Question

How is the US one of the wealthiest nation, but we have a high poverty rate? where is all the money going?

Answer 1

Poverty is an all-encompassing human condition that can not access or provide a standard level of food, water, and/or shelter. It persists in varying degrees in each nation, and is unlikely to disappear soon at any time. The U.S. is considered the world's richest country and yet millions of its residents live in poverty. There are two ways of measuring deprivation–absolute poverty and relative poverty. Absolute poverty looks at those goods and services that somebody (or a family) can't get. Relative poverty looks at the sense of need, how you equate one social group to another.

Measuring the level of poverty does nothing to change the lives of the poor, but collecting and recognizing data on poverty is key to solving or at least tackling the problem. For most Americans, the face of poverty is pictures of rundown housing families in big cities where the industry has moved away. However, the real face of poverty is found in the rural areas of the U.S. South and Southwest, where living conditions are even more diminished and industry never really started up.

These areas have a long history of poverty and many factors contribute to it, but the most obvious is that they were first and foremost agricultural economies with a light emphasis on education and innovation. The more advanced the education, the greater the likelihood that a better economic future will be achieved. High school graduation rates are nearly 20 percentage points lower for African-American and Hispanic students than for other ethnic groups, while their poverty rates far exceed the average.