Generational Poverty: How to Break the Cycle of Poverty

Are you familiar with escape rooms? The only way to escape is to solve a complicated problem. But what if you can't get out of the room in time? Having lost, you are then "imprisoned" in the room. OK, not literally. However, you won't be able to leave the room until a staff member enters the room and shows you the clues you missed, walks you through the solution, and escorts you safely outside.

Due - Due

What if the moderator never showed up and you were stuck waiting for your kids to solve the puzzle? While you wait, you only have what you brought into the room.

Due to generational poverty, it's like you're locked in a room full of puzzles. Plus, you only have a limited amount of time to escape before you're permanently imprisoned.

In other words, generational poverty is the opposite of generational wealth. Instead of learning and getting a head start in life, children grow up living hand to mouth. In the United States, millions of people are affected.

But is it possible to break the cycle of generational poverty? Well, let's find out.

What is poverty?

First, we need to understand poverty as a whole in order to understand generational poverty.

Poverty is a state of economic hardship. More specifically, it is a situation where people lack certain products that they need for their life, such as money and material goods. Therefore, poverty encompasses social, economic and political aspects.

Poverty is derived from the French word "poverty". If you are case, this results in a bad one.

Poverty is a complex concept. The reason? This is due to the many factors that influence it, such as geography, inequality, lack of education or economic conditions.

Below are some quick facts on poverty provided by Poverty USA:

The poverty line for an individual is about $13,000 per year, and for a family of four it is about $26,000 per year. The poverty rate in America is 11.4%, which translates to some 37 million people living in poverty. Poverty affects more than 11 million children. The number of Americans living in extreme poverty is 3 million. Nearly 93 million Americans live in poverty. In terms of poverty, there is a racial disparity. About 20% of black families live in poverty, 17% of Hispanic families, and 10% of white and Asian families. families. Native Americans have the highest poverty rate, at 25%.

Furthermore, in terms of social, economic and political factors, there are many ways to identify poverty:

Absolute poverty

Poverty, which includes lack of basic food, clean water, health, housing, education and information, is also called extreme poverty or abject poverty. In absolute poverty, there is a high mortality rate among children due to preventable diseases such as malaria, cholera and waterborne diseases. In developed countries, absolute poverty is rare.

Absolute poverty was introduced in 1990 to measure absolute poverty by the standards of the world's poorest countries. The World Bank reset it to $1.90 a day in October 2015. Due to the controversy surrounding this figure, each nation has its own measure of absolute poverty.

In 2022, the poverty line for individuals in the United States is $13,590. That's $27,750 a year for a family of four.

As defined by Robert McNamara, who was the President of the World Bank from 1968 to 1981, "It is a condition so limited by malnutrition, illiteracy, disease, a squalid environment, high infant mortality and a low life expectancy that falls below any reasonable definition of human decency."

Relative poverty

On the social level, it is the standard of living compared to the inhabitants of the surroundings. In other words, it measures income inequality. An example of being poor is having no money for the holidays, buying presents for the children at Christmas, or sending them to college.

In general, relative poverty is measured as the proportion of the population...