Comparison between the United States and Guatemala's poverty rate through gender: By RBL

Hello this is RBL and this blog will be based on the topic of poverty rates between the United States and Guatemala. If you don't know what poverty rate means, it's a comparison of the number of people (in a given  group) whose income falls below the poverty line. It's also used to see who needs help with paying for things like rent, healthcare, and car insurance.

Poverty is a topic that impacts millions of people across the world, but it's about time that we learn that we learn and see poverty from a different perspective. Poverty rate depends on wealth, access to jobs, race, gender, and educational opportunities. The poverty rate for males in the United States is 17.1% but for females it’s 21.35%.. Guatemala’s poverty rate is 29.8%  for women and 24.6 % for men. We can see that in both countries there is more poverty for women than men. The research suggests that the poverty rate in Guatemala is about 50% more than the poverty rate in the United States. Bridgewater University states that, “Human progress is certainly affected when women, who represent over half of the global population, own only one percent of the world’s wealth and hold only sixteen percent of the world’s parliamentary positions.” With this in mind, poverty is worse in Guatemala than the United States because the United States has more money and more financial support from other countries. Unlike the United States, Guatemala has almost no support from other countries around it. The fact that Guatemala has very little outside support increases poverty because the economy is struggling. Because the poverty rate in Guatemala is worse than in the United States, there isn’t enough money and key items like money, food, and good housing are too hard for people to access.    

The official poverty rate in the United states is around 9.2 percent, with the rate for white, non-Hispanic people at 6.6 percent; the rate for Black, non-Hispanic people at 15.2 percent; and the rate for Hispanic people at 13.8 percent. This information shows us that depending on what race you are, your financial situation will be different from other types of people. Poverty rates is the ratio of the number of people (in a given age group) whose income falls below the poverty line or the income needed to do well in a given society. In the United 

States' gender makes a big difference in the main pay gap. The pay gap is still unfair with the fact that women make 82 cents for every dollar a man earns. The pay gap helps to show if a person can do well in this type of society. The United States is considered the richest country in the world, and yet millions of its residents live in poverty. The method America used to calculate poverty levels was created in the 1960s and has not been edited substantially since it was made. Some critics maintain that the United States’ government doesn't adequately count for impoverished people who in generations past wouldn’t be considered poor but are in poverty today.

Guatemala has experienced continued economic instability, this didn’t help to close the income gap with rich countries. With this in mind, poverty and inequality in this country were always very high, with Indigenous Peoples continuing to be particularly disadvantaged. Guatemala has the sixth highest rate of chronic malnutrition in the world and the highest in Latin American countries. The Bridge-view article also states that the, “2009 World Bank report found that almost half of the population is poor, that over the last ten years, rates of poverty have only marginally declined, and that the incidence of extreme poverty – about 15 percent of the population - has remained the same.” Chronic childhood malnutrition can affect 47 % of all children under the age of five, 58 % of indigenous children, and 66 % of children in the lowest income quintile. In 2019, Guatemala was ranked 68th in food security out of 113 countries, with only 40 % of Guatemalan families enjoying food security. Compared to the United States having a rate of 83.7 percent in food security and being ranked 4th on the same chart. This shows a very significant difference between what the United States has compared to Guatemala In terms of resource amount. 

Some articles state that the United States and Guatemala don’t have a lot of things in common at all. They don’t have a lot of things in common because their economies are significantly different from each other and their money making amount is different as well.

In conclusion there is a very unequal amount of resource in the United States, compared to a place like Guatemala.  For example, Guatemala’s total net worth is around 5.86 billion while the United State’s is 2.45 trillion. One surprising fact is that Guatemala has an unemployment rate of 2.5% while the United States has 3.7% . In closing, the United States has more support overall, but Guatemala needs a lot more financial support along with support to help fund their people so they can get out of poverty. In both countries there is more poverty for women than men. 

Sources:

Writer, AuthorBill FayStaff. “Poverty in the United States.” Debt.org, 1 Nov. 2018, www.debt.org/faqs/americans-in-debt/poverty-united-states/. 

“Global Food Security Index (GFSI).” Global Food Security Index, foodsecurityindex.eiu.com/Index. 

“Overview.” World Bank, www.worldbank.org/en/country/guatemala/overview. 

“Guatemala.” Compare The United States To Guatemala, www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/US/GT. 

“United States Compared to Guatemala.” MyLifeElsewhere, www.mylifeelsewhere.com/compare/united-states/guatemala. 

“Guatemala vs United States Economy Stats Compared.” NationMaster.com, NationMaster, 

www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Guatemala/United-States/Economy. 

https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1081&context=jiws

https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Guatemala/Female_unemployment/


https://www.statista.com/statistics/442739/unemployment-rate-in-guatemala/