As of 2025, the United States poverty rate has gone from 10.6% to 11.1%, which means about 36.8 million civilians in the U.S. are struggling to afford basic necessities. (U.S. Census Bureau) This means that America has risen up in the ranks to become one of the developed nations with the highest poverty rate. Poverty is America's worst problem right now, because it is so huge, there's different genres, it causes negative outcomes for the youth, and could lead to disorders and illnesses.
Though poverty can be seen anywhere in America, the main area it thrives in is around the southern part of the U.S. such as Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, and West Virginia. Around the South there are many types of poverty, with the lowest being rooflessness which means having no roof often being described as the most extreme form of being in poverty, as people like in that scenario are usually depicted to have made some unfortunate decisions throughout their lives. Above that is secondary homelessness, which involves moving from shelter to shelter or temporarily from one place to another, and these people are usually the ones actually trying to get their lives back on track. The reason “rooflessness” is considered the most extreme form of homelessness is because in this genre, according to National Health Care For The Homeless Council, Unhoused people are 3.5-4.2 times more likely to die than housed people and also Unhoused people have 60% greater mortality risk than other poor, but housed, people.
Secondly, poverty leads to harmful effects towards the youth through different ways. To begin, If a child were to be born and grow up in poverty they would suffer with different types of diseases, according to the World Social Psychiatry, such as hunger and food insecurity as well as contaminated water and inadequate sanitation. Second of all, there are many negative outcomes that the younger population could endure as they grow up, another reading from the World Social Psychiatry says, children and teens who grow up with less money than others are more likely to face problems doing poorly in school, dropping out, being abused or neglected, having behavior and emotional issues, dealing with health problems, and experiencing slower development. These outcomes lead to many issues later on in children’s life as they grow up which sort of causes them to be looked down upon more differently than other people which will be talked about in the next passage.
Even so, extreme poverty and homelessness causes way worse illnesses leading towards brain dysfunction and negative brain development. Neuropsychiatric sequelae are mental, emotional, and behavioral disturbances that result from brain injuries or diseases which are heavily influenced in poverty cases. These mental, emotional, and behavioral disturbances consist of schizophrenia, depression, and many substance abuse disorders (Blair and Raver). Comparing a person not in poverty to a person in poverty, one could easily see the difference between the two in many different ways. To begin, one could definitely point out someone in poverty by the way they dress since most clothes they wear are very worn out and most likely torn up, considered by others as looking at homeless people as garbage. Secondly, during the life of someone in poverty they could possibly develop mental issues which compared to a person that is not in poverty they would see the homeless person and would usually have a lot of negative thoughts and would want to separate themselves from people in poverty.
Which is why I believe poverty is America's worst problem right now, because it causes death, causes negative outcomes for the youth, and could lead to disorders and illnesses and so forth, helping the homeless and providing them with any help possible, we will destroy the wall between homelessness and people not in poverty so that we can unite and become one.
Works Cited
Blair, Clancy, and C. Cybele Raver. “Poverty, Stress, and Brain Development: New Directions for Prevention and Intervention.” Academic Pediatrics, vol. 16, no. 3, Apr. 2016, pp. 30–36, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5765853/, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acap.2016.01.010.
Meehan, Ashley. MORTALITY and HOMELESSNESS OCTOBER 2024 POLICY BRIEF RISK of DEATH Why We Need Housing Status on Death Certificates VIDEO. 1 Oct. 2024.
Shain, Susan, and Aidan Gardiner. “30 People Tell Us What Homelessness Is Really Like.” The New York Times, 10 Feb. 2023, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/02/10/headway/homelessness-mental-health-us.html.
Social Psychiatry, World Association. “May-Aug 2022 - Volume 4 - Issue 2 : World Social Psychiatry.” Journals.lww.com, 30 June 2022, journals.lww.com/wpsy/fulltext/2022/04020/poverty.
Susser, I. “The Construction of Poverty and Homelessness in US Cities.” Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 25, no. 1, 1996, pp. 411–435. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2155833, https://doi.org/10.2307/2155833.
US Census Bureau. “Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2023.” Census.gov, 10 Sept. 2024, www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2024/income-poverty-health-insurance-coverage.html.
Ever since I was born I have always seen poverty anywhere I went, not just in my city, but anywhere I travel to as well. Always seeing people asleep on the sidewalks and in alley ways have made me ask myself many questions. Before the writing though, wasn’t the real challenge, it was the findings of many articles related to my essay. For example, the notes and outline might have been the hardest parts for me because the articles would be very long and would have many paragraphs which would be hard for me to extract the crucial information and make me get tired. Over the time of me writing this essay I have learned many important things that I didn’t know before such as the different types of poverty there were rooflessness and secondary homelessness. As well as the minds of people in poverty have made me grow different perspectives of the people in poverty I see around me.