Concentrated Poverty in Los Angeles – Poverty is a societal issue that hurts the lives of Los Angeles people and the entire city. According to statistics from the National Population Census, about 22% of all families in Los Angeles are considered below the federal poverty line. More than 40% of families in Los Angeles’s areas of concentrated poverty are below the poverty line. In the whole country, Los Angeles has the largest concentration of poverty.
Concentrated poverty causes many problems for those who live there, including high unemployment rates, crime, exposure to illnesses, high school dropouts, and a shortage of food, clothing, and medical care.
Concentrated Poverty in Los Angeles
From the 1970s to the present, Los Angeles’ poverty indices have become worse, according to historical trends. It is one of the American metropolises where the frequency of concentrated poverty has steadily risen over the past 40 years. Neighborhoods with high concentrations of poverty have grown more than the country.
Less than 2% of the city’s households faced concentrated poverty in the 1970s. The scale increased to 4% a decade later. The percentage of individuals living in poverty quadrupled throughout the 2000s. The distribution of the poor altered geographically and racially as the poverty indexes evolved.
Blacks made up fewer than 20 percent of the population living in concentrated poverty at the turn of the century, down from 50 percent. More than 65 percent of Latinos live in poverty, up from 20 percent in 1990. In Los Angeles, poverty moved outside the city’s core and into the suburbs and surrounding areas.
The number of people living in extreme poverty in Los Angeles’ suburbs had doubled by 2000. The city continues to have the largest concentration of poverty, nonetheless.
Several reasons influenced the origin and expansion of concentrated poverty in Los Angeles. The shift in the labor market is one of the primary causes. The city’s position as a point of entry made it appealing to an inflow of immigrants, eventually leading to industrial restructuring.
Low-skilled immigrants from Mexico and Latin America flooded the city, increasing the number of low-income citizens. The abundance of semi-skilled and unskilled workers led to competition for low salaries. Due to a lack of qualified labor, higher-paying industrial jobs were lost, and industries like aerospace suffered as a result.
Los Angeles was affected by the early 1990s severe recession and its long recovery. The city saw an upsurge in racial conflict and civil disturbance as a result of the concentration of low-income immigrants from many ethnic origins.
Due to the communities’ fragility, there was a decline in capital investment, middle-class emigration, and consequent loss of middle-class jobs. The ongoing rise of workers at lower levels of the pay range sustains economic disparity in Los Angeles.