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Changing Definition of Poverty

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Describe how the term "poverty" has changes from 1920 through 2010. Please include specific events in each decade that had major changes on income levels. Please help in explaining and proving that current poverty levels or the term 'poverty' does not have the same impact today as it did prior to 1960.

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The solution discusses the changing definition of poverty.

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I. In the early 1800s, poverty in America was generally conceptualized as "a result of personal immorality." Even more importantly is the fact that ideologies about poverty were integrated with Christian beliefs and outlooks. For example, scholar Jerry Marx asserts that in the mid-1800s, "According to Calvinism, work represented God's calling on earth for the individual. If apparently able-bodied, yet destitute, the individual was considered immoral and not destined for salvation. The able-bodied poor, as a result, were treated by colonial society as wicked and undeserving." (Marx) However, in the early 1900s, perspectives about poverty altered. Americans, specifically women, began to believe that poverty could only be eliminated with social advocacy and settlement houses. Marx stresses that "settlement houses were founded on the principle of scientific philanthropy, which maintained that ...

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