Facts of the Matter -- Poverty

by Jason Grotto
The Rotarian -- November 2009

By Know Hope, Graffiti artist

The World Bank measures poverty based on the amount of household income needed to meet daily needs, including food, clothing, and shelter. The percentage of those in the developing world who live on less than US$1.25 a day – considered the threshold of extreme poverty by the World Bank – fell by half between 1981 and 2005, from 52 percent to 26 percent. But more than one billion people worldwide still live on less than $1 a day. Every year, six million children die before their fifth birthday from malnutrition.
According to the World Bank, in East Asia, once considered the world’s poorest region, extreme poverty has plunged from 80 percent in 1981 to 18 percent in 2005, largely because of improving economic conditions in China. But in sub-Saharan Africa, there has been no change in the percentage of people living in extreme poverty.
Instead of attending school, roughly 250 million children around the world are working, more than half of them in hazardous conditions. Education helps break the cycle of poverty. For every year children are in school, their wages as adults increase by a worldwide average of 10 percent. Educated mothers immunize their children 50 percent more often than mothers without an education. They also are more likely to send their children to school.
Only a small minority of children experience chronic poverty in the United States. But 35 percent of U.S. children born between 1970 and 1990 lived in poverty at some point in their lives. Currently, one out of every six children in the United States lives in poverty.
Fifty-four percent of children who live in poverty come from families headed by single mothers. Save the Children reports that poor children are less likely to graduate from high school, go to college, or get jobs that will make them financially self-sufficient.
The poverty rate in the United States did not change from 2006 to 2007, remaining near 12.5 percent. More than half of all those living in poverty in the United States – 57 percent – live outside major cities. The South has the highest poverty rate, at 14.2 percent. The census estimates that the number of African Americans and Hispanics living in poverty in the United States is more than double that of non-Hispanic whites.
More than 15 million people in the United States live on annual incomes that are less than half the federal poverty threshold of $22,050 for a family of four – a standard that’s widely considered outdated. The National Center for Children in Poverty reports that, on average, all families require twice the federal poverty threshold to meet most of their basic needs.
During the past five years, The Rotary Foundation has awarded 142 grants worth nearly $2 million to combat poverty in the United States.

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