Study: 1 in 5 U.S. children live in poverty
Shae Hill holds her daughter Fredderio, 3 months, inside a store May 7, 2009 in Glendora, Mississippi. For the tenth year in a row, Mississippi ranked worst in the nation in child well-being. / Getty Images
LAS VEGAS - Karla Washington worries how she will afford new school uniforms for her five-year-old daughter.
Washington, an undergraduate student, earns less than $11,000 a year from a part-time university job. The salary must cover food, rent, health care, child care and the occasional splurge on a Blue's Clues item for her only child.
"My biggest fear is not providing my daughter with everything that she needs to be a balanced child, to be independent, to be safe, to feel like she is of value," said Washington, 41.
Washington's economic woes are seen throughout Nevada, where the nation's highest unemployment and foreclosure rates have combined to devastate families and empty neighborhoods and construction yards.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation state-by-state data center
A national study on child well-being to be published Wednesday found Nevada had the highest rate of children whose parents are unemployed and underemployed. The state is also home to the most children affected by foreclosures — 13 percent of all Silver State babies, toddlers and teenagers have been kicked out of their homes because of an unpaid mortgage, the study found.
Across the nation, the research by the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that child poverty increased in 38 states from 2000 to 2009. As a result, 14.7 million children, 20 percent, were poor in 2009. That represents a 2.5 million increase from 2000, when 17 percent of the nation's youth lived in low-income homes.
In the foundation's first examination of the impact of the recession on the nation's children, the researchers concluded that low-income children will likely suffer academically, economically and socially long after their parents have recovered.
"People who grew up in a financially secure situation find it easier to succeed in life, they are more likely to graduate from high school, more likely to graduate from college and these are things that will led to greater success in life," said Stephen Brown, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "What we are looking at is a cohort of kids who as they become adults may be less able to contribute to the growth of the economy. It could go on for multiple generations."
The annual survey monitored by policy makers across the nation concludes that children from low-income families are more likely to be raised in unstable environments and change schools than their wealthier peers. As a result, they are less likely to be gainfully employed as adults.
There are other social costs. Economically disadvantaged children can result in reduced economic output, higher health expenditures and increased criminal justice costs for society, the survey concludes. The research is based on data from many sources, including the Mortgage Bankers Association, National Delinquency Survey and U.S. Census Bureau.
"Even if you don't care about kids and all you care about is your own well-being, then you ought to be concerned," said Patrick McCarthy, president of the Baltimore, Md.-based charity. "... We've got to think about what kind of state, what kind of country we can expect to have if we are not investing in the success of our children."
The report found some bright spots.
In the two decades since researchers began compiling the annual report, infant mortalities, child and teen deaths and high school dropout rates have declined. But the number of unhealthy babies have increased, and there were far more children living in low-income families.
Programs such as food stamps, unemployment insurance and foreclosure mediation have acted like a dam against the flood of poverty, McCarthy said, but that assistance has been threatened by federal and state government budget cuts.
Mississippi kept its overall last place ranking in child welfare for the 10th consecutive year, according to the survey. It was closely trailed by neighboring Louisiana and Alabama, a nod to the widespread poverty that plagues southern states. Nevada ranked 40th overall, its worst ranking in 10 years, largely because of its economic decline.
The rankings are determined by a state's achievement in 10 indicators that reflect child poverty, such as undernourished infants, infant mortalities, teen births and children in single-parent families. The top state for children was New Hampshire, ahead of Minnesota, Massachusetts and Vermont.
Mississippi had the most children living in poverty, with 31 percent of its youth getting by on meager family budgets. New Hampshire had the smallest population of low-income children at 11 percent. The federal poverty level this year is $22,350 a year for a family of four, but child advocates claim that figure should be higher.
Nevada, Florida, Arizona and California and other states grappling with high foreclosures rates also were home to the largest populations of children affected by the mortgage crisis. North Dakota had the fewest, followed by South Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming and Alaska. In all, more than 5.3 million children have been affected by foreclosure, the study found.
Mississippi's rankings were least affected by the recession, only because it long ago secured its worst-case standing. Overall, Mississippi ranked last in seven of the survey's child well-being indicators.
"We are really tired of being in 50th place," said Linda Southward, a social science research professor at Mississippi State University. She said state policy makers have closely followed the rankings and have strived to promote early education as part of its strategy to reduce overall poverty.
"We are just extremely challenged given the economic hardships that we have," she said.
Nevada, meanwhile, has long had a challenging record on child issues because of its historically low-performing schools. The Kids Count survey found 11 percent of Nevada teens were not in school and had not graduated from high school in 2009, the worst rate in the nation. New Hampshire was best at 3 percent.
