Poverty in the United States

EPI proposed budget for a 2parent 2children household in Augusta-Richmond County, GA-SC MSA, SC:

Monthly housing $654
Monthly food $643
Monthly childcare $859
Monthly transportation $482
Monthly healthcare $414
Monthly other necessities $312
Monthly taxes $200
Monthly total $3,564
Annual total $42,766

2008 Government Poverty Guidelines for a 4-person family:
$21,200 (annual)

The rates for a four-person family have a difference of $21,569, which is almost half of what the EPI budget recommend. My family could not live at the government’s poverty line and defiantly would not be comfortable. Personally, I do not see how my family would even be able to live at the EPI budget for a two-parent two-child household, and without a doubt we would not be comfortable. Perhaps this is because we are used to living beyond that. My dad is 58 and my mom is 54, so granted they have been in the work force longer and they both have established careers. My dad makes well over half of the total income for our household, and my mom alone makes over the annual total of the EPI proposed budget for a 2 parent 2 children household. I think that perhaps if my family was used to making less money than we would be able to survive and be comfortable at the EPI budget, but defiantly not at the Federal Government’s budget of $21,200. I think that it would be incredibly scary to be a young couple with two young kids in today’s economic situation. Luckily since my parent’s are older and have been working for 30 something years, they would be okay, but I do not see how a young couple with small children could survive if one or both spouses was laid-off…especially since the job market is so bad.
After watching the video in class and seeing what the Government defines as the poverty line, I totally understand how so many people are constantly struggling to make ends meet. It does not seem that anyone would have a chance to “catch-up” in a sense and break free of this horrible cycle of poverty. When you think about it, it is actually rather astounding that any child raised in a family that is considered to live below the poverty line, grows up and breaks out of the working poor class. One would think that a child that is raised in the group that is below the federal poverty line would not have as many opportunities in life, especially educational opportunities, and therefore, would not be able to excel in life and become a member of the middle class. The movie we watched in class hit home the fact that poverty is a real crisis that many Americans are in. For some reason it seems that a lot of people do not realize that this is a rampant problem.
If I were advising the next President about poverty and calculating poverty rates, I would tell him several things. The first thing I would say is that there needs to be a new formula for calculating the poverty lines. The new formula should take into account things such as the increase in cost of gasoline, food, etc. I would also suggest that some form of subsidized childcare be made available to a broader portion of the population. My last suggestion to the future President would be creating a universal healthcare system. This would greatly lower the cost of medicine, doctor’s visits, hospital bills, and so on. This would decrease a families budget by a tremendous amount.