Poor Whites in America: Struggling to Survive - Research Paper Sample

Introduction

For many years, white people have always been associated with economic and social stability. However, the lives of the poor whites are way below the expectations of the majority of the people. In many instances, poor whites have received food, public aid, and general assistance payment every month. They continue to depend on open clinics and food pantries services and programs that are considered for the black community in the United States. Poor whites are especially common in rural areas where there is no industrialization. Students in such regions do not enjoy the same benefits as those in urban and industrialized areas. One such area is Elwood, Indiana, which has a Community School Corporation that serves the Elwood rural town students. The school has an elementary school, intermediate school, and a junior/senior school. Elwood is a community that is dominated by white people with very little diversity. This paper aims to investigate the opportunity gap at Elwood Community School Corporation, the poor white students in the region.

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Literature review

A study was conducted by the American Community Survey (ACS) to investigate the number of people in Elwood living below the federal poverty level. Such a review must be conducted as it helps in the allocation of resources such as health care, schools, among other social services. The ACS performs the study by basing its estimates on samples used to represent the community. The estimates are then broken-down using characteristics such as education, age, sex, and work status. In a study conducted between 2013 and 2017, around 22.5% of the population lived below the poverty level. This number is alarming, considering the town has a population of about 1900 people.

It is essential to determine who falls below the poverty line. The federal poverty income threshold was about $25,465 for a family of four with two children in 2018 (Elwood Poverty Statistics 2019). For a single parent with only one child, the poverty threshold was $17,308 (Elwood Poverty Statistics 2019). A family whose income is below the set threshold is considered poor. In Elwood, one in every 4.4 people lives in poverty. In the year 2019, 1891 of 8408 people earned below the poverty line in Elwood. The average poverty rate in Indiana is 14.6%, which shows how high the poverty rate in Elwood is as it is above the average state poverty rate (WelfareInfo, Poverty in Elwood, Indiana 2019). About 22.5% of Elwood residents live below the poverty line, with 30.46% being those who did not graduate high school (WelfareInfo, Poverty in Elwood, Indiana 2019). 17.55% of those who graduated high school in Elwood live below the poverty line (WelfareInfo, Poverty in Elwood, Indiana 2019).

Such high poverty levels in Elwood are observed even in the school. 20.5% of school-going children are not enrolled in school. 5% of those enrolled in the nursery school program live below the poverty line, while 11.8% of students between first and fourth grades live in poverty (Bibb, 2016). Those between fifth and eighth grades living in poverty make up 24.7%, while 35.6% of those in high school live below the poverty line. 24.1% of students enrolled in an undergraduate program and continue to live in Elwood are poor (Bibb, 2016).

It is also important to note that a considerable number of those enrolled in Elwood high school graduate, which translates to about 90.7%. Only about five students in 98 drop out of school in their final year (IDOE 2019). However, of the 98 students, 22 of them graduate with an honors diploma, 49 with a core diploma, and 27 with a general diploma (IDOE 2019). It is an indication that the students do not experience poverty, but the learning in Elwood high school is not adequate, translating as indicated by the low student performances.

It is essential to understand what has led to Elwood's poverty, considering that it was a town with booming factories in the 1900s. Back then, the city had a population of about 12950. The glass factories and automotive factories attracted many people to the town as they searched for employment. However, the population had dropped to about 8596 people by 2010 (World Population Review, 2020). The decline in population is attributed to the closure of the factories, with many people relocating to other towns searching for employment.

The glass factory, which had contributed to many people moving to the town, was closed in 1936 after it was bought and merged with a larger company. The merge contributed to the decline in revenue generated by the factory leading to its closure. In the year 2004, State Plating, a leading automotive industry, was closed, leading to a further decline in the population of the town (Dick, 2008). A lot of people lost their jobs in the process, which lead to increased poverty levels.

Further damage was done after another company named Plastech was closed, leading to 286 people losing their jobs (Watters, 2008). It is also important to note that although the town has three successful companies, the employment opportunities are limited, and most of the people employed in the companies do not live in the city. It has led to an increase in poverty levels over the years, which has led to a decrease in the town's population.