Meanwhile, 34 percent of Nevada's children were living in families with both parents not working full-time in 2009, the largest increase in the nation, according to the survey. Nevada also saw the largest rates of children living with at least one unemployed parent, followed by Rhode Island, Oregon and Kentucky. North Dakota, Nebraska and South Dakota had the best rates.
Overall, the percent of children living in families in which no parent had full-time employment increased from 27 percent in 2008 to 31 percent in 2009. Black children were nearly twice as likely as white children to have an unemployed parent.
Washington, the Las Vegas mother, is poised to graduate from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas next year and hopes to pursue a career in human resources. She tries not to think of the challenges of securing full-time employment in this job market.
She dreams of stashing away a small savings nest for her daughter, in case of an emergency.
"I want to be able to say that she is OK, because right now I can't say that," Washington said.
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by Lawyers-Guns-n-Money06 August 17, 2011 9:39 AM EDT
Poor little fink. Paints herself to be above the fray. Riots in the streets, poverty levels to rival ours and a financial system riding closer the precipice than ours. And you want to worry about us? Man, it's not very often you see a female with this level of pe-nis envy.
I hold in contempt the greedy of course, but which greedy party to blame.???
The top 1% of American's wealthiest, give money to the charitable contributions they can take tax credit for....is that enough???
After all they did make double their income yearly since Reagan, and lowered the tax rate to the lowest in 60 years.
Corporations in America pay 35%, if they pay. The fortune 500 companies usually get refunds from money we pay in personal taxes.
Their lobbists have inflitrated high levels of government like the ceo of GE who paid nothing in taxes, got a huge refund instead, moved jobs overseas leaving America to wallow in the trenches of Walmart, and now works for the Obama administration...I'm not so sure we as americans would want someone so biased to be in charge of getting jobs in America.
We saw how jobs in Tejas is increasing, but really these are mostly slave jobs.
Corporations are sitting on 2 Trillion dollars in cash. They are forcing employees to work without raises and they cut or do not provide health insurance. Even with tax credits...Corporations REFUSE to hire workers...so since businesses won't take advantage of the tax breaks there is another option to increase employment.
Create the HIRE AMERICAN EMPLOYEE TAX: Any company that has 50 employees or more and has a profit of $5 million dollars or more MUST HIRE 5% more full time-full benefit employees during the upcoming year. If corporations do not hire more workers then a tax equal to 5x the employee's estimated salary/benefits will be assessed and the government will use the money to hire more research scientists for NASA/colleges. Since companies don't like paying taxes...will they hire more workers or pay the tax? :)
Since companies don't believe they have to be good corporate citizens, we can force them to do what they are supposed to do. We have given corporations and the rich tax breaks because THEY say if we raise taxes they won't hire people...well we have been giving them break after tax break and nothing has changed (but their increased profits!) So it is time to force them to have a conscious.
Businesses think they know all the answers...here is a great quote from a website discussing how a NJ business organization supports Merit Pay for teachers (even though scientifically it has been proven over and over NOT to work.) It is a great rant about the failures of business:
"Let's just ignore the fact that merit pay has never worked in schools and just keep "clapping harder" for the Merit Pay Fairy!
Honestly, I can't continue. It's not just that guys like this have no clue what they're talking about. It's not that they have no standing to make these pronouncements that only serve to make them look stupid.
It's that they are demonstrably bad at their own jobs. A guy from the "New Jersey Business and Industry Association" thinks NJ businesses are doing so freakin' well that he has the right to come into my world and tell me he's going to "fix" the "problems" in my schools? Is he serious?
Dude, you're the problem. You can't even put together a decent system to employ people in this state and pay them reasonable wages. You can't even come up with a way to punish corporate pirates who run their companies into the ground before they steal away with millions from their shareholders. You can't even keep the air and water clean and keep food safe and not destroy infrastructure without whining like a bunch of babies that somehow it's all the government's fault. You've can't even treat your employees with enough respect to allow them decent health care and retirements.
Clean up your own mess before you start coming around and blaming me for all the problems YOU'VE created. Man up and accept some responsibility for once.
If you can't, then just shut up and go away."
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2011/08/son-of-our-failed-education-discourse.html
I say they have influenced other countries to lower their tax rates on corporations to manipulate the tax codes of America to allow them to benifit from the system they set up.
I didn't realize the poor had so much power and cared so little about their best interests.
All humans have allot of personal power unless they give it all away to conservative right wing slave masters with the ill-promise that in exchange they will trickle upon them a utopia.