Poverty and our kids

A significant block of an entire generation of children is growing up in poverty.  As a matter of fact, almost 1 in 4 American children lives in poverty today in the United States.  The long term implications of this horrible reality staggers the mind.  Our children and grandchildren will face enormous social/community challenges as these children move into adulthood.  The impact on our economy alone promises to be devastating.  

Consider the facts:

16 million kids live in poverty--lined up hand-in-hand they could stretch across the nation 5 times!

Children of color are over twice as likely to live in poverty as are their white counterparts.

14% of our children reside in overcrowded housing.

Poor children are twice as likely to live in unsafe homes.

6% of these children live in neighborhoods without parks, recreation centers, sidewalks or libraries.

11% of poor children line in areas of concentrated poverty.

Poor children are 6 times more likely to live in unsafe neighborhoods and in neighborhoods with graffiti, dilapidated housing and litter.

Children in poverty are 5 times more likely to repeat one or more grades in school.

82% of 4th graders from low-income families are below proficient reading level.

77% of 4th graders from low-income schools are below proficient reading level.

Children in poverty are 6 times more likely to live in unsafe neighborhoods.

20% of children in poverty NEVER participate in any physical activity.

Children in poverty are twice as likely to miss 11 or more days of school annually.

These children are 13 times more likely to never feel safe in school.

They are twice as likely to be unengaged in school.

They are 7 times more likely to bully other children.

Children in poverty are 3 times more likely to have NO health insurance.

They are more likely to have unmet needs in medical care by 2 times; in mental health care by 3 times; in dental care by 4 times; twice as likely to have chronic health conditions; 5 times more likely for those conditions to be moderately or severely debilitating. 

These children are twice as likely to be overweight or obese.

"The bottom line:  Disparities for children in poverty are numerous and wide-spread.  The ill effects will reach far into the future and across generations.  It is a multifaceted issue that needs multifaceted interventions.  It is the issue of our time!"  Richard NW LeDonne

[This material "lifted" from the work of Richard NW LeDonne.]

Poverty among U. S. children: 1 in 4!!!

Are you surprised?  Poverty is the most serious problem facing the United States today.  The following report reveals just how pervasive the challenge continues to be.



U.S. Child Poverty Second Highest Among Developed Nations:

The latest edition of UNICEF's report on child poverty in developed countries found that 30 million children in 35 of the world's richest countries live in poverty. Among those countries, the United States ranks second on the scale of what economists call "relative child poverty" -- above Latvia, Bulgaria, Spain, Greece, and 29 others. Only Romania ranks higher, with 25.5 percent of its children living in poverty, compared with 23.1 percent in the U.S.

The term "relative child poverty" refers to a child living in a household where the disposable income is less than half of the national median income. Many critics argue that relative poverty isn't the same as real hardship, or absolute poverty.

But the report brushes that away. Poverty is "essentially a relative concept," it says. For example, a little more than a century ago, the wealthiest people in the world didn't have cars. It concedes, however, that the measurement has some weaknesses. First, a child's well-being doesn't always correspond to the parents' income. Second, comparing the relative poverty rates of various countries doesn't make sense unless the countries have similar median incomes.

Because of these weaknesses the report considers "child deprivation." To measure this, researchers produced a list of 14 items found in most middle-class households and counted the number of children whose families couldn't afford them. The list included Internet connection, new clothes, three daily meals, two pairs of properly fitting shoes, and "the opportunity, from time to time, to invite friends home to play and eat."

•#35: Romania 25.5% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median. Putting that line at 60% of the median, and the percentage rises to 32.3%.

•#34: United States 23.1% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median. Around 1.2% of the GDP is public spending on families in cash transfers, tax breaks and services.

•#33: Latvia 18.8% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median. 15.9% of children are lacking five or more items on the deprivation index.

•#32: Bulgaria 17.8% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median. For children living in homes where parents are jobless, the deprivation rate shoots up to 85.2%, the second-worst of the European countries.

•#31: Spain 17.1% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median.

•#30: Greece 16% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median. The deprivation rate for children is over 40% when assessed looking at whether or not the child is from a migrant family (at least one parent is foreign-born).

•#29: Italy 15.9% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median.

•#28: Lithuania 15.4% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#27: Japan 14.9% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#26: Portugal 14.7% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#25: Poland 14.5% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#24: Canada 13.3% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median. Canada has the same level of relative child poverty as the United States, but once taxes and benefits are taken into consideration, the number is almost halved.

