When I dug a little over this subject, I came to know that U.S has in both relative and absolute terms, the greatest number of hungry, homeless, and poor people than to other first world countries like Canada, Japan, and other European countries. And America spends relatively less money on social welfare for the poor.

Although Americans are far better off economically than most people in the world, poverty is a significant and persistent problem in America. They include individuals of all ages, races, religion and region, but poverty is more prevalent among some groups. Children are the largest group, 1 in every 5 children lives in poverty. Most poor children live in single parent families usually with the mother divorced, separated or unmarried. Most of the women earn less than men for comparable work, especially in non professional fields. Poverty in America is mainly a women’s problem, a situation referred to as “The Feminization of Poverty”.

Poverty is also widespread among minority groups. About 27.2 per cent of African-Americans about 11 million in the year 2014 and 23.5 of Hispanics live below poverty line, compared with the percent of whites, About one third of all families with single mother were in poverty level in 2014 which includes roughly 15.6 million household.

The government defines the “Poverty Line” as the annual cost of a thrifty food budget for an urban family of four, multiplied by 3 to include the cost of housing, clothing and other expenses. In 2014-2015 the poverty line was set at an annual income of roughly $ 23850 for a family of four. In total 14.5 per cent or 45 million Americans stuck below poverty level.Census-Bureau Report-2014

Poverty is geographically concentrated. Although it is often portrayed as an urban problem, it is somewhat more prevalent in rural areas. About one in six rural residents, as compared with one in eight urban residents, live below poverty line. The poverty rate is very high in inner city areas, suburbs are safe haven for poverty. Because suburbanites are removed from it, many of them have no sense of the impoverished condition of what Michael Harrington called “the other America”.

The invisibility of poverty in America is evident in polls that show that most Americans substantially underestimate the number of poor in their country. Yet the US has the highest level of poverty among the advanced industrial nations.

Many Americans hold to the idea that poverty is highly a matter of choice- that most low-income Americans are unwilling to make the effort to hold a responsible job and get ahead in life, In his book “Losing Ground” Charles Murray argued that America has a permanent underclass of unproductive citizens who prefer live on welfare and whose children receive little educational encouragement at home and grow up to be copies of their parents. There are indeed millions such people in America. Yet most poor Americans are in their situation as a result of circumstances rather than of choice. A ten year study by University of Michigan research team found that most of the poor are poor only for a time being and they are poor for temporary reasons — loss of job, desertion by father and so on.

In the recessionary period of nineties more than four million Americans fell into poverty as a result of job loss. The same thing happened during the global recession of the period 2008-2009, only the number of job-loss had increased significantly.

It is also the case that full time job does not guarantee that a family with a single earning member will rise above the poverty line. Millions of Americans- mostly household workers, service workers, labourers, and farm-workers are in that position.

American governments enacted social welfare policies from time to time to tackle the situation of poverty. The welfare issue, like all other issues is part of rough and tumble of everyday politics everywhere. In US, the Republican Party , business groups, anti-tax groups and others have resisted, from time to time, the expansion of government’s social welfare role, while liberal democrates, unions, and minority groups pleaded for the expansion. President Bush during his tenure in early 2000, slashed billions of dollars from his social welfare budget.Govt. Food Stamp, extended unemployment benefits etc which were helping millions of people. The recent tug of war and fiasco over “Obama Care” bill is an example of this difference in political attitude.

Nevertheless, Americans’ belief in individualism which has no exact equivalent in European or any other societies, had played a defining role in shaping US welfare policy. When asked whether it is the responsibility of the government to take care of very poor people who can not take care of themselves, only 23 per cent of Americans said they completely agreed, whereas more than 60 per cent of the most of European states held the same opinion .Americans do not necessarily have less sympathy for the poor, rather they place more emphasis on personal responsibility than the people of other countries do. (IPA Service)