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The job market in the U.S. Is struggling, everyone knows that, but what is even worse is that today in America, it seems that the people who earn the least and who are living on the brink of poverty are forced to pay the costs of living at a much higher rate than those who are well off. It could be said then that living in poverty is more expensive than not living in poverty. How is that possible? We’ll take a look at the statistics that show how much money it costs an average poor American to make it through the day.

There are 44 million Americans currently living below the poverty line.

The south is hit greatest by poverty, with almost every southern state, except for Florida, having a poverty rate of 16 percent or more. New Hampshire has the lowest poverty rate, less than 8.5 percent, while the northern states seem to be doing a little better, even though the poverty rate in almost every state reaches 10 percent. Michigan is the poorest of the northern states, while the poorest state overall is Mississippi, which has a poverty rate of 21.9 percent.

These 44 million Americans that live under the poverty line make up 14.3 percent of the U.S. population. This is the highest poverty rate since 1960, when there were 40 million people living poverty, which was 11 percent of the population then. In 2009, there were 43.6 million people living in poverty, which increased from 39.8 million in 2008 and 37.3 million in 2007. The nation’s official poverty rate in 2009 was 14.3 percent, up from 13.2 percent in 2008.

The poverty rate in 2009 was the highest since 1994, but was 8.1 percent less than the poverty rate in 1959, which was the first year in which there were available poverty rates as part of the national census.

Almost twenty million Americans which is roughly 6 percent, live in extreme poverty, which means that the family’s income is less than half of the poverty line.

One in four American jobs pays less than poverty-level income. Of the Americans that make less than $30,000 per year, 23 percent do not have checking accounts and of those that make $30,000, only 6 percent do not have checking accounts. The average household that earns less than $35,000 a year has a yearly credit card debt of about $4,000. If you have an annual percentage rate (APR) of 11.5 percent on that credit card and you are paying the minimum two percent payment each month, it will take you 13 years to pay off the $4,000 debt.

It turns out that it is more expensive for Americans to be poor than it is for them to be wealthy. There are about 50.7 million Americans who do not have health insurance, which is a 15 percent increase over the last decade. Only 24 percent of people who make less than $25,000 a year have insurance coverage, while 83 percent of people who make more than $70,000 are covered fully.

Also, people from lower income households pay $50 to $500 more for cars and 2 percent more for loans given to buy a car, which can add up to over $1,000 a year in automotive expenses without even taking into consideration repairs, registration, gas and everything else that costs money for people who drive cars.

Also, people who own low income homes that are worth less than $30,000 have very high interest rates, up to seven percent, while people who own homes that cost more than $120,000 pay rates of 5.5 percent interest.

What about food expenses? The larger the grocery store, the cheaper the food is, however, poor people usually do not have a car, which means that they live far away from the more affordable grocery stores and cannot shop their on a regular basis. Poor people tend to live more within the center of the community, while these supermarkets that are large and more affordable are usually located at a considerable distance from the center of town. In addition to these facts, low income households are seven times more likely to not own a car. Small stores can charge up to ten percent more for food items than these large, affordable supermarkets that are located farther from town.

Therefore, we have an instant correlation between poverty and hunger as well, which is another giant problem in America.

So what are the causes of poverty in the United States? As we see, one of the definite causes is the operation of the political and economic system in the country, which has a tendency to keep people from poor families poor and keep the rich just as wealthy.

Trade is also a definite problem that correlates with basic economics and the way in which America functions economically as an entity. The United States is still a rich country compared to the majority of impoverished countries around the world. The country has large amounts of capital and the ability to produce things relative to the amount of labor, which is the number of people that want to work and are interested in holding down a job. The difference that effects America is the fact that many poor countries have little capital but a lot of labor. Therefore, according to economic processes, the wages in rich countries will usually go down and increase in poor countries through trade. Therefore, these poor countries with no capital and a lot of available workers will put pressure with their low wages on America to decrease its wages by moving production to poorer countries, like China, where there are more workers available who want to work for less considerably smaller wages. This movement of production from richer to poorer countries is a plan that works to the advantage of the corporations of the richer countries. This has been going on for well over a century, but there has been a sharp increase in such behavior over the last 30 years or so with more jobs being outsourced to poorer countries with workers who are willing to do the same job for much less money than American works need to perform such a task. This trend also affects lower income workers the most, because their jobs, which usually do not require any type of formal education, are usually the ones that are easiest to shift to poorer foreign countries in order for the American corporations to make more profit.

Another issue that is effect all of this is immigration. It has been a common trend for many years that people who are living in poor countries that have low paying jobs or no jobs at all will tend to move to countries where there are more high paying jobs being offered, making poor people from poor countries chose to immigrate to countries where they might have the opportunity to make more money, or live in poverty in the richer country, which is still a step up from living in poverty in most poor countries.

Now, lets go back to government plans and initiatives and what they do for poor people.

According to the tax cuts that the former President George W. Bush made, people who made in between $20,000-30,000 a year saved about $10 a year, while those who earn over $1 million yearly saved about $43,000 a year on average.

Such government agendas lead to people being segregated based on income, which often also translates to segregation based on race.

The effects of poverty can be seen to an even greater extent in the so-called black and Hispanic underclass.” many industries that used to offer jobs to these communities have shut down and moved their production to poor countries overseas. New industries that do pop up tend to be located in the suburbs, which is not where the poor people live.

When there are not many jobs available and money is hard to come by, this can naturally lead to an increase in crime as a method for making money. It also puts a damper on the family structure, with men who are unemployed being more prone to stay away from marriage, which leads to many single parent families in the U.S. The general lack of money in communities that are under the poverty line leads to further problems such as poor housing, a lack of high quality food, health problems and the inability to address the needs of the communities children. These hardships can also lead to alcoholism, drug abuse and crime, which can look to people in such poor situation as a temporary way out from their everyday troubles.

It is shown that children that grow up in poverty have more frequent and serious health problems and that many infants who are born into poverty have a low birth weight, which tends to have an effect on their mental and physical capabilities as they mature. These infants are more likely to become sick or even die before their first birthday. Also, these children who are living in poor households usually miss school more because of sickness or family obligations which they need to be bothered with more instead of focusing on education. The levels of stress in a family also increase when the family is poor. Reasons for stress are obvious, job insecurity, a lack of work, financial uncertainty and other serious problems. These things often correlate with child abuse as well. Parents who are having financial hardships are more likely to treat their children poorly, beating them and insulting them more regularly.

Another big issue is homelessness. Homeless children are less likely to receive proper nutrition or immunization. They eat less frequently and poorer quality food than children who are poor but have a home.