Child Poverty in America
I’d like to think that most Americans are just too insular to realize that our child poverty rate is absolutely off the charts in international terms, even when compared to other high-immigration Anglophone countries, to say nothing of the Nordics:
The alternative to people just not knowing is the idea that people just don’t care which, frankly, is an upsetting possibility I’d prefer not to believe in.
Note that if we allow this to continue, we’re going to keep slipping in terms of our relative educational attainment, and over the long run average American living standards will slip further and further behind those in northern Europe (and depending on how you look at leisure time, the rest of Europe as well). There are things we could do to get more out of our school system, but ultimately it’s inconceivable to me that we’ll ever get a first-rate levels of educational attainment with these kind of child poverty rate — it basically guarantees that portions of the system will be overburdened by too many children with too many problems. That’ll be fine for those getting the long end of the hyperinequality, but it’s sad to see the extent to which we’re slouching toward that future without any public acknowledgment of it or debate about the wisdom of our priorities. You would think that something like being by far the world leader in child poverty would dominate the political agenda — instead you never see it mentioned.
Time for a link to half in ten.
65 Responses to “Child Poverty in America”
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December 16th, 2008 at 10:45 am
if we allow this to continue, we’re going to keep slipping in terms of our relative educational attainment
Exactly right. American education fails in so many respects not because of inadequate teaching but because of disadvantages to the students that other countries just don’t have.
December 16th, 2008 at 10:55 am
But holding teachers accountable for student success on standardized assessments will be able to overcome this… I’m sure.
December 16th, 2008 at 10:57 am
No, no, the child poverty rate has absolutely nothing to do with slippage in American education achievement. Its all because of the teachers unions. THE TEACHERS UNIONS, I tell you….
December 16th, 2008 at 10:57 am
You would think that something like being by far the world leader in child poverty would dominate the political agenda
I think you mean “being by far the world leader in child poverty among countries I have selected for this sample”. I think Bangladesh has us beat, dude.
And what are these other “high-immigration Anglophone” countries you refer to? Canada?
Seriously though, it is hard to know what to make of these numbers without (a) knowing what the immigrant vs. non-immigrant child poverty rates are, and (b) knowing what the child poverty rate is in Mexico and other Latin American countries. Thirty seconds of googling have not provided these datapoints so if anyone can provide a link I’d be much appreciative.
December 16th, 2008 at 10:59 am
My guess is that the anti-abortion movement has a lot to do with that high child poverty rate. By stopping poor moms from getting abortions, anti-abortionists ensure that a disproportionately large share of (unwanted) children are born into poor families in this country – as opposed to other countries, where poor women can limit their family sizes as they please.
December 16th, 2008 at 10:59 am
an upsetting possibility I’d prefer not to believe in.
Believe, Matt, believe.
December 16th, 2008 at 11:05 am
I would say that virtually everyone, when they become aware of this, responds by saying “Well, what if all those countries let in as many unskilled immigrants as we do?”
December 16th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Right: 1) It’s the oecd, not a random selection. 2) NZ, Aus, UK, 3) top 5 poverty states are DC, LA, MS, WV, NM. Only the last has anything to do with immigration. 4) What the hell does Honduras have to do with anything?
Seriously dude, try to keep up.
December 16th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Is the poverty that limits student performance primarily one of material deprivation or social dysfunction? And are their parents poor because they are socially dysfunctional or are they socially dysfunctional because they’re poor? I’m sure causality goes both ways but I think we have to recognize that part of the reason no one pays a lot of attention to this problem is that no one is quite sure how to fix it. People are plenty willing to champion free school lunch and breakfast, Medicaid & CHIP. These things undoubtedly help. But when parents are drug abusers, criminals, or simply never learned how to function in society themselves then these things clearly aren’t enough.
I also want to throw out the idea that all of this gets easier when we stop bringing in large numbers of poor & uneducated immigrants. Maybe it’s not a crazy idea to try to fix our current underclass before expanding it. And the idea that immigrants “do jobs Americans won’t do” relies on the idea that immigrants form a separate underclass. Once they successfully assimilate and are no longer willing to do those jobs, we need to bring in a new group to “do jobs Americans won’t do.” If progressives oppose the idea of a permanent underclass of poor immigrants they ought to rethink their policies on this. If inequality is socially corrosive, then importing a steady stream of new poor, uneducated immigrants guarantees the perpetuation of that social corrosion.