Procedure

The research was conducted through the education program in Elwood community school. The study focused more on the children growing up in poverty between 2015 and 2016 (Ruzojcic et al., 2018). The children must be from a family receiving social and economic assistance. Social assistance, in this case, was used as a measure of poverty. The data to identify such children was obtained from Elwood social welfare centers with social workers' assistance. The sampling method used in the study was the three-stage cluster sampling method.

The first step involved sampling children in Elwood elementary school whose families receive social assistance. The second one sampled children in intermediate school receiving social aid, and the third step sampled those in junior and senior high school receiving social support. Out of 113 social welfare centers, 40 were selected to participate in the study. The social welfare centers' response rate was about 65% (Ruzojcic et al., 2018). Also, the children involved in the study were required to be recipients of social assistance for at least three years.

Instruments

In collecting data, the social workers used administrative files with details that showed the period a student has been receiving social aid to fill out checklists. The predictor variables were related to the children in an elementary, intermediary, and high school at Elwood Community School Corporation. Education difficulties were then measured to show that the children were experiencing financial problems, and their education was inadequate. Educational challenges were measured using parameters such as repeating classes, special education programs, and the number of students who graduated from high school.

One crucial issue considered in the study was the family risk factor, which may contribute to poverty among the students. It involved checking items such as violence in families, drug and alcohol abuse, and guardian felonies. A risk factor of one was given if one of the parents had any risk factor, and a value of two was provided if both parents engaged in risk behaviors. To assess the education level in a family, the most educated member of the family was considered. Education level ranged from one not being educated to having a Ph.D.

Sample

The final sample included 300 children living in poverty and who studied in Elwood Community School Corporation. They were all recipients of social welfare. The sample had 49.6% males, and 50.4% were female (Ruzojcic et al., 2018). The average age for elementary school children was about seven years. For those in intermediary school, their average age was 12 years, and those in high school had an average age of 16.

Since Elwood town has little diversity, a small percentage of participants (4%) were from minority groups while the rest were white. About half (48.2%) of the participants are from families with more than four members (Ruzojcic et al., 2018). 17.1% of the participants lived in households that lacked essential utilities such as clean water, electricity, and toilet. 27% were from families with only one legal guardian, either a father or a mother (Ruzojcic et al., 2018).

Analysis

The correlation coefficient between the variables was used to show the relationship of the survey variables. Ordinal logistic regression analysis was done to analyze the importance of various predictors in a family and an individual. The method was suitable, considering that the variables were at an ordinal level of measurement. Before the study began, all the predictors were standardized to identify the importance of each predictor.

Results

From the study, one noticed that 17.1% of the students were experiencing educational difficulties. 18.9% of them were from families where they experienced at least one risk behavior. About 6.7% of the participants were from families where both parents engaged in various risk behaviors (Ruzojcic et al., 2018). Most of the participants were from families that were not well educated. 13.6% were from families where parents did not receive any form of education (Ruzojcic et al., 2018). 50.1% were from families where guardians managed to complete only elementary school, and 34% were from homes where at least one parent had completed high school (Ruzojcic et al., 2018). Poverty played a significant role in determining the education of the participants. It was followed by family risk behaviors and, lastly, educational difficulties.

Other correlations were less significant and showed that males from low-income families were likely to experience educational difficulties compared to their female counterparts from low-income families. Also, children in homes with more than four children were expected to drop out of school due to lack of enough money to support their education.

Conclusion

Poverty is a great contributor to a lack of proper education for school-going children, as observed in Elwood community school. Several factors affect the education level of children in low-income families, and family risk factor is one major contributor to school drop out by children from poor backgrounds. Family characteristic where children grow up is essential in analyzing the quality of education that the children receive, and it is in line with the low-income family socialization theory (Ruzojcic et al., 2018). Guardian education is also a contributing factor in assessing the education of children from low-income families. In most instances, it is usually connected with the parents' expectations towards the academic success of their children.