How to End Child Poverty for 60 Percent of Poor Children and 72 Percent of All Poor Black Children

[sheshe2]

How to End Child Poverty for 60 Percent of Poor Children and 72 Percent of All Poor Black Children Today




Poverty hurts children and our nation’s future. This stark statement is backed by years of scientific research and the more we learn about the brain and its development the more devastatingly true we know this to be. Childhood poverty can and does scar children for life. Yet in the largest economy on earth we stand by as 14.7 million languish in poverty. Here’s a snapshot of who our poor children are today:

Every other baby is a child of color. And 1 in 2 Black babies is poor – the poorest child in America.
1 in 3 Hispanic children under 5 is poor during their years of rapid brain development.
More than 1 in 4 urban children and nearly 1 in 4 rural children is poor.
1 in 5 of all children in America is poor—14.7 million children.
1 in 6 Black children is extremely poor living on less than $8 a day.
1 in 7 Hispanic children under five is extremely poor.
1 in 8 Hispanic children is poor.
Less than 1 in 9 White children is poor; 4.1 million children.

A child of color is more than twice as likely to be poor as a White child. Of the 14.7 million children living beneath the poverty line in 2013, defined as a family of four living on less than $23,834 a year, or $16.25 a person a day, over 40 percent lived in extreme poverty on less than $11,917 a year, half the poverty line – barely $8 a person a day.

The 14.7 million poor children in America exceeds the populations of 12 U.S. states combined: Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming and is greater than the populations of Sweden and Costa Rica combined.



Read More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marian-wright-edelman/how-to-end-child-poverty_b_6566906.html

[BrotherIvan]

1. The conclusions of how to deal with the problem

from the link

The Children’s Defense Fund has just released a groundbreaking report called Ending Child Poverty Now showing for the first time how America could end child poverty, as defined by the Supplemental Poverty measure, for 60 percent of all poor children and 72 percent of all poor Black children. We can make this happen by investing another 2 percent of the federal budget to improve existing programs and policies that increase parental employment, make work pay and ensure children’s basic needs are met. Poverty for children under 3 and children in single parent households would drop 64 percent and 97 percent of all poor children would experience improvements in their economic circumstances.

So basically by making sure people and parents are paid a living wage so they can support and feed their children. JOBS! And programs to make sure children don't live in poverty or go to school hungry. This country MUST do something about it now. NOW!!!

[sheshe2]

2. Thank you for posting that part BrotherIvan.

Jobs AND a living wage are equally important. Yes, we need to do it now.

[BrotherIvan]

3. Thank you for your post

This is too damn important. We NEED to figure it out now. There is NO grey area as far as I'm concerned. We have too much wealth and too many resources in this country for our children to go hungry.

And what they are advising is 2% of the budget. Two percent from the Pentagon who builds billion dollar planes no one wants or that don't work. So war profiteers can't make enough to buy their third plane so kids don't go to bed hungry. What kind of priorities do we have in this country?

[sheshe2]

4. This breaks my heart, Brother Ivan.

This stark statement is backed by years of scientific research and the more we learn about the brain and its development the more devastatingly true we know this to be. Childhood poverty can and does scar children for life. Yet in the largest economy on earth we stand by as 14.7 million languish in poverty.

You are right, it should not be this way. Yes. 2%.

[BrotherIvan]

5. It just breaks my heart to read this

NO ONE in this country should be hungry. Look at all the land, the lawns, the empty spaces in the cities. We should all be growing food for free on that land. I've always thought about instead of kids doing so many activities after school that usually run their parents ragged, wouldn't it be cool if teenagers could work growing food to take home to their families? Also underemployed or retired people who want to help a little in return for food. I think we've made farming and feeding each other somehow beneath us.

What if communities could share their gardens like some European cities do where they plan who is going to grow what so everyone gets a bit of something? What about chickens and goats which are very urban friendly? What about all the ways we don't have to wait to help each other. How awesome would that be?

I like this TED talk a lot. It gives me so much hope. I live in an urban area and see a lot of homelessness. We donate all of our citrus that bursts from the trees here and food as well. But it just seems like there would be so much pride in growing your own. I don't know, maybe that's too airy fairy.

http://www.ted.com/talks/ron_finley_a_guerilla_gardener_in_south_central_la?language=en

[pansypoo53219]

6. SS for children. mothers. a living stipend.

[ND-Dem]

7. why stop at 60%?

[JonLP24]

8. I heard there is a proposed $534 billion defense budget

I think they can be used & feed a whole lot more & do so much more with that.

[Cha]

9. The LInk to the Conclusions and Reccomendations for Children's Defense Fund by Marian Wright

Edelman. Mahalo she..

snip//

Conclusion and Recommendations For the first time, this report shows how we could reduce child poverty in the United States by 60 percent. The results are clear. For the first time, this report shows how child poverty in the United States could be substantially reduced. By making work pay more, supporting employment for those who can work, and expanding safety net supports to ensure children's basic needs are met, the nation could reduce child poverty by 60 percent — lifting 6.6 million children out of poverty immediately.

Lifting 6.6 million children above poverty for a year and improving circumstances for 97 percent of poor children through the policy changes described in this report would cost $77.2 billion.
That is just 2 percent of the $3.5 trillion spent by the federal government in 2010 and half of 1 percent of the country’s 2010 gross domestic product, a cost our rich nation can well afford. This investment would ­eventually pay for itself since protecting children against the lifelong consequences of poverty would improve their life incomes and outcomes and reduce child poverty in future generations. The nation would benefit from a larger tax-paying and healthier workforce which would build a stronger economy and gradually reduce the half a trillion dollars our nation spends each year on child poverty. -

MOre..
http://www.childrensdefense.org/library/PovertyReport/EndingChildPovertyNow.html

for the Children~Black and White

[LWolf]

10. And here's the plan.

The bolding is mine, highlighting what I think are key points:

The Children’s Defense Fund has just released a groundbreaking report called Ending Child Poverty Now showing for the first time how America could end child poverty, as defined by the Supplemental Poverty measure, for 60 percent of all poor children and 72 percent of all poor Black children. We can make this happen by investing another 2 percent of the federal budget to improve existing programs and policies that increase parental employment, make work pay and ensure children’s basic needs are met. Poverty for children under 3 and children in single parent households would drop 64 percent and 97 percent of all poor children would experience improvements in their economic circumstances.

CDF contracted with the non-partisan, independent Urban Institute to generate real numbers on the costs to implement improvements to existing policies and programs and the number of children who would benefit. CDF’s report shows how relatively modest changes in policies we know work can be combined to significantly reduce child poverty, and implemented right now if our political leaders put common good, common sense and economic sense for children first to improve the lives and futures of millions of children, and save taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars each year.

CDF’s report estimates a cost of $77.2 billion a year for the combined proposed policy improvements and suggests multiple tradeoffs our country can make to pay for this huge, long overdue and urgently needed reduction in child poverty without raising the federal deficit including:

Closing tax loopholes that let U.S. corporations avoid $90 billion annually in federal income taxes by shifting profits to subsidiaries in foreign tax havens; or
Eliminating tax breaks for the wealthy by taxing capital gains and dividends at the same rate as wages, saving more than $84 billion a year; or
Scrapping the F-35 fighter jet program already several years behind schedule and 68 percent over budget and still not producing fully functioning planes. For the $1.5 trillion projected costs of this program, the nation could reduce child poverty 60 percent for 19 years, potentially breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty.