Poverty Essay
Adriano Polanco
Poverty is one of the biggest problems we are dealing with in our world. What is poverty you might ask, well poverty is the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support. My question is why is poverty a problem? If the world banded together there would be no task we could not accomplish; but that’s just it we are divided nations living on one world. Poverty is present in most, if not all nations, and the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. The people with power usually become the richest ones, and with the help of bad government policies, the gap gets even bigger. Africa is one of the most poverty-stricken countries in the world and it continues to get worse. African income levels have actually been dropping relative to the rest of the world. So poor Africa is getting relatively poorer on average and in Somalia, religious war has been worsening the famine situation there. Moreover, due to poverty, almost 21,000 people die every day. That is equivalent to:1 child dying every 4 seconds, 14 children dying every minute, a 2011 Libya conflict-scale death toll every day, a 2010 Haiti earthquake occurring every 10 days, a 2004 Asian Tsunami occurring every 11 days, an Iraq-scale death toll every 19–46 days, just under 7.6 million children dying every year, and some 92 million children dying between 2000 and 2010. The deaths aren’t a surprise, seeing as the people have poor living conditions, and usually die of starvation or disease. But what is a surprise is the lack of media attention. It’s as if the wealthy countries that “help” only do it for the publicity, while the country in need is still suffering. To continue, here are some facts on Poverty: Almost half the world — over 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day, the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the 41 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (567 million people) is less than the wealth of the world’s 7 richest people combined, nearly a
Poverty is one of the biggest problems we are dealing with in our world. What is poverty you might ask, well poverty is the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support. My question is why is poverty a problem? If the world banded together there would be no task we could not accomplish; but that’s just it we are divided nations living on one world. Poverty is present in most, if not all nations, and the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. The people with power usually become the richest ones, and with the help of bad government policies, the gap gets even bigger. Africa is one of the most poverty-stricken countries in the world and it continues to get worse. African income levels have actually been dropping relative to the rest of the world. So poor Africa is getting relatively poorer on average and in Somalia, religious war has been worsening the famine situation there. Moreover, due to poverty, almost 21,000 people die every day. That is equivalent to:1 child dying every 4 seconds, 14 children dying every minute, a 2011 Libya conflict-scale death toll every day, a 2010 Haiti earthquake occurring every 10 days, a 2004 Asian Tsunami occurring every 11 days, an Iraq-scale death toll every 19–46 days, just under 7.6 million children dying every year, and some 92 million children dying between 2000 and 2010. The deaths aren’t a surprise, seeing as the people have poor living conditions, and usually die of starvation or disease. But what is a surprise is the lack of media attention. It’s as if the wealthy countries that “help” only do it for the publicity, while the country in need is still suffering. To continue, here are some facts on Poverty: Almost half the world — over 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day, the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the 41 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (567 million people) is less than the wealth of the world’s 7 richest people combined, nearly a