Poverty's Face: Effects of Great Recession make it harder for kids to succeed
Published: Monday, August 01, 2011, 5:00 AM
Children who start their lives malnourished, without health care and emotionally stressed from their parents’ homelessness, poverty and unemployment face huge challenges in succeeding in school and life. A new report (PDF) from the Children’s Defense Fund says that America’s children fared especially badly during the Great Recession, creating roadblocks to success.
Child poverty increased by almost 10 percent between 2008 and 2009 — the largest one-year increase since 1960, according to the State of America’s Children 2011. The report is stuffed with hundreds of distressing statistics that paint a grim picture of how conditions for America’s children have declined.
A total of 15.5 million children in America — one in five — lived in poverty in 2009, the report says. Almost half of all poor children lived in extreme poverty, in families struggling on annual incomes of less than half the poverty level, which is an annual income of $22,050 for a family of four. The average income for the bottom 90 percent of households is at its lowest level in a decade.
Although the number of uninsured children is the lowest in 20 years, one in 10 children still does not have health insurance, the report says. In 43 states and the District of Columbia, more than one in 10 households does not have access to enough food. The number of children receiving food stamps in 2009 reached a record high of 15.6 million. Since the recession began in late 2007, participation in the federal free or reduced-price school lunch program increased by 1.2 million children.
The report also highlights racial disparity; children of color are behind on nearly every measure. Babies of black mothers are almost twice as likely as babies of white mothers to be born at low birthweight. While one in 10 white children lives in poverty, one in three black children do. Black and Hispanic children are significantly more likely than white children to be overweight or obese.
In 20ll, the share of federal funding for children dropped by nearly 10 percent. Food aid and other safety-net programs are at risk in current budget negotiations. As the economy limps along, many families will need help from state and federal programs.
Too many children start life with the cards stacked against them. Poverty, homelessness and hunger threaten not only their health as children, but their potential to grow into educated, successful adults. For the country to succeed, we must invest in our children.
From an article in Cleveland,Ohio to another in the GRAND RAPIDS MICHIGAN POST which used the term "hunger tsunami" extending throughout America, we see the devastation that more people are encountering on a daily basis. Government is relying more and more on private institutions to provide relief to those in need. The "trickle down theory" promised in Reganomics has failed in that the authors did not engage the spigot to release its surplus to even the middle class. We are seeing a form of "Capitalocracy" where Government is partnering with business to enhance business profits, witnessed by the bailouts of the motor vehicle and insurance industries, where a growing underclass scrambles to feed itself. Government is not paid fairly for the investment made by the nation. It would seem that the elite took a page from those in need by extending their hands out looking for help. They have a inflated expectation of entitlement. The cupped hands of business is water-tight preventing little government support to fall to the disenfranchised.
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