NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote
... e same standard of living as the poor forty years ago, despite the general growth in income. Thus by the official definition of poverty, 14. 5 % of the population is poor. Conservatives though have long maintained a strong objection to both the official and relative measures of poverty. They make their case in that the poor today enjoy a standard living far beyond the wildest dreams of an eighteenth century aristocrat, such as television and convenience foods that no courtesan or prince could imagine. They further argue that the official line, based on cash incomes, completely ignores the value added through non-cash benefits and welfare schemes such as Food Stamps, rent subsidies and Medicaid.
In addition to that it ignores the value of housing services consumed by poor people who own the houses they live in. ("Consumption of housing services" is how economists describe the pleasures of inhabiting your space. ). Responding to this pressure the U. S. Census Bureau has for the last several years experimented with various definitions of poverty and income. If one throws in every last benefit that the welfare state offers, we then manage to redefine poverty by almost a third i. e.
from 14. 5 % to 10. 4 %. This is done by counting Medicaid, Medicare and the value of owner occupied housing at the equivalent of cash income. On the flip side a more honest count of the poor, and one that in my opinion is the right approach, basis its measure on a updated market basket (as opposed to a 1955 or 1960 line that todays values are based on) or figured on a poverty line measure against average income rather than a fixed standard from forty years ago. If the poverty line were measured based on average income, and was set at half the average income, the line would be pushed up to $ 19250 for two people or $ 26852 for four. This would then yield a poverty rate of almost twice the present level, in the 20 - 25 % range. Let us now consider these statistics in the context of New York City.
For a single individual the poverty threshold is defined to be around $ 8000. Based on that value 1. 8 million people or 24. 3 % of the citys population remains officially poor. Keep in mind that the official rate is based not on average income or an updated market basket, which would raise the percentage by a significant figure. This figure has not changed much from the early 1990 s when the country was in the midst of a depression, and the unemployment rate was well over 10 %, and today when the unemployment rate is between a much healthier 6 - 7 %. The poverty rate among families with children living in New York City is about 30 %. For a family of four this is based on an income of around $ 16000.
However the government has never really bothered to explain as to how a family of four can live on $ 16000 a year in New York City, when the cost of housing alone is generally at least half this amount. Furthermore the number of people who receive benefits such as Medicaid and food stamps have sharply declined. Poor families covered by Medicaid for even part of the year declined from 69. 9 % in 1996 to 55. 9 % in 1998. Many of those who are removed from welfare are either not aware of their continuing eligibility or are discouraged from applying. Moreover medical insurance, nice as it may seem offers no use to someone who cant make the rent. These figures are the most recent evidence of the growing rift between the rich and the poor in the United Sates and nowhere is this rift more apparent than in New York City where the cost of living is literally out of the roof.
Several of the other problems associated with New York City such as homelessness, crime, drug trafficking and even to a certain extent racism, stem from this growing gulf between the very rich and the very poor. The country currently seems to be heading towards the end of the biggest economic boom in American history. The economy is not going to get much better than it has been these last couple of years, at least not any time soon. However New York City still faces a scenario wherein a quarter of the population lives below the poverty level. David Jones, president of the Community Service Society fears that even if the current economic trend continues there will be no place for hundreds of thousands of workers whose benefits begin to expire in December 2001, under the five year lifetime limit established by the Clinton welfare legislation. Furthermore if the rate of unemployment were to rise even by a few percentage points it would create an even more serious and immediate crisis.
Let us now examine poverty levels and how they are defined in a country like India, and what they represent to the poor living in Bombay. Who are the poor in India and how poor are they really? The World Bank defines the absolutely poor as those having incomes of less than $ 1 per day per head, but by Indian standards this works out to Rupees (Rs. ) 1300 per head per month, which is actually quite generous, considering that a family income of Rs. 5000 per month would be considered a middle class income in India. This is why United Nations data for the number of poor people in India-those with incomes of less than $ 1 per day, is a staggering 525 million people, making India the nation with the largest number of poor people in the world. Unlike the World Bank the government of India bases its estimates on poverty using a somewhat different yardstick. It is based largely on calories intake, and that brings down the number of absolutely poor to around 330 million.
The figure, though largely reduced still represents a third of the countries total population and is easily the worlds largest concentration of the poorest of the poor. It must be said however that the poor in India are by no means the Indian middle class of Rs. 5000 per month family incomes. The absolute poor are the landless agricultural laborers, the peasant with tiny land holdings, the unskilled unemployed and semi-employed, the disabled and the chronically sick of poor-family origins. How does this then relate to the poor people living in Bombay? The slum population reflects poverty in Bombay to a large extent. From 1954 to 1970 the government ran a slum-clearing program: by 1961, slum settlements housed only 10 per cent of the city population.
But the rate of migration into the city outstripped the capacity of the authorities to house them, and in the last quarter century the population of people living in slums has grown rapidly. Bombay is now home to nearly fifteen million people. The high price of land long ago took housing out of the reach of the poor and is now not even in the grasp of many sections of the middle class. Today, 55 per cent of Bombay's people live in shanties, slums and on pavements. A quarter of these are in dilapidated houses. Collapse of buildings in the Fort Area the old colonial settlement is frequent, often causing injury or death.
Many slum dwellers, live side-by-side with the rich, presenting as stark a contrast between poverty and wealth as you will get anywhere in the world. In contrast to New York City where homelessness, drug dealing, racism and crime are challenges caused due to poverty, the biggest challenge faced as a result of the poverty in Bombay is one of sheer survival. It has been stated that Indians react to poverty very differently than those facing poverty in the United States. In the United States, and it certainly holds true for New York City, poverty often means anger and isolation. In India on the other hand even slums are built on strong family values.
That may be the case in rural India, but in the case of people living in Bombay anger and isolation is increasingly becoming a major problem, and strong or not so strong family values dont seem to be helping much. Crime, drug trafficking, and prostitution are not uncommon in Bombay today. Even communal and religious riots, which were once unheard of in Bombay, are today a fact of reality. From this analysis it is clear that poverty in Bombay is in a sense far more extreme than the poverty faced by poor people in New York City. However the effects of poverty in either case cannot be ignored.
Problems caused by poverty are serious and steps have to be taken in order to reduce their levels, which in turn will decrease some of the negative effects that poverty brings along. This then raises an interesting question related to cities in general. Do cities make the people or do people make the cities? With respect to poverty it must be said that it is a little bit of both.
People for the most part move to large cities such as New York and Bombay in order to improve their standard of living. However a large majority of these people find themselves far away from their dream, and living in poor conditions. Does the blame then fall on the city for the shattered dreams and poor conditions of these people? If one answers yes to the question, then he or she is only half right. Yes, to a certain extent the city is to blame for not being able to provide the infrastructure needed to support huge migrant and immigrant populations.
But the more important question that comes out of that statement is this: Why is the city infrastructure not able to support these people? The answer to that lies in the fact that the more wealth a city creates, the more attractive it becomes to the people, and more people end up moving to that city, thus creating a greater strain on the citys infrastructure. Hence a sort of a chain reaction is set up. In other words it is the people that make a city, as much as if not more than the city that makes the people. Bibliography: References: An Outline History of Mumbai (Bombay), by Dr. Ardeshir B.
Damania web History and Politics of New York Concise Columbia Encyclopedia Alternative Solutions For Worlds Largest Concentration of Poor People web One-quarter of New York City's population lives below the poverty threshold by Fred Mazelis web
Free research essays on topics related to: standard of living, average income, poverty threshold, drug trafficking, worlds largest
Research essay sample on Standard Of Living Poverty Threshold
