The war at home
Child poverty rising again
By Greg Butterfield
For a brief period during the late 1990s economic boom, the
U.S. child poverty rate fell--barely--for the first time in
decades. Politicians on both sides of the aisle claimed the
decrease as a vindication of their policies dismantling
welfare.
Now the blip is over. It's the 21st century and child
poverty is rising again. And what do the experts think is a
leading cause?
You guessed it: the dismantling of welfare.
The official rate of child poverty bottomed out at 16
percent in 2000--not even close to the 14-percent rate of the
late 1960s and early 1970s. It rose again in 2001. The analysts
are still debating by how much.
For the U.S. government to admit that you live in poverty,
you have to be extremely poor. The fact is, many, many more
children actually live in poverty. Some experts put the real
total closer to 25 percent.
But some facts are indisputable. There are fewer jobs and
more unemployment. Many parents--former welfare recipients who
managed to find jobs during the last boom--are now unemployed
again, with no safety net to catch them or their kids.
Those most at risk are children whose families face the most
oppression in this racist society. In 2000 the poverty rate
among Black children was 30 percent; among Latino children, 28
percent.
Compared to other big capitalist countries, the U.S. is far
and away the worst offender. Based on a poverty line that is 40
percent of a country's median income, academics Timothy
Smeeding and Lee Rainwater have determined that the U.S. has
the highest child poverty rate among the 19 wealthiest members
of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development.
Their study sets the poverty line even lower than official
U.S. policy. But that doesn't make the picture any
brighter.
Using this method, 14.8 percent of U.S. children lived in
poverty in 1997. Only one other country--Italy--came close,
with a rate of 14.6 percent. The next closest was Canada, with
9.6 percent.
Contrary to the perception shaped by the government and mass
media that child poverty is exclusively an urban problem,
recently released data from the 2000 census show just how
widespread the problem is.
A study of the data by the Children's Defense Fund shows
that 38 mostly rural counties around the U.S. have higher rates
of child poverty than any major cities.
In 14 of these counties--which range from the Deep South to
the Midwest--the child poverty rate is more than 50
percent.
George W. Bush's home state, Texas, had two among the 10
worst larger cities: Brownsville, with 45.3 percent of children
in poverty, and Laredo, with 38.0 percent.
Hartford, New Orleans, Providence, Atlanta, Buffalo, N.Y.,
Miami, Gary, Ind., and Cleveland also made the list.
In nine states, at least 20 percent of children were poor:
Mississippi (27.0 percent), Louisiana (26.6 percent), New
Mexico (25.0 percent), West Virginia (24.3 percent), Arkansas
(21.8 percent), Alabama (21.5 percent), Kentucky (20.8
percent), Texas (20.5 percent) and New York (20.0 percent). The
District of Colombia had a worse rate than any state: 31.7
percent.
The working class and progressive movement must make war on
the $396 billion Pentagon budget Bush is requesting for 2003,
if for no other reason than to demand that millions of children
living in the world's richest country be lifted out of
poverty.
Reprinted from the June 27, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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