Poverty in America

The article on Poverty called "Understanding Poverty in America" really changes the way I think about how big an issue it is in our society today. This article starts by telling its readers about how many numbers where under the line of poverty."Nearly 35 million poor persons living in this country." This definitely changes my thinking because more then 35 million people are homeless, hungry and or have health problems, this is not a very small amount of people. Also my mind was changed when this article explained a little more to the readers about what exactly it means to be in poverty. I found out that what most Americans think about what poverty and what the government thinks poverty is are Two different things. The government thinks that poverty is "not having what average working class has." So like not having a colored TV, stove micro wave and a certain amount of money. Most Americans think being in poverty is:"An inability to provide a family with nutritious food, clothing, and reasonable shelter." This changed my thinking because i realized how the government judges poverty and how the government thinks most of America,just because they are not on a certain income or above the poverty line that the set,is in poverty. Another reason my thinking was changed was because this article stated:"Some poor families do experience hunger, meaning a temporary discomfort due to food shortages. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), 13 percent of poor families and 2.6 percent of poor children experience hunger at some point during the year." This changed my thinking also because it shows not only do people in poverty become homeless but they also starve at some point in their lives or they always do. Reading this article and discovering definitions for poverty and how people are effected by poverty I found that i am definitely against poverty and I think the government should help a little more instead of putting more people in to poverty by limiting jobs and making a poverty line.