December 16th, 2008 at 11:13 am
it could also be that the problem is so bad that Americans have trouble believing it actually exists- thus the insular/non caring response.
December 16th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Typically when one creates a graph they label the axis so people can have some clue what it refers to. This is typical of this blog and Lord Yglesias, who thinks that the prols should just accept what he says as fact and not think on their own.
I know they tend to be lacking young children in most of the countries you list so maybe we have a better % of children living out of poverty. Again, I don’t know because you don’t label you freaking axis.
December 16th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Since the states with the worst child poverty numbers (and child healthcare problems) tend to be in the old Confederacy, it only stands to reason their elected representatives will be in the lead proposing solutions. . . They will be standing shoulder to shoulder with President Obama working for their constituents.
Right?
December 16th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Is this an absolute or relative measure of poverty rates? Does it include EITC and Medicaid? What about consumption inequality?
An unannotated and poorly sourced graph does little to advance the conversation.
December 16th, 2008 at 11:22 am
nolaboyd:
1) Matt said “the world” which is obviously false. And last I checked, Mexico was a member of the OECD.
2) So immigration rates in those countries are comparable to the US?
3) DC is not a state. And this is beside the point (which I realize may be too complicated for you to grasp).
4) Who mentioned Honduras? Oh right, you did. Well, to the extent it has anything to do with it, it would be interesting to know what Honduras’ child poverty level is and then compare it to that of Honduran immigrants to the US. Of course there aren’t all that many, so Mexico is the main question here.
Thanks for being an ass.
December 16th, 2008 at 11:26 am
I miss John Edwards.
December 16th, 2008 at 11:31 am
DTM: you need to look where the immigrants come from and why they come. Immigrants are not all the same. I think you will find that India and Mexico have similar child poverty levels, but among immigrants to the US from those two countries the child poverty level is dramatically different. That is because most of the Indian immigrants come to the US as educated workers looking for technical jobs, while most Mexican immigrants come to the US looking for manual labor jobs.
December 16th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Shorter right.
December 16th, 2008 at 11:34 am
“In 2006, Statistics Norway’s (SSB) counted a record 45,800 immigrants arriving in Norway — 30% higher than 2005″
“Sweden: Immigration will reach record levels in Sweden this year [2006] with nearly 100,000 people moving to the Scandinavian country, up 48 percent from the year before, the national statistics office said Wednesday.”
“After 2000, immigration to the United States numbered approximately 1,000,000 per year. In 2006, 1.27 million immigrants were granted legal residence.”
Norway has 4,796,700 people, Sweden has 9,234,2094, The US has 305,904,000. Even taking a huge number of illegals arriving in the US in to account you’ll hardly find the explanation here. And our birthrates are 11-12 births per 1000 people vs. 14 per 1000 in the States. So you probably wont find it there either.
December 16th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Considering that half of the children in kindergarten are non-white, there is little hope that the U.S. can fix the child poverty rate. As the white population has fewer children and ages, there will not be enough middle class and upper middle class whites to tax in order to fund the wealth transfers required to make up for the failures of black and Hispanic culture.
December 16th, 2008 at 11:43 am
These data appear to be relative poverty levels – no way the US is worse than some of these countries in terms of absolute poverty levels:
http://books.google.com/books?id=7ulTJ91FjpAC&dq=Child+Well-Being,+Child+Poverty+and+Child+Policy+in+Modern+Nations&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPA15,M1
That is, what the chart shows mostly is inequality, not absolute poverty, though the US is worse than many European countries in absolute terms.
December 16th, 2008 at 11:48 am
It’s nice to see Matt has finally realized that poverty impacts educational outcomes more than teachers. Every study ever done on socio-economic level and education shows a correlation. Causation? Um, yeah, shows that too.
December 16th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Here’s a thought for the Sailerites pissing in the pond before their master arrives:
Even if, for argument’s sake, the answer to all these questions is “blame the blacks and brown immigrants”, does that excuse you from caring? Or is it just a neat way for Bigot 2.0s to avoid caring?
