poverty

Approximately half a million children in the United States enter foster care every year, and as many as 800,000 children have some contact with the system in some way. The system is intended to protect the most vulnerable in society and to ensure that all children have access to educational and social opportunities.

The hippocampus area of the brain controls memory and learning. Its healthy development is important for later success in life, but can be negatively affected by stress. Because stress is often greater in homes with financial difficulties, some researchers believe this could explain lower academic performance among children from families at lower socioeconomic levels.

Over the past 50 years, American children have been growing up in increasingly diversified family structures. As divorce, remarriage, cohabitation and other such events have refashioned home life, studies have found that transitions for children can have negative educational consequences.

The economic turmoil of 2007-2009 adversely impacted household earnings across America, but a 2011 research study details the extent to which significant declines in household wealth were concentrated in lower-income and minority populations and those whose wealth was primarily derived from their homes.

Education has long been considered “the great equalizer ” in the United States, a way for an ambitious and talented individual to secure a good job (as characterized by good wages, benefits, and job security) regardless of the socioeconomic status of his or her parents. But the extent to which belief this holds true has been tested — and contested — by social science research for decades.

Seventeen states have implemented controversial legislation requiring a photo ID in order to vote, including six states that enacted such laws in the wake of the 2010 elections. Opponents of voter ID requirements assert that photo ID requirements tend to disenfranchise the poor, younger, elderly, minority, urban and highly mobile voters. Proponents of such laws, typically Republicans, cite the ubiquity of photo IDs in modern society and the need to protect the integrity of the voting process.

In September 2011 the Census Bureau issued a report on household income, health insurance coverage and poverty levels in the United States. It showed the extent to which the Great Recession, despite having officially ended in 2009, continued to adversely impact Americans’ standards of living.