Poverty Rates in New Mexico Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Poverty Rates in New Mexico - Research Paper Example In some situation, the trends in poverty have taken the concerned groups back to in order to understand factors that account situation. Some have argued that poverty and societies may be inseparable. On the other hand, the liberals have attributed poverty to various factors, especially crime. Thus, according to them, a solution to crime rates should begin with addressing poverty issues. To lend an opinion to the subject, as far as the New Mexico is concerned, there is a clear relationship between poverty, crime rates, and other societal social misfits. To begin with, New Mexico is faced by two major problems. This includes crime and poverty. In 1998 statistics showed that close to 20.4 percent of the natives were living below the poverty index. As such children were pointed out as the most affected group in the society. The study further revealed that in every more than one in every four children was living way below the poverty line citing the problems of malnutrition, hunger , poor education, pressure on public utilities as well as the inefficiency of the justice system as key causes. At that, time figures released by the government pointed out that the Country was ranked among the most violent nations. This was attributed to the fact that, over 961 crimes were recorded in every 100 000 residents. In 2000, analysis in the country’s educations system pointed out that it was an issue of major concern since then debate has been raging over the enactment of the proposed legislations that would have foreseen parents cater for their children in private institutions. However the opponents of such legislations have always been at locker heads with the proponents. Indeed, they hold a different view concerning an overhaul in the education system. As such, they believe that public institutions should be given a priority as opposed to directing students in other private institutions. Such disagreements led to greater deterioration of the education system. it shoul d be noted that New Mexico has been ranked number one in aspect of poverty and crime. In addition, the its ranking as the poorest in education system proved to be a major challenge for the country. Basing on the data from the United States Census Bureau American Community Survey; New Mexico is rated as the second-worst poverty stricken county in the nation (Gaurav and Ravallion, 1992). According to the 2011 data, the percentage of families that live below poverty line within the Land of Enchantment is 16.60%, with specific rates of individual that leave below poverty levels sitting at 21.50%. These data shows that Mississippi has the worst rates in the two categories that is 17.4 percent and 22.6 percent respectively. Alaska and New Hampshire are noted to be the best terms of poverty rates in the United States. In this regard, the rates for the whole county in the year 2011 were 11.7% for families and 15.9% for all persons. There are a number of ways poverty can be measured (Gaurav, and Ravallion, 1992). The two most commonly indicators lead to similar results, New Hampshire having the best and Mississippi with the worst. In this case, the first indicator shows the percentage of families living below the poverty level as stipulated by the federal poverty level. More often than not the threshold tends to fluctuate depending on the number of individuals living in a given threshold. In the context of the New Mexico, it poverty rates is slightly better than another state called Louisiana, and somewhat worse than Kentucky. However, considering that the levels of poverty in the New Mexico are relatively high, this is not as such a good thing. There exist only one county, in which the rate of poverty approaches a critical value, which is at least above 50 percent of