December 16th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Considering that half of the children in kindergarten are non-white, there is little hope that the U.S. can fix the child poverty rate.
Really, poops, you racist piece of shit?
December 16th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
But even holding aside immigrants, the poverty rate among U.S. children with native parents is something like 15-16%. That alone would put us way high on this list … and again other countries have immigrants too.
Where is this data? This is what’s really comparable — non-immigrant rate to non-immigrant rate. Would be really helpful to have a source, and ideally non-immigrant data for the other countries as well. Thanks.
Even if, for argument’s sake, the answer to all these questions is “blame the blacks and brown immigrants”, does that excuse you from caring?
It’s strange I have to explain this but I’m happy to do so. Matt’s post uses a very select dataset to allegedly demonstrate that the US is “by far the world leader in child poverty”. If this were true, I agree it would be extremely troubling. However, my sense is the US receives a much higher number of poor immigrants than the countries Matt compares us to, which could be skewing the data. It seems possible that the native-born US population has child poverty rates very similar to those in other developed countries, but I don’t know — that’s why I’m looking for the data.
The second question would be how do the immigrant families do relative to the populations in their home countries? My sense is they do better in the US than they would at home, but again, I’d like to see the data.
Now if all this were the case, would that mean I am “excused from caring” about child poverty? Of course not! It would, however, mean Matt’s post is highly misleading about the extent and nature of the problem relative to other developed countries.
So pseudonymous, even if, for argument’s sake, the data does not bear me out on this, does that make you less of a douchebag for accusing me of bigotry just for asking for more information? Or do we just need to accept Matt’s nonsensical graphs as gospel?
December 16th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Yes, the figure shows RELATIVE poverty.
The data are from a 2005 Unicef report, “Child Poverty in Rich Countries 2005.” (http://unicef-icdc.org/publications/pdf/repcard6e.pdf) As the report explains (p.4), the measure is relative income: “The bars show the percentage of children living in ‘relative’ poverty, defined as households with income below 50 per cent of the national median income.”
Unicef put out an updated version in 2007: “An overview of
child well-being in rich countries.” (http://www.unicef.org/media/files/ChildPovertyReport.pdf). The numbers have changed slightly, but the overall picture is the same.
When you look at some of the broader measures, the situation for the US isn’t quite as bad as it appears from the figure here, but it’s still pretty shameful. (See, for example, the summary table on p.2 of the 2007 report.)
December 16th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Matt doesn’t read his comments, so trying to talk to him is like pissing into the wind, but still:
This chart, you’ll find if you click the link, is by “Natalie,” an amateur statistician. That doesn’t mean the chart is wrong but it does mean that Natalie doesn’t define her terms, as a trained statistician would. What does “child poverty” mean? Is it an absolute or relative measure? Does a child “in poverty” in Poland have the same standard of living as a child “in poverty” in Denmark? Natalie doesn’t tell us.
If you go to her sources, you can, with some difficulty, find the graphs that provide her information. There you will find the following definition of “child poverty”:
Share of children 17 years and under living in households with equivalised [sic] disposable income less than 50% of median income, percentages
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/13/33/34557122.xls
What this means is that “child poverty” is different for each country. It is defined as all incomes below an arbitrarily chosen percentage of median income, not all incomes below an amount required to meet a mininum standard of living.
What the chart is measuring, therefore, is not absolute poverty, but income inequality. It tells us nothing about the actual living standards of poor children in the US versus such standards in other countries.
December 16th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
However, my sense [ed.: LOL] is the US receives a much higher number of poor immigrants than the countries Matt compares us to, which could be skewing the data. It seems possible that the native-born US population has child poverty rates very similar to those in other developed countries, but I don’t know — that’s why I’m looking for the data.
Have you found it yet? Please let us know how that goes.
December 16th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
pseudonymous in nc: but THAT is the explanation for our staggering poverty rate. Whites don’t really care that much about brown/black people. Imagine if everyone in the inner city was a WASP; imagine the kind of outcry there would be. But they’re black, so the rest of America doesn’t give a shit.
Incidentally, this is also the reason why we don’t have universal health care or any number of other European-style social services. It always comes down to race.
