist because of these parents hold part-time and
temporary jobs that do not provide a living wage. Minimum wage is supposed to be set so that a
person can provide for themselves off of it. With children in the mix, the parent that obtains these
minimum or even above minimum wage jobs, cannot give the children a comfortable life and
this restricts their possibilities as far as outside of the home activities go. Job insecurity does not

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only effect the parents, it effects a childs mentality. When parents move from job to job it leaves
the kids wondering. Where will our family be moving next? Is mom or dad going to work
today? Will there be dinner when I get home? Children are supposed to worry about school
and activities not where their next meal will come from.
All children have the opportunity to receive an education due to The United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Improving Schools, written by Stephen
McKinney, states the UNCRC advocates that primary education be compulsory and available
free to all. Primary education is free to all in the United States, but not all primary educations
are equally as beneficial. The majority of children who are below the poverty line will receive a
poor education from the beginning. Not to say that the teachers are not doing their job, because
that is not the only problem. For one, the children cannot always get to school from a young age.
Parents need to work so that they can place meals on the table for their children, often work will
interfere with getting the children to school. Many primary schools throughout America have
started advocating for school to start earlier in the day, therefore parents can drop their child off
before they have to be into work. Another problem with schooling in low income families is that
the children do not always care as much about education as those who live in higher income
families. It is set into childrens mind from a young age what they will be when they grow up,
children look up to their parents and assume that is what they will be like when they grow up.
When a child has a mentality like that, he or she sees no need to go to school. Later on,
McKinney believes that the role of school leadership is crucial in the process of creating a
culturally responsive classroom ensuring a high quality education. The problem with primary
education teachers for the youth is that the teachers do not always care as much as they should.
In some of the minds of the school leaders, all they need to do is pass the children so that they

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move onto the next grade. What really needs to happen is that low poverty, and all primary
educations for that matter, need to hire teachers who care more about teaching than they do about
getting their check every two weeks.
The worst part about child poverty is the location of these childrens homes. The vast
majority of children who are raised in a family that is struggling with poverty are not as stable as
those who are raised more privileged. An article published in in Tribune Business News written
by James Redmond has the same thoughts in more depth, when families can afford decent
housing and provide for themselves, it creates a more stable environment for children. Families
below the poverty line cannot always provide a decent house, and if they can, it is often in a not
so decent neighborhood. In neighborhoods that have high poverty rates, the crime rate is
significantly higher. Researchers have their own opinions on why the crime rate is higher, but
there is no 100 percent correct answer. Some of the time, it is because these children do not have
a father figure to look up to. Kids starting from a young age look up to their father figure. When
a father figure is not there for the children, they will find other people to look up to, who are
sometimes in gangs or other bad influences on a childs life. Gangs are higher in low income
areas because it gives the children a group where they are all in the same situation. Crime is
often pointless and selfish in low income children, but often it is cause by needs. Parents cannot
always put a meal on the table every single night. When instances like that occur, children will
fall back on stealing food from grocery stores and other peoples homes. Besides stealing and
gangs there is also drug usage. Drugs are one of the most committed crimes every day. Children
in poverty will often do drugs to fit in and to feel wanted in the majority. Gangs, stealing and
drugs are almost unavoidable in these low income and poverty stricken neighborhoods, parents
want to get their children out but often they cannot due to their circumstances.

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Childhood poverty needs to be completely gone from the United States, however,
realistically that cannot happen. Therefore the United States needs to figure out ways to
minimize poverty in general. A few options are: higher pay for the young, raising minimum
wage, and tackling youth poverty early. It is shown that younger teenagers, ages 16 and 17, get
paid less per hour than those who are 19-20. It is shown that children that start below poverty
will have to start working early and will be more likely to stay in poverty (France). If companies
would pay young workers more per hour, it would make it more probable for children in poverty
to eventually get out at a younger age. Another solution, which has been done multiple times
throughout history, is raising the minimum wage. This solution is the most talked about, it is also
the most criticized. When the minimum wage is increased the availability of jobs is decreased.
Minimum wage is a possible, but also problematic solution. Raising the minimum wage would
put more children in an awful position because some parents would lose jobs. The children living
in poverty might not even get a meal at night due to loss of their parents lost jobs. Another
solution that has not been talked about lately by the U.S. government, is to intervene with child
poverty from birth. While it is completely wrong to take a womens child away from her, it
would be another possible solution. If a mother and father could simply not afford to take care of
the child, then the government would take the child right after birth and place it into a foster
home, and put the child up for adoption. The problem with this solution is where the government
will place all the children who would become foster kids, and what would be considered not
being able to care for the child. All solutions have a downfall. Maybe there simply is not a
solution for child poverty.
Throughout history, the U.S. government has tried many technics to minimize child
poverty. So far none of them have worked to the extent that completely benefits children. There

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is one solution I have thought about after doing my research combine all the positive effects
from the past attempts. The United States needs to make another strong effort to bring poverty as
a whole to a halt. Riccardi stated it is possible to dramatically increase employment rates among
welfare recipients. However, we are not seeing evidence of long-term earnings growth. We
havent seen long term earnings growth because the minimum wage is not increased significantly
enough, and when the minimum wage is increased jobs get lost. To increase jobs and earnings
growth there needs to be a minimum amount of jobs for each company depending on the
companys size. Say the company makes 100 dollars an hour the must have at least five
employees. With doing this the U.S. government could also provide some sort of living condition
for those single mothers who work and need help out of their current situation. To do this the
government would need to build a sort of living neighborhood that is secure for the single
mothers and their children. Doing the governmental housing solution it would help with Frances
idea where he stated a young person either becoming poor or staying poor is increased by the
transition process. Government housing would help the transition from being in poverty to
rising about the poverty line easier. These two solutions for poverty have not been tried or proven
that they will or, but it is worth a try.
Everybody can agree that no child should grow up in poverty, it is one of the saddest
events going on in the United States and the world. If the United States can start to decrease the
number of people in poverty by a little bit each year, in ten years there will be a visible change.
To fix child poverty, poverty in general must first be minimized. There are multiple places to
start fixing child poverty. We should start with single mothers and living conditions, after those
two we can start focusing on the other details. The United States must start somewhere. After it is

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figure out, we can move on to helping other countries get their people out of child poverty. There
must be a solution, it just needs to be found and put into play.

