The Poverty in America

The poverty in America is worse than people lead on to be. Not because people are poor and homeless, because people take advantage of other people. Like I said in class, we "working poor" pay for all the lazy people in America that do not want to get up and go work. Then, half of them sell or abuse their privileges given to them by the Government. Maybe, instead of just taking away their food stamps and such, there actually just be a harsher punishment for those who get caught doing things they are not supposed to do with our money. In 2011, 26.5 million (13.7 percent) of people ages 18-64 were in poverty (feedingamerica.org). In 2011, the unemployment rate in Virginia was 6.2 (feedingamerica.org). 14.5 percent of U.S. households struggle to put enough food on the table. More than 48 million Americans, including 16.2 million children, live in these households (bread.org). That amazes me because this is the wealthiest country in the world. Why do we struggle so much? It is not because of scarcity of food, obviously. As many people that are overweight in this country you would think nobody is going hungry. I do not think anybody will ever know the real reason behind poverty, but I do think it is something that will never go away.