December 16th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
npm, you beat me to it.
December 16th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
“You may have ‘facts’ backing your claims, sir, but what about about the possibly of a hypothetical data point which, if it existed, would undermine your claim?
“What? No, I don’t have time to look for the hypothetical data point myself! I’m busy unearthing the secret Blagovich-Obama ties!”
Ah, conservatism. The Party of Ideas(tm). How do you guys keep losing elections? It’s a mystery…
December 16th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
The alternative to people just not knowing is the idea that people just don’t care which, frankly, is an upsetting possibility I’d prefer not to believe in.
And yet, that is precisely the case. The richest nation in the history of the world has a child-poverty rate 5 points higher than its nearest competitor among first-world economies. That’s fucked.
December 16th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
By the US government’s own measure of poverty, which is an absolute standard (based on income required to meet basic needs), 18.0% of children were in poverty in 2007. But there’s no way to compare that level to other countries on Natalie’s chart.
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/012528.html
By the way, scythia and others, that press release has a lot of the information you’re telling each other to find. E.g.:
Among the native-born population, 11.9 percent, or 31.1 million, were in poverty in 2007. Both the poverty rate and number in poverty were statistically unchanged from 2006.
Among the foreign-born population, the poverty rate and the number in poverty increased to 16.5 percent and 6.2 million, respectively, in 2007, from 15.2 percent and 5.7 million, respectively, in 2006. An increase in poverty for U.S. noncitizens (from 19.0 percent in 2006 to 21.3 percent in 2007) accounted for the rise in poverty for the foreign-born population overall.
Note that these figures are for all ages. Children are more likely to be in poverty in the US than are adults. (i.e., not all adults have kids, and those that do have kids are more likely to be poor – not because poor people have more kids, but because the poverty level is defined by the number of people in your household, and when you have a kid, you don’t necessarily get a raise.)
December 16th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
James F. Elliott- are you reading this thread or are you just bloviating? You can’t draw any conclusions about poverty from that graph. Not ones that make the US look good, not ones that make the US look bad. The data don’t tell us anything at all about child poverty.
December 16th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
DTM: “In any event, as I noted, the U.S. has a high poverty rate even among native children of native parents. So noting the U.S. has some poor immigrants doesn’t make the problem go away.”
Right: “Where is this data? This is what’s really comparable — non-immigrant rate to non-immigrant rate. Would be really helpful to have a source, and ideally non-immigrant data for the other countries as well. Thanks.”
But why would you expect grand-children of immigrants to be comparable to great-great-great-great grandchildren of immigrants? The US has a lot more grand-children of immigrants than of those other countries.
Also, why would you expect, a US grandchild of poor poor latin american immigrants to be comparable to an australian grandchild of middle class english parents?
This is where the US differs from any other rich country. None of them have had comparable rates of low-human capital immigration from third world countries as long as the US has. They all got on that band-wagon a lot later.
Compare third-generation children of German turkish guest-workers (called guests though they never left) to third-generation hispanic-americans. Then we are getting close to “apples to apples” here. German births are not 25% turkish. But US births *are* 24% hispanic and 15% black.
pseudonymous in nc: “Even if, for argument’s sake, the answer to all these questions is “blame the blacks and brown immigrants”, does that excuse you from caring? Or is it just a neat way for Bigot 2.0s to avoid caring?”
Aside from your mendacious invective, you ask a good question. The answer is no it doesn’t excuse not caring. We can still care and try to find a solution their plight. But we can stop making the problem *worse* before we find that solution.
Here is a question for progressives: Are you prepared to tell pblack and hispanic americans: “You know I
care about you and your high child poverty rates and other ills, but I care about the 5 billion poor of the world even more because there are more of them, so we are going to keepo importing more more of them and thus leave
ever less and less resources to attempt to
solve your plight and use the resources on them
, lower your wages, and make the possibility of your kids going to high quality majority white/asian schools a vanishing proposition (since white/asian kids are finite). But still vote for me.”
Or you can lie and say something else. That would be unethical but it would probably keep getting
you votes.
