Why is poverty a social problem

American citizens sleeping in alleys, park benches or in their cars, kids going to school dirty and hungry should be everyones problem.  This country is too great that some of our population should be left out and ignored.

Brid, your question is a bit vague.

I think poverty IS a social problem...I think poverty IS NOT a governmental problem.

Brid,

I think that poverty like Carol sayed is all of our problem. This country is to great for anyone to live in poverty, like I see so many do.

Troubles come and go. Any one of us could wake up one morning and find ourselves without a job or home. All it takes is one tragedy. Most Americans are one or two paychecks from poverty. I would like to see what the critics say if it ever happened to them. Would they say it is a social problem or would they turn to the government for help? Tomorrow is not promised to anyone. We must be thankful for what we have today.

Be Blessed.

"Social" refers to society; those who say that poverty is a social problem mean that it affects the whole society. That is, the the poverty of the poor is not an isolated phenomenon which would not have its effect on those who are not poor or do not have any interaction with the poor.

Maybe the essence of your question is:

- is the above true?;

- how do we know it's true?;

- how exactly does poverty affect the life of everyone else, what are the mechanisms for that?

Well, I am not able to provide you with complete and authoratitve answer on these but I'd recommend this site as a starting point: www.worldbank.org/poverty

Bird,

     In most cases, poverty in America is caused by laziness, lack of personal determination, and  wrong priorities.

    Let me explain why I think this way.  America is a very good country as compared to other countries.  America allows students to borrow money for their studies as in student loans, grants, scholarships.  I think that there is NO REASON why Americans could not finish college and later on find a great job and then escape poverty.

    Lack of determination and wrong priorities.  I have lived here in the U.S. since 1980.  I observed that the young kids at 15, 16, 18 are more interested in having sex, having a boyfriend so early in life and then getting pregnant and get stuck with children early in life.  Then they become a burden to society because they could not afford to support themselves and their children.  They  are a burden to Society as a whole, with their food stamps, free hospitalization, free medicines, free everything.

      People, this is rather sickening.  This poverty is brought on by the people themselves.  People who work hard are penalized by paying higher taxes because they have to support the poor.  There is no excuse to be poor here in the U.S. except when one is mentally retarded, mentally ill or physically disabled.

     These so called poor people are acting like they are the victims in society.  A lot of them got involved in drugs etc.  What a stupid cop-out !!!!

Tippy,

   Are you saying that all the poor people now had tragedies in their lives.  A lot of them were on drugs, got pregnant early in life, too lazy to go to school and to college.

    Now that they are poor, they have this VICTIM MENTALITY.  Poor me, they believe that the government and the tax money should be given to them to support them all their lives .  They are so upset and jealous to see other people who worked hard before and got their education to have a bright future.

    They can escape poverty by going to college and getting good jobs.

But you don't question how they got there, do you? Nowhere in your equation does personal responsibility enter in. It's always somebody else's FAULT. 

Tippy will hold this same attitude. It's always someone else who causes such problems. The individual bears no responsibility for their own situation. 

Fred, I'm more inclined to see poverty as an INDIVIDUAL problem rather than a government or social. 

Certainly, government uses Poverty as a wedge to divide 'we the people' and to control portions of the population, but 'social' implies that 'the rest of us' have created the circumstances that 'cause' impoverished people, and that's simply not the case.