Poverty Line and the Relationship Between Poverty and Education

Poverty line refers to where there is a family of 4 where it is composed of 2 children under 18 and two adults, however, their earning is either $23,021 or below. Poverty is caused by many factors. However, low level of education is a major factor that can be attributed to the ever increasing trends of poverty globally. It is also true that persons that are born in poverty-stricken areas can crawl out of poverty by investing in education.

Another factor is the financial status of individuals.

A persons’ net worth determines if that person can pay bills well, access loans and so forth (Burton, 2016). Therefore, the financial status of an individual determines if the person will remain poor or move to a higher social class. Therefore, a low financial status and a low level of education can both cause poverty.

Education and poverty are linked inextricably. The social mobility of individuals is mainly caused by education. There is powerful evidence that 16% of Americans who earned the college degree and grew in the low-income families moved to higher income quintile compared to 46% of those that failed to earn their college degree stayed in their low-income quintile.

In all the educational levels education and poverty can be clearly linked. Approximately 24% who finished high school do not live in poverty compared to the 31% young adults that failed to earn a high school diploma.

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Persons with a high school diploma have got a higher average income compared to those that dropped out. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2014 the weekly income was $638 for those that had a high school diploma. On a closer look, the trend is in a downward movement when the median of the income is adjusted in 2015.

The annual income of the diploma graduate is on average $30,000 annually in 2015. However, the average salary is just above the poverty line and might not be enough to support their families. These persons with a college diploma, a high school graduate or bellow struggle to sustain their families because of their low income.

There certain problems that a high school diploma earner faces:

• Low economic mobility – High school diploma holders earn little, and this has led to a downward or stagnant economic mobility. The economic mobility is important and may be in the form of human capital, social, and financial.
• High debts accumulation – A person with a low income and the bills keeps flowing in will be forced to accumulate debts. This is no exception for the low earners with the high school diploma. They are forced to supplement their low income with borrowing more, and in case they are unable to pay they may even be declared bankrupt (Ciuffetelli Parker & Craig, 2015).
• Low self-esteem and confidence – Low earning persons such as them with a high school diploma will have a low confidence level in their places of work or even back at home. Working while you do not get the enough amount of money to pay bills will cause the general mood of an individual to be saturated by low self-esteem.
• Contribute to the vicious cycle of poverty – The vicious cycle of poverty continues with the high school diploma earners because they are unable to afford a good education for their children with the low pay. That being the case it may consequently lead their kids to go no further than the high school level which may at the end cause them to get stuck in the poverty environment.

People with bachelor’s or Master’s degree versus people with high school diploma- compare job hiring. People holding a high school diploma do better than their counterparts that have got only the General Education Development but compared to a master’s or a bachelor’s degree holder it is relatively low. The people with low level of education have a higher rate of unemployment and vice versa as the chart below exhibits.

The medical bills in the United States are very high and reported twice as much as other countries considered developed. There are some reasons that the bills are very high:

• Administrative costs – For example as David Cutler, a Harvard economist puts it at Duke University Hospital there are only 900 beds, yet there is 1,300 billing clerk.
• Costs of drugs – It is believed that the drug costs are reasonable as demonstrated by the Congressional Budget Office found that the federal government would in 10 years save $116 billion by giving a similar discount Medicaid recipients get to the low-income beneficiaries.
• Defensive Medicine – Even when the doctors are certain of the diagnosis, they give multiple tests to ensure that they do not get sued. Annually around $650 billion goes to the defensive medicine according to the Gallup survey (Kneebone & Berube, n.d.).

According to the American Journal of Public Health, due to lack of health insurance, 45,000 persons die in the United States. The death rate for women is by 37% lower than that of men. However, the death rates for former smokers increased by 42% and the current smokers increased by 126% (Kneebone & Berube, n.d.).

Medical insurance is very important for persons in the United Sates. However, there are some exemptions for persons with a low financial status in the economy: There certain reasons that the exemptions are available which include membership in some groups, financial status or health coverage and the hardship. Some persons can apply for the exemption using papers’ application on the federal tax return form.

One does not have to pay the fee if covered for any month if uncovered for only one or two months. 1,500 working families with children were included in the 8, 00 adults according to the Gallup survey. Also, in paying their housing costs, 23% of the working families were unable to pay. People unable to pay their house rent are usually thrown out in the streets and live in squatters that are meant for the homeless in different cities in the United States (Perez, 2012).

People that are in low financial status encounter difficulty in supporting their families. Therefore, most of them tend to opt not to have one, and thus they live without families. For those that decide to have a family, their families are most likely to live in abject poverty in the long-run unless they get grants or incentives from elsewhere (Soto, 2007). However, if their children can get a better education, they will most likely help their family up in the financial status.

In case they are going to support a certain family problems cannot be escaped by their families. They include low education levels for their children, increased levels of their borrowing, and limited access to health benefits, low living standards or high cost of living.