December 16th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Ahh, progressive love of school integration and love of low-skilled immigration. I really can’t see how to causes could be more at cross-purposes with each-other. Unless they
December 16th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
African-Americans, dear Scottynx, are not “immigrants,” and they are not “the grand-children of immigrants.” They and their ancestors have been on this continent for two hundred years or more, longer than all but a handful of English and Dutch immigrants, longer than the Germans, Scotch-Irish, Irish, Italians, and others who are the ancestors of most white Americans. There is no way to say that black poverty “doesn’t count” without saying that black people don’t count. Is that what you’re arguing?
December 16th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
I don’t know about UK. But Australia and Canada use “skill-based” immigration systems that awards points for education/training/language skills.
Would that “even when compared to other high-immigration Anglophone countries” more of an argument for getting rid ofr current “family reunification” and adopt a skill-based system.
Speaking as a middle-class immigrant. Between telephone, e-mail, instant massaging, and my ability afford 3 round trip annually. Pretty much all of my extended family was able to get tourist visa and visit us. “Family reunification” policy doesn’t really do much for me.
December 16th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Bloix, black americans should be compared to
gypsies in europe. Both groups have been in their repective regions for hundreds and hundreds of years. Both have heart-wrenching social statistics. But Europe gets a pass from progressives because there happen to because gypsies are a far smaller percentage of the population and thus don’t affect aggregate statistics as much.
December 16th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Bloix, black americans should be compared to gypsies in europe.
O RLY?
It’s funny how the Sailer’s crew have to dance on a tightrope because they vaguely realise that the old standby of “send them back and build a 100ft fence” doesn’t work so well with African-Americans. Even if they’d sorta kinda like that. Instead, they’re going with divide-and-conquer.
You want to do something about child poverty? Start with universal healthcare, then de-couple school funding from local property taxes. Or you can wank yourself blind to Lou Dobbs Tonight and think that suffices.
December 16th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
pseudonymous in nc Says:
December 16th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
“Here’s a thought for the Sailerites pissing in the pond before their master arrives:
Even if, for argument’s sake, the answer to all these questions is “blame the blacks and brown immigrants”, does that excuse you from caring? Or is it just a neat way for Bigot 2.0s to avoid caring?”
Yes, plus it’s a way of covering for the fact that they don’t give a sh*t.
December 16th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
The post is hilarious, and sad.
Never fear: I know that “liberals” will come up with a solution to the problems they helped cause.
December 16th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
What I’ve noticed is that many Americans don’t consider children seperately from their parents. Giving aid to children in poverty is perceived as rewarding parents for having children they can not afford.
Also, if you acknowledge that a child has the right to food, clothing and shelter even if their parents are unable to provide it, you open the door to all sorts of other things that a child could be entitled to which a parent might be unable or unwilling to provide- such as an education that includes evolution, sex education, racial tolerance etc.
December 16th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
DTM: “So, it actually makes little sense to blame historic immigration rates for the current high child poverty rates among native children of native parents–very few such children can be traced to immigrant grandparents from the post-1965 period.”
But immigrants usually come to the US
already at child-bearing age.
If you immigrated 18 years ago you could already have a native born grandchild with native born parents. So we would have native born children of native born parents whose parents immigrated post-1965 starting in 1983. So I really don’t see how you can say they that 3rd-generation and higher americans of post 1965 stock are a tiny phenomenon when thay have been being born for the past 25 years (and in increasing numbers as time goes on as immigration rose as time went on after 1965). I mean, it’s not as if it’s 1985 and we just reached the thresh-hold two years ago. It’s almost 2009.
If you had a child in 1965, you could even have had a great grandchild way back in 2001 if your child and grandchild gave birth at age 18.
In 2000, the average age of first birth was 22 for peurot rican and mexican women. It would have likely been even lower going decades back from that.
December 16th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
^ see : http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/02news/ameriwomen.htm
December 16th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
pseudonymous in nc: “You want to do something about child poverty? Start with universal healthcare, then de-couple school funding from local property taxes.”
There are progressives out there doing good work spreading the word about racial gaps *within* high-achieving suburban school districts while you go around and mislead people by implying that the sole problem is *between* schools.
“Addressing Racial Disparities in High-Achieving Suburban Schools”
http://www.ncrel.org/policy/pubs/html/pivol13/dec2002b.htm
Oh, and has universal health-care solved child poverty in gypsy communities?
