Poverty And Inequality In America

The US economy is one of the strongest in the world (Prableen Bajpai, 2016), but millions of Americans live on the poverty line and a large percentage of them suffer from hunger throughout the year. Although there were efforts from the government to eliminate the phenomenon, the numbers are increasing. The number of Americans living below the poverty line jumped to a record $51.5 million in 2012, this is shown in the 2012 official poverty rate for nation was 15.0 percent and there were $51.0 million people in poverty, not statistically different from the last year. (Census 2012). From the Census reports we can notice that the percentage of poverty did not change, instead people are still suffering from poverty and inequality according to their,
sex, race, age, and disability. This paper will focus more on the gender wage gap and how effect the women in specific.
Inequality is the Main Cause of Persistent Poverty (Gould 2014). According to the official measures of the poverty rate, the improvements during the last three decades were only in education upgrading, and overall income growth, while the income inequality didn’t show that much of improvement. Reviewing the earnings of men and women in 2013 show that median earnings of men who work full time is $50,033, while the median earnings for women who work full time is $39,157, which means 78 percent of men’s earning