The poverty line is the threshold below which families or individuals are considered to be lacking the resources to meet the basic needs for healthy living; having insufficient income to provide the food, shelter and clothing needed to preserve health. In the US in 2011, $22,350/year is the poverty line for a family of four while $10,890 is the line for an individual. About 15% of Americans (45 million) live in chronic poverty while more than half experience poverty at least once in their lifetimes. 10% of all whites and Asians and 25% of blacks and Hispanics live in poverty. As a statistic, this is about the same as it was 50 years ago, before Lyndon Johnson initiated the War on Poverty. However, with government assistance, being poor in the United States in 2012 is not nearly as devastating as it was in 1960.

Government assistance includes housing, food, healthcare, cash welfare payments and free education. 4.5 million families receive cash assistance under TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, welfare). 3 million households receive Section 8 housing subsidies. 18.6 million households (45 million people) received SNAP (Food Stamps). Medicaid and CHIP provides medical services to 60 million Americans . The Earned Income Tax Credit provides another form of poverty relief. For those with incomes up to $50k the EITC provides a refundable credit.

Americans rarely die of poverty related ailments like starvation, epidemic or exposure. Expanding access to healthcare services could further reduce the impact of common curable and preventable diseases and improve quality of life. Living in poverty in America is substantially safer and more comfortable than in many other countries. This does little to take the resentment out of having less than others and may go far toward explaining poorer Americans’ tendencies to engage in crime.

Homelessness is the exception and is substantially more dangerous than just being poor. On any given night 450,000-850,000 Americans find themselves on the street.  1.6 million others make it into emergency shelters.  In any given year 3.5 million Americans experience homelessness

Generational poverty is one of the greatest concerns of sociologists and critics of welfare programs alike. They argue that programs support lifestyles and habits that perpetuate poverty.  Studies show that impoverished people develop habits and behaviors that keep them poor and they pass these behaviors on to their offspring. Actual solutions to the problem of poverty are scarce. Critics point to threshold income requirements as a problem that keeps people in poverty. In other words if a person earns more than a certain amount they become ineligible for benefits. This may cost them overall, so they refuse to work more than the threshold amount even if they could, which keeps them in poverty, even if they could emerge.

Critics of poverty programs often point to fraud as a reason to abandon the programs. The DHH estimates 1% of food stamp purchases are fraudulent because of what they call “trafficking,” the practice of selling the benefit card to another person for cash at some discount. This compares to claims by critics of up to 30% fraudulent use of the benefit.