5.6: Standard of Living, Poverty, and Basic Needs

Poverty and Basic-Needs Insecurity

Additionally, tens of millions of people in the United States struggle to pay rent, buy food and gas, find stable work, and afford basic medical care. Poverty is commonly measured by the federal government using income thresholds known as the poverty line or poverty guidelines, which vary by household size. In 2025, for example, the federal poverty guideline for the 48 contiguous states and Washington, DC was $15,650 for one person, $21,150 for a two-person household, and $32,150 for a family of four (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2025). Contiguous states refers to the U.S. states that are connected to each other on the mainland.

Statistics on children and poverty in the United States remain troubling. Recent census data show that 14.3% of children under age 18 lived in poverty in 2024, according to the official poverty measure. The Census Bureau also reports substantial racial disparities: in 2024, Black and Hispanic children had much higher poverty rates than non-Hispanic White children (Shrider & Bijou, 2025). These patterns suggest that child poverty is shaped not only by household income, but also by broader inequalities tied to race, ethnicity, gender, and family structure.

People experiencing homelessness face some of the clearest consequences of social class inequality. Although housing instability is often explained in individual terms, sociologists emphasize its structural roots, including poverty, rising housing costs, low wages, and the shortage of affordable housing. Research shows that homelessness tends to increase when rent rises faster than incomes, and these patterns are shaped by broader inequalities in race and class. On a single night in January 2024, 259,473 people in families with children were experiencing homelessness in the United States, underscoring the effects of housing insecurity on family life (de Sousa et al., 2024). 

As sociologist Kathryn Edin emphasizes in her interview, poverty in the United States is not limited to people who are unemployed; many working families are only one setback away from serious hardship. A job loss, illness, car repair, eviction, or childcare disruption can quickly push working people into economic crisis, especially when wages are low, savings are limited, and public support is insufficient. From this perspective, poverty reflects the insecurity built into an economy in which many people work hard yet still lack the resources needed to withstand even a single misfortune.

The Feminization of Poverty

Poverty has a gendered dimension. Sociologists and feminist scholars use the term feminization of poverty to describe women’s disproportionate risk of poverty, which is shaped by gender inequalities in wages, caregiving responsibilities, employment opportunities, and family structure.

In 2024, the official U.S. poverty rate was 11.6% for women, compared with 9.6% for men. Poverty rates were especially high among people living in female-householder families, at 23.5%, compared with 11.2% among those living in male-householder families (Shrider & Bijou, 2025). These differences show how gender inequality in employment, caregiving, and family resources can increase women’s and children’s economic vulnerability.

Period Poverty

One consequence of gendered economic inequality is period poverty, or inadequate access to menstrual products, sanitation facilities, education, and support. Menstrual products are essential for health, education, employment, and full participation in public life. Yet menstruation is often stigmatized or treated as a private responsibility rather than a social and public-health concern.

The cost of menstrual products can place a significant burden on low-income individuals and families, particularly when household budgets are already strained by food, housing, transportation, and healthcare costs (UNICEF, n.d.). Period poverty therefore illustrates how gender and social class intersect to shape access to basic necessities.

More Than a ZIP Code: Poverty, Place, and Life Chances

One of the most significant consequences of poverty is that it shapes people’s life chances, a concept associated with Max Weber that refers to the opportunities individuals have to access valued resources such as education, employment, health, housing, and social mobility. Where a family lives often determines much more than their address. It can influence the quality of schools children attend, the kinds of jobs available nearby, access to public transportation, the safety of the neighborhood, and whether families can easily buy fresh and healthy food.

Place also shapes exposure to environmental risks. Low-income neighborhoods often have fewer trees, more pavement, and less investment in green space, making them significantly hotter during the summer and more vulnerable to the effects of climate change. In this way, poverty is not only about having less money; it is also about having fewer choices, fewer protections, and fewer pathways to stability.

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)

Because poverty and basic-needs insecurity are shaped by broader social and economic conditions, public assistance programs play an important role in helping families meet essential needs. As a wealthy nation, the United States funds a range of federal and state social welfare programs designed to help meet basic needs, including food, health care, and income support. One of the best known is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. SNAP began as part of New Deal-era responses to hunger and surplus food and later became a permanent federal program. Its importance remains substantial today. In the fiscal year of 2024, SNAP served an average of 41.7 million people per month—roughly 1 in 8 Americans—making it the nation’s largest nutrition assistance program (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, 2025). 

Although food insecurity is often discussed in relation to children, it also affects a significant number of older adults in the United States (Heflin & Harrington Meyer, 2025). In 2023, 9.2% of households containing adults age 60 and older experienced food insecurity, representing about 7.4 million older individuals. SNAP can play an important role in reducing hardship by helping households purchase food and, in some cases, lowering health-related costs. Even so, many older adults who qualify for SNAP do not receive benefits. Compared with other eligible groups, participation among older adults remains much lower, suggesting that access is shaped by more than need alone.

As Heflin and Harrington Meyer (2025) explain, several structural barriers help explain why older adults are less likely to use SNAP. The application and recertification process can be difficult to navigate, benefit amounts may not stretch far enough to cover food needs, and practical obstacles—such as limited transportation or difficulty reaching stores that accept benefits—can make using SNAP more challenging (Heflin & Harrington Meyer, 2025). These patterns can be understood through life course theory, which highlights how disadvantages accumulate over time, leaving some people more economically vulnerable in later life, and through social ecological theory, which emphasizes how family well-being is shaped by larger environments such as neighborhoods, transportation systems, community resources, and state policies. Together, these perspectives show that food insecurity among older adults reflects not simply personal circumstance, but the combined effects of lifelong inequality and unequal access to supportive social environments.

Poverty and College Students

Basic-needs insecurity is not limited to families with young children or people outside the workforce. Students can also experience food and housing insecurity while enrolled in college, making it difficult to focus on coursework, attend classes consistently, or complete a degree. These conditions raise an important question: How can students be expected to graduate when they are trying to study while also worrying about where they will sleep or how they will eat? Many students are not able to persist under these circumstances. If students’ hard work is to result in a degree, colleges and policymakers need to build stronger systems of support that address students’ basic needs while enrolled.

Open Content, Shared Previously

Adapted by Sarah Earl-Novell from 2.5: Social Stratification in Families in Contemporary Families in the US: An Equity Lens 2e by Elizabeth B. Pearce, licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Modifications by Sarah Earl-Novell include remixing, editing, contextualization, and the addition of original content.

References

American Sociological Association. (2018). One misfortune away [Video].YouTube.

American Sociological Association. (2020). Studying while hungry [Video]. YouTube.

de Sousa, T., Henry, M., & Abt Global. (2024). The 2024 annual homelessness assessment report (AHAR) to Congress: Part 1: Point-in-time estimates of homelessness. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Heflin, C. M., & Harrington Meyer, M. (2025). Strengthening SNAP’s ability to address old age food insecurity. Contexts, 24(4), 86–87. 

Kent, A. H. (2025, June 23). The state of U.S. household wealth. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Kochhar, R. (2024, May 31). The state of the American middle class: Who is in it and key trends from 1970 to 2023. Pew Research Center.

Shrider, E. A., & Bijou, C. (2025). Poverty in the United States: 2024 (Current Population Reports, P60-287). U.S. Census Bureau. 

UNICEF. (n.d.). Menstrual hygiene. 

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. (2025, July 24). Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. (2025). 2025 poverty guidelines: 48 contiguous states (all states except Alaska and Hawaii).

U.S. Government Accountability Office. (2020). Homelessness: Better HUD oversight of data collection could improve estimates of homeless population (GAO-20-433).