•#23: Luxembourg 12.3% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#22: United Kingdom 12.1% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#21: Estonia1 1.9% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#20; New Zealand 11.7% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#19: Slovakia 11.2% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#18: Australia 10.9% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#17: Hungary 10.3% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#16: Belgium 10.2% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#15: Malta 8.9% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#14: France 8.8% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#13: Germany 8.5% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#12: Ireland 8.4% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#11: Switzerland 8.1% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#10: Czech Republic 7.4% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#8: Austria (tied) 7.3% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#8: Sweden (tied) 7.3% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#7: Denmark 6.5% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#6: Slovenia 6.3% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#3: Norway (tied)6.1% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#3: Netherlands (tied) 6.1% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#3: Cyprus (tied) 6.1% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#2: Finland 5.3% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

•#1: Iceland 4.7% of children live in households with an equivalent income lower than 50% of the national median

Sheldon Danziger, the director of the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan, said the report does a good job of summing up what many economists have believed for a long time. "Among rich countries, the U.S. is exceptional," he said. "We are exceptional in our tolerance of poverty."

Danziger said he was especially impressed by a figure showing Canada and the U.S. have the same relative child poverty rate -- 25.1 The chart also showed that after government taxes, benefits and other social programs, Canada's child poverty rate drops to 13.1, while America's barely budges, hovering above 23.1 percent.

"Basically, other countries do more," he said. "They tend to have minimum wages that are higher than ours. The children would be covered universally by health insurance. Other countries provide more child care."

In a new book, Jane Waldfogel, a professor of social work at Columbia University, writes that the Labour Government's efforts to combat child poverty in the U.K. were "larger and more sustained than in the United States." Shortly after he became prime minister in 1997, Tony Blair found himself staring at a UNICEF report similar to this new one, except that England's child poverty ranking was much higher.

So Blair's government instituted programs modeled after former U.S. President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty. The U.K. developed Sure Start -- an early-care program for low-income children similar to the U.S. Head Start. British families could apply for the Working Tax Credit, similar to the U.S. Earned Income Tax Credit.

The Labour Party spent more on these programs, even as the U.S. spent less, and within five years the number of children living in "absolute poverty" in the U.K. had fallen by half. According to the UNICEF report, 12.1 percent of British children now live in relative poverty -- nearly half the percentage of American children.

Read entire report  here. 

More on CitySquare's 17th Annual Urban Ministries Prayer Breakfast!

One of the reasons that this year's prayer breakfast promises to be among the best we've ever hosted at CitySquare is our participants' list! 

The morning will be fast-paced and filled with experts and important leaders. 

Our own Rev. Gerald Britt will make an opening statement as he introduces Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, a champion of public education and a leader with a heart for renewal and reform for the sake of every DISD student. 

Following the Mayor's remarks, he and Gerald will join a distingished panel that includes representatives from Commit!, Educate Dallas and the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas.

Be sure and read my post from yesterday.  Whatever you do, don't miss our special morning on April 12!

We're better than this. . .

To say again that the U. S. needs comprehensive immigration reform is beyond question.  However, when you understand the "on the ground" realities for families and communities, the game changes.  We can do so much better than this.  Have we forgotten who we are as a people?  Can we so easily turn our backs on our history and heritage?  I am ashamed. 
How about you?

Study: 5,100 Kids in Foster Care After Parents Deported
November 3, 2011, 2:01 pm ET by Gretchen Gavett

“Even if the [immigration] law is executed with perfection, there will be parents separated from their children,” White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs Cecilia Muñoz told us when we interviewed for her our recent film Lost in Detention.

And while she stressed that the solution is comprehensive immigration reform, a new report from the Applied Research Center [ARC], which advocates for immigration reform, has found that, in the meantime, an increasing number of children are being placed into foster care when a parent is deported.

At least 5,100 children in 22 states are currently in foster care, and if the current pace of deportations continues, ARC expects that number to rise to 15,000 children in the next five years. Nearly 397,000 people were deported in fiscal year 2011 — up from more than 392,000 in 2010. Since Obama took office, his administration has deported more than a million people.

The record number of deportations is in part attributed to federal-local partnership programs like Secure Communities and 287(g), which track the immigration status of people booked in jails across the country. According to ARC, foster care children in counties participating in 287(g) are 29 percent more likely to have parent who has been detained or deported.

This trend worries some, including Lake County, Ill., Sheriff Mark Curran, who was an initial . . .

To read entire report click here.