There is a very wide range of income for individuals and families. This is why we have people that are very wealthy which are referred to as the upper class and there is the middle class that makes an average income, and the bottom of the income bracket lies the people in poverty. Poverty is a condition in which a person or family does not have the means to satisfy basic needs for food, clothing, shelter, and transportation. Your race does not matter, every race has people that are in poverty. But as it is statistically shown, different races have a different number of people in poverty. In 1996, the federal government established a minimum income level below which a person or family is declared in "poverty." If a single person makes less than $7,995 then they are living in poverty, and a family has to exceed $16,036 or are also in poverty. From 1996 to 1997 the poverty rate has decreased by .4% In 1996, there was 36.5 million people at the poverty level and in 1997 the number of people in poverty decreased to 35.6 million people. Since a decade ago the poverty level has increased from 32.4 million people to as high as 39.3 million in 1993, but since 1993 the number of people living in poverty has decreased to 35.6 million people. The percent of the population a decade ago below the poverty was 13.1%, which has increases up to 15.1% but here recently the poverty rate is back down to 13.3% Gentry-2 Since the previous year the poverty rate was lower by .4% for the general population. The poverty rate of children under the age of eighteen has also decreased by .6%. The black poverty rate decreased the most from 28.4% to 26.5%. The Asians and Pacific Islanders had a decrease in their poverty rate by .5%. The whites had the smallest decrease out of all races because they decreased only by .2%. There are many different factors that contribute to the decreasing of the poverty ra...
