Study Of Poverty Levels 1

The Study of Poverty Levels Based on Many Characteristics Exercise #3 Annotated Graphs Yasmin Berry SOWK 300: Computer Applications Ms. McArthur September 16, 2011

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Figure 1

This graph shows the families living below poverty level in 2008. I am comparing five different ethnicities, all races, white, blacks, Asian, and Hispanic. All of this occurred in one month which is a short period of time. That is the reason why a bar graph was chosen to best represent this data. The stereotype is that all African Americans live in poverty or are poor. Based on the graph African Americans have the second lowest poverty rate. Not to my surprise Asians have the lowest poverty rate. I feel that this is because they have a higher education rate which means that they are able to get better jobs. The other races could account for immigrants. Their poverty rate is so high because they do not have the highest paying jobs and a lack of education; they take all of the jobs that do not pay well at all. To my surprise the poverty rate of Caucasians are higher than blacks.

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Figure 2

This graph represents families living below the poverty levels based on their regions and ethnicity. The different ethnicities are white, black, Asian, Hispanic, and all other races. The regions that are represented are the northwest, Midwest, south, and the west. The poverty rates are represented in percents. The large amount of Americans that live below the poverty level is a problem throughout the United States. Geographically there are more African Americans that live in the South. Out of the ethnicities they have the highest poverty rate in the South. Based on the graph there is a lot of African Americans that have a high poverty rate in the Midwest. This could be because it is highly populated with Caucasians and they get the chance to receive a better education and more jobs leaving the African Americans and Hispanics to be in more than 15% more poverty than the rest of the ethnicities.

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Figure 3

This graph represents family income for African Americans represented with the green line and Caucasians represented with the purple line. It shows a 28 year span from 19802008. The income amount ranges from $10,000 to $60,000. The reason for choosing African Americans and Caucasians is because of the large difference between the two. Over the years both ethnicities have peaked and valley. African American started out in 1980 with 26,779 and peaked in 200 with 37,093. This is related to the poverty rate because as the income rate continues to increase the poverty rate should decrease. The Caucasian rate is already higher than the African Americans but it peaked in 2000 as well.

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Figure 5

This graph is on families living below poverty level based on the sex of the householder. The purple bars represent female householders and the green bar represents male householders. In every case the ethnicities are compared. There are many differences in terms of marital status, sex, race, and age. Single parents in all ethnicities have a higher poverty rate. The difference is the sex of the householder. In all cases no matter what the ethnicity is the male householder poverty rate is much lower than the female. For example, in white families 2360 female householders live in poverty and only 499 male households live in poverty. This can be because men making more money than the women or the women are taking care of the children more.

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Conclusion Poverty rate of families are affected by many different things. In these cases the most important causes of poverty are ethnicities, region, income, and sex of the householders. All the graphs compare and contrast the factors that affect the poverty rate.