Annotated Bibliography

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France, Alan. From Being to Becoming: The Importance of Tackling Youth Poverty in
Transitions To Adulthood Social Policy and Society. 7 April 2008. Web. 26 March
2015.
Alan Frances article is filled with facts that are the same as other authors about child poverty. I
can tell that he has done his research due to all of his references and his quotes. Frances journal
was published in a well know text book, Social policy and Society. He has reliable references
and quotes throughout his journal. The journal put a new solution into play, the solution of
getting the child poverty solution solved from birth. The article talks about putting more children
into foster care if the parents cannot provide for the children.

Henderson, Schuyler and Jack C. Westman. Parent Power: The Key to Americas Prosperity.
Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Vol.54 Number 3
P.235-236. March 2015. Text. 23 March 2015.
Jack Westman published a book and had it edited by Henderson. Westman has published multiple
books and textbooks throughout his life with correct facts. The book is very recent, just
published in March of this year. He has written and published two different books about
parenting with child poverty involved significantly. Book Forum, a well know website has used
both of his publishes on their website, in the book he talks about how to parent in poor
neighborhoods. He talks about how difficult it is for single parents to provide and give
everything to a child that the child wants.

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McGhee, Tom, Yesenia Robles. Poverty Decreases: Colorado children recuperate for the first
time since 2008. Denver Post. 24 March 2015. Web. 26 March 2015.
This article is a current article, published the twenty fourth of March of 2015. The article was
published in the biggest newspaper in Colorado The Denver Post. The article is filled with
facts that seem to be up to par with the other statistics that I have read. McGhee and Robins
teamed up to write this article who both have back rounds in studying poverty as a whole. The
article gives statistics about income and how much it cost to raise a family of four. Not only does
it give information about raising a family it gave me information about teen pregnancy and its
effects on child poverty.

McKinney, Stephen. The Relationship of Child Poverty to School Education Improving

Schools Vol. 17 P. 203-216. 2014. Text. 23 March 2015.
McKinneys text was an editorial text and got published in a textbook called Improving Schools.
He is a professor at the University of Glasgow, in Scotland. He uses citations from reliable
sources throughout his textbook. SAGE a known publishing company in Scotland published his
book and released it not only in Scotland but also throughout America and the world.
McKinneys Article talks about solutions for child poverty and questions if there even is a
possible solution. It talks about how there has to be more than just welfare checks done to change
child poverty, and poverty as a whole.

Redmond, James. Kids Count report: Child poverty dips while income goes up in Weld
County. McClatchy- Tribune Business News. 23 March 2015. Web. 26 March 2015.

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This article is a current article, published the twenty third of March of 2015. The author of this
article is from Weld, County Colorado and wrote the article about the poverty in Weld County, he
did not only do research, he is living it. This was not only published in Colorado newspapers it
was also published in a Washington newspaper. Redmond has had articles published in
newspapers and magazines throughout the country including: Washington, Colorado and Nevada.
The article gives information about the living conditions for child in poverty which is a big
problem for under privileged children. Weld Countys poverty rate is an astonishing 18.7 percent.

Riccardi, Nicholas. Post-Welfare Jobs No Cure for Poverty, Study Finds. Los Angeles Times. 7
April 2009. Web. 26 March 2015.
Riccardi is a writer for the LA Times and has had multiple articles published. He has facts that
most child poverty article articles have, but he also adds his opinion which I found helpful. It is
official and from reliable sources, LA Times and Economic Roundtable. The article has multiple
references and cites authors thorough the article. The article talks about welfare recipients. It
goes into detail about how many people are on welfare and how many of those people are single
parents.

Shatberahvili, Nino. Poverty Reduction Programme in Georgia: Facts and Policy Measures.
Drunzboslovne Rasprave. 2014. Web. 26 march 2015.
The author of the article is an assistant the University of Ljublihana in the social work
department. He has been doing research on poverty reduction for five years during his time at the
university. His facts matched the other articles about child poverty. He quoted other scholar

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authors with their facts as well. The article broke down many characteristics of poverty in
Georgia. It gave me a perspective of not only the middle of the country but also the east coast.

Wendland, Tegan. Child Poverty reaches pre-Katrina levels in New Orleans. New Orleans
CityBusiness. 2 March 2015. Web. 26 March 2015.
This article is a current article, published the second of March of 2015. Wendland, the writer is a
reporter for Dolan media Newswires in New Orleans. Wendland has written multiple articles
throughout the country about child poverty, I found the one in New Orleans most helpful. The
facts are well written and add up to the other articles I have read about child poverty. In the
article it talked about one city in particular, New Orleans. It stated the changes in child poverty
from 2008 to 2013. The article provided me with quotes used in my paper such as the amount of
children living in poverty in New Orleans (78,000).