December 16th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Also, if you acknowledge that a child has the right to food, clothing and shelter even if their parents are unable to provide it, you open the door to all sorts of other things that a child could be entitled to which a parent might be unable or unwilling to provide- such as an education that includes evolution, sex education, racial tolerance etc.
It sounds, Njorl, as if you are suggesting using “children’s rights” as an excuse to justify forcing parents to let their kids be indoctrinated with ideas they disapprove of.
Or, alternately, that allowing parents to direct their kids’ moral and social development and beliefs according to their own morality should be banned as a violation of their children’s rights.
And you notice that the conservatives have caught on.
December 16th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
It would be interestring to see a graph correlating this with average height at age 18, or with educational attainment on international standardised tests.
December 16th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Oh, and has universal health-care solved child poverty in gypsy communities?
Do keep making that comparison, shipmate. It really does wonders for your credibility. As does repeating “blacks and brown folks are just plain dumb” with a shrug, while thinking that Saileresque racial determinism makes you fashionably contrarian, rather than just an asshole.
December 16th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Don’t work guys… nothing to see here… nothing.
NCLB will have this little problem whipped in NO time.
;-(
Sean
December 16th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
“Poor Children’s Brain Activity [More Likely] Resembles That Of Stroke Victims, EEG Shows”
In a study recently accepted for publication in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, scientists at UC Berkeley’s Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute and the School of Public Health report that normal 9- and 10-year-olds differing only in socioeconomic status have detectable differences in the response of their prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that is critical for problem solving and creativity
. . . Kishiyama, Knight and Boyce suspect that the brain differences can be eliminated by proper training. They are collaborating with UC Berkeley neuroscientists who use games to improve the prefrontal cortex function, and thus the reasoning ability, of school-age children.
“It’s not a life sentence,” Knight emphasized. “We think that with proper intervention and training, you could get improvement in both behavioral and physiological indices.”
. . . The researchers suspect that stressful environments and cognitive impoverishment are to blame, since in animals, stress and environmental deprivation have been shown to affect the prefrontal cortex. UC Berkeley’s Marian Diamond, professor emeritus of integrative biology, showed nearly 20 years ago in rats that enrichment thickens the cerebral cortex as it improves test performance.“
December 16th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
link to above
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081203092429.htm
December 16th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
“Do keep making that comparison, shipmate. It really does wonders for your credibility.”
And mostly using invectives as a substitute for arguments does wonders for yours.
December 16th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
I once represented a physician who specialized in pediatric orthpoedics in a practice in Hillsborough County (Tampa), Florida, one of only a few such specialists in the area. I was surprised when I learned that he was the lowest producer in the practice. But the reason was simple. His patients were a cross-section of children in Hillsborough County, almost 50% of which were Medicaid eligible. That’s right. Half the children is this growing, relatively affluent county lived near or below the poverty line. That was almost 12 years ago. I imagine the situation is much worse today.
December 16th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
ynx, since your “argument” is “anyone darker than a burnt sienna crayon is pretty much condemned to be poor and stupid”, you really ought to stay away from projectiles in your terrarium. What’s your policy, cabin boy?
December 17th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
It’s important to note that (at least in Germany), “poverty” is relative.
The German system of measuring “poverty” could find hundred thousands of “poor” children even if Germany had only € millionaires as population.
The children here get sufficient food, housing and good medical care, the “poor” children suffer more from lack of luxury, few clothes and problems that their parents could avoid without any additional costs.
December 18th, 2008 at 6:35 am
re: Half the children is this growing, relatively affluent county lived near or below the poverty line.
I would not describe Hillsborough Co as “affluent”. There are some high-rent neighborhoods in Tampa proper, and some pricey beach-front communities on the east shore of Tampa Bay (the latter heavily oriented toward retirees not families with children) But Tampa is full of low-income slumy neighborhoods too, and much of the northern and eastern sections of the county are rural, or seldom-rural, Florida “cracker” territory. The wealthier suburbs are to be found in Pinellas Co (St Pete, Ckearwater, etc.) or to the north in Pasco.
December 22nd, 2008 at