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Kevin Zhou
Ms. Thompson
AP Lang, Block 2, Skinny A
February 15th, 2015
The Causes of Poverty in America
Oftentimes people in poverty are looked upon with disdain, as though their plight was
caused by a fundamental flaw in their abilities which prevents them from succeeding
economically. What many people fail to realize is that those in poverty are often trapped there
with no way of escaping. Poverty is caused by many factors, many of which are outside the
control of the poor, not to mention the fact that these factors expound on one another. These
include the rampant illegal immigration found nowadays, the standards of modern day American
society, and the classic poverty trap (Abramsky 12). Each of these factors amplifies and
substantiates the other two factors, eventually making it near impossible for the poor to escape
poverty.
Definitely the most well-known reason as to why the poor are impinged from moving up
in society is the poverty trap. A poverty trap is a self-reinforcing mechanism or process that
keeps the poor in poverty ("An Assessment of the Accuracy of NPRs Native Foster Care: Lost
Children, Shattered Families"). In the United States, the prime example would be minority
groups living poor socioeconomic situations. These people live in extremely poor
neighborhoods, where everyone lives in poverty. These districts often have an extremely poor

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schooling system, which means that the children who live in these poor neighborhoods grow up
without a proper education or with extreme apathy towards education itself (Danziger). These
people then grow up to inevitably living in the same poor neighborhoods due to their lack of an
education which would allow them to escape poverty, and their children will then grow up in the
same poor district with the failing educational system. In this way, the cycle proliferates. The
only way to end such poverty traps is to provide aid in the form of capital and job employment
opportunities. However, this requires the initiative of those outside the poverty line. But once
the proper aid is provided, those in poverty will no longer be impeded and the will be able to pull
themselves out of the poverty trap (Abramsky 45).
Many people fail to realize that much of the population growth in the United States of
America, which is a first world country, is due to prodigious immigration and not from a high
birth rate. Much of the immigration seen nowadays is illegal, and these immigrants come from
mainly Mexico ("An Assessment of the Accuracy of NPRs Native Foster Care: Lost Children,
Shattered Families"). These illegal immigrants coming from Mexico are always unskilled
laborers who can only take low income jobs in order to support their family to try and send their
kids to school so they can get out of the aforementioned poverty trap. However, by doing this,
these immigrants take many of the jobs that legal citizens living under the poverty line need
(Poor Us: An Animated History of Poverty--Why Poverty?). By creating this competition, illegal
immigrants not only ensure that true citizens of the USA are deprived of their jobs that they need,
but that more and more people are caught under the poverty line (Ehrenreich 65). This problem
then just gets exponentially worse the more people there are and the more illegal immigrants we

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receive. Having such a large population living under the poverty line also guarantees that low
income neighborhoods sprout up, which just furthers exacerbates the poverty problem and
impedes the progress of the poor.
The third and perhaps the most potent of all the causes of poverty is the apprehension
towards the poor experienced by the society in which we live in. Our society nowadays no
longer has a sense of community. This is of course understandable; with the rise of Americas
population and big cities, it becomes increasingly difficult for a community to have just that, a
sense of community. This then results in those beneath the poverty line being largely overlooked
or ignored completely by the privileged ("Poverty in America"). This is a critical error, as the aid
of the rich is what is necessary for the poor to ascend out of poverty. If one is to look in the past,
they will see that some of the richest men in history have all been philanthropists, and through
their work, great deeds for the betterment of mankind have been achieved. From Carnegie to
Bill Gates, these venerated men set an example that all the wealthy should follow. If all the rich
were to put their efforts to aid the poor instead of lavishing in their opulent lifestyles, it would
most definitely be effective at pulling the poor out of the trap. However, since the wealthy and
influential are many times apathetic towards the plight of the poor, we cannot see the social
change that could be possible if the wealthy gave back more (Poor Us: An Animated History of
Poverty--Why Poverty?). In order to fix this, a fundamental change in our societys view
towards the poor must be changed. ("An Assessment of the Accuracy of NPRs Native Foster
Care: Lost Children, Shattered Families").

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Those below the poverty line are more often than not born into poverty and due to these
many factors they remain below the poverty line, unable to escape their insipid life as poor,
underprivileged minority cases and as case studies, oh the poor souls. The classic poverty traps
ensnares generations of families in poverty. The poverty trap is further enhanced by the sheer
volume of illegal immigration which damages our economy by creating too much competition
for jobs. Finally, the only way the poverty trap can be escaped is through financial aid from the
wealthy. However, due to the apathy of our society, the rich many times fail to support the poor.

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Works Cited
Abramsky, Sasha. The American Way of Poverty: How the Other Half Still Lives. New York:
Nation, 2014. 368. Print.
"An Assessment of the Accuracy of NPRs Native Foster Care: Lost Children, Shattered
Families." Lakotalaw.org. 22 Jan. 2013. Web. 2 Mar. 2015.
Danziger, Sheldon. "Poverty in the United States." National Poverty Center. 14 Mar. 2013. Web.
2 Mar. 2015.
Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed: On (not) Getting by in America. New York:
Metropolitan, 2001. Print.
Poor Us: An Animated History of Poverty--Why Poverty? Danish Broadcasting Corporation,
2012. Film.
"Poverty in America" Henderson, Nia-Malika . The Washington Post. 1 Aug. 2013. Television.