The official poverty rate in the U.S. increased for the last four years, 11.3% in 2000,  12.7% in 2004 and in 2006 it declined 12.3%.  This means 36.5 million people were officially living below the poverty line in 2006.

The sociological cause for poverty in the United States have been understated, meaning that there are more families living in poverty and 30% of Americans have trouble paying their bills, rent, utilities, food, gas and buy clothing for their family.  Poverty is higher in those state with both a high cost of living and high poverty,  an example would be California.  The cost of homes rising in 2006 being priced at a half a million dollars has made it impossible not just the poor but also our middle class workers to afford decent housing.

Much of the poverty in the U.S. is the results of our social institutes contributing to, and sustaining the poverty by providing poor education and poorly funded inner city schools.  This leads to the young people ability to go out and be considered for the better paying jobs, due to the lack of skills.  Some of them leave school not only lacking skills but are illiterate. With the lack of education and skills, they have nothing left but to take low paying jobs.   They have "No Money" to pay for housing, food, clothing, medical care and causes a financial burden on families.  This is what creates poverty and poverty, hopelessness nurtures bad neighborhoods.

In many areas, the blue collar jobs that required little education, the companies would provide on the job training.  These type of jobs are disappearing or are non-existent.  Many of these jobs are being outsourced to Mexico and countries overseas.  The Appalachia suffers from the loss of mining jobs, Detroit the loss of manufacturing jobs to automation or overseas factories.  Some people are unable to move with the jobs or commute to work (no car and the high price of gas) so their left unemployed.  They are also left with the inability to help contribute their tax dollars to schools, public transportation and being the companies have changed how they do business people find that they no longer have the the skills required for their jobs any longer.

So how do we go about eliminating poverty in the U.S.?  More so, what is our president, government officials and agencies going to do?  Every person in the United States deserves and should be receiving the best education possible so that they can earn a decent wage.  A wage that meets the cost of living where they live and be able to provide for themselves and their families.  How can the United States be considered a rich and strong country by others, when we have millions that  go hungry everyday, have no clean running water, no electricity and are living in unbelievable conditions!