The main goal of this class is to solve social issues in New York City. One of the major issues in NYC is urban poverty. Since NYC is a metropolis with millions of people, there are always people that are not meeting the federal poverty line. According to CQ Researcher, “An estimated 45 million Americans have annual earnings below the federal poverty line- $24,250 for a family of four.” I am not personally surprise at this data. As a child from an immigrant family, this is the yearly earning for my family of three. But can you imagine going on budget from month to month and your parents do not dare to take a day off? This is the case or even worse for many more Americans. So what can we do to alleviate the urban poverty that is concentrated in many major cities?

 

The current minimum wage in NYC is $10.5 for a company under 11 employees and $11 for any company with more than 11 employees. Compare to the national minimum wage, NYC has much higher wage but the living expense is much higher. Housing expense in NYC usually takes more than one third of a family’s paycheck. This lead to hardship to afford necessities. Housing and Urban Development estimated that “… 12 million households pay more than 50 percent of their annual income for housing.” The other 50 percent must divide equally for food, clothing, transportation (please do not get me started with the rising fare with MTA) and medical care. It is hard to live a quality life with half of your paycheck going to a landlord or rental office. In order to help families, government should has more rent controlled or subsidized housing. NYC has great initiatives but they need to partner up with private sectors more. The supply cannot keep out with the demand. They wait line for subsidized is more than one year and there is income requirement. For families under the poverty line, they do not qualify for the nice subsidized housing. They can only live in housing project which are plagued with even worse poverty, gang violence, and drugs. The housing projects are not ideal for families with kids, but many can only live there because that’s all they can afford.

 

I strongly believe that urban poverty can be alleviate with the right employment training programs and support system. Incarcerated people are most prone to poverty because of their dirtied personal profiles. Especially for the colored people in the United States. From a study aimed for “prison-to-poverty” cycle, 37 percent of young African American men have gone to jail after drop out of the high school. This directly result in poverty increasing for colored people. Often time, these young men came from the housing projects. They live with their parents and bring more violence into the neighborhoods. The lack of job opportunities in the region without good transport systems around them. The young kids cannot see any good role models so they choose to join gangs to seek protection. The poverty cycle therefore continues. So to break this cycle, the government should lift the families out of the cycle with enhanced education opportunities. With better job training, parents can work in better job with better pay. With more income, they can move the family out of the housing projects into better neighborhoods with good public schools. This domino effect can bring the children to see positivity in this world and attain higher goals.