Poverty may not be as bad in America as it is in some parts of the world, but America's poverty must be evaluated in terms of the standard of living attained by the majority of Americans. The government's definition of poverty is based on the cost of a basic diet called the "economy food plan." It is revised to account for inflation and varies according to location (farm or nonfarm), size of the family, and sex and age of the head of the family. In 2001, a family of four with an annual income of $17,960 or less was officially poor. This official definition is challenged as inadequate or unrealistic because it sets the poverty level quite low.

The proportion of the poor declined from the late 1950s through the 1970s, rose in the early 1980s, declined until 1989, rose again until 1993, then declined through 2000. By 2000, 31.1 million Americans, representing 11.3 percent of the population, were categorized as poor. Poverty is not equally distributed among the population, however. Your chances of being poor are greater if you are in a female-headed family, are a member of a minority group, are under 18 years of age, and are living in a rural area. Contrary to popular opinion, poverty is not basically a problem of unemployment. Many of the poor work, and some work full time. Some of the poor are homeless. Homelessness is associated with many other problems, such as mental and physical health.

The quality of life for the poor can be characterized as pervasive deprivation: The poor get less of everything that is valued in American society, including rights to life and the pursuit of happiness. Poverty brings despair and fear, including the fear of being victimized by crime. Various myths that disparage the poor diminish their dignity as human beings. Their health is poorer than that of most Americans, and their poverty and ill health can become a vicious circle. The individual living in poverty is forced to choose between limited, undesirable alternatives.

Among the structural factors that contribute to poverty, the distribution of power is of prime importance. Those who control the wealth are the most powerful, and their interests are typically reflected in governmental decisions. Both the structure and the functioning of American government tend to work to the detriment of the poor. Multiple decision-making centers, the middle-class composition of the bureaucracy, and the complexities of getting aid work to the detriment of the poor. Ironically, the well-to-do and powerful give to each other through government actions what they say is immoral to give to the poor. The economy works against the poor in three ways: by allowing the concentration of wealth, by entrapping the poor in a vicious circle, and by guaranteeing that a certain proportion of the population will be unable to find employment or jobs that pay more than poverty-level wages.

The family environment tends to perpetuate poverty when there are many children in the family. Even when there are few children, poor families tend to transmit poverty by anti-intellectual attitudes and patterns of interaction that inhibit intellectual development. Disrupted families are also an important source of poverty, since many widows and divorced women spend a part of the time after disruption in poverty. Educational arrangements themselves contribute to the problem because quality education is much less likely to be available to poor children than to nonpoor children. Also, poor children tend not to have gratifying and encouraging experiences in school or to pursue higher education even when they have the ability to do so.

Attitudes and values of both the poor and the nonpoor contribute to the poverty problem. The attitudes and values of the nonpoor legitimate their disparagement of and discrimination against the poor. The American value of individualism and ideology of equal opportunity combine to justify negative attitudes toward the poor and programs designed to help them.

Finally, the ideology of wealth and poverty asserts that opportunities are available to all and that certain personal qualities such as hard work and ability enable the individual to seize opportunities. This ideology legitimates blaming the poor for their problem and resisting programs designed to alleviate poverty.