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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the June 22, 2000
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------UNICEF on child poverty
U.S. worse than 27 other countries
By Gary Wilson
In the world's wealthiest countries, 47 million children are so poor that their health and well-being are in danger. This is the conclusion of a report released June 13 by the United Nations Children's Fund.
That's one in six children in the 29 richest countries of the world.
Of all the richest countries, the United States comes close to being the worst for children. Only Mexico--an oppressed country with a fraction of the wealth of the United States--has a higher percentage of children living in poverty, according to the UNICEF report.
The report says there are 13.5 million children living in poverty in the United States--that's fully one-third of all the poor children in the wealthiest countries.
The report questions the assumption that child poverty is linked to the overall strength of the economy.
The United States has booming profits for the top corporations and bankers, with relatively high employment levels. However, the United States has virtually eliminated its "social safety net" and does not have a guaranteed income for those who cannot get jobs or can't work.
There is a clear link between child poverty and households where no adults have an income, the report says. Only Britain ranks worse than the United States in this regard.
The UNICEF study is another indicator of the extremes between the rich and the poor that have built up in the United States.
The media hype about the booming economy has emphasized how the rich have gotten richer. The other side of this boom is that the poor have gotten really poorer.
The UNICEF report does not break down the U.S. poverty figures by nationality. However, a 1997 Children's Defense Fund report showed that one of every two African American children lives in poverty, as do 30 percent of all Latino children in this country.
Poverty can be eliminated
Child poverty could be virtually eliminated by establishing a guaranteed income for all.
There are more than enough funds in the U.S. budget to do this.
Add to this a program to build schools instead of jails, provide child care for all who need it, and raise the minimum wage to a union wage, and there would be no crisis of child poverty.
However, the funds that could be used for this have been diverted to build up the military and engage in war.
The 78-day war against Yugoslavia cost the U.S. people at least $4 billion, according to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. These funds were directly diverted from essential domestic social programs. And yet they could have virtually eliminated child poverty.
The U.S. government has the biggest military in the world--bigger than the next 16 countries combined. The United States has bases in over 100 countries around the world. When it comes to military spending, there are almost no limits.
Now President Bill Clinton is selling a new multi-billion-dollar "missile shield" plan that is a giveaway to the military. Some have called it a welfare program for the military-industrial complex.
Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore supports Clinton's missile shield. Republican candidate George W. Bush supports a similar plan. Neither has an answer to child poverty.
The military-industrial complex continues to call the shots in the bought-and-paid-for presidential elections in the United States.
Capitalism has created the painful paradox of poverty amid enormous wealth. It takes going outside the capitalist political parties to fight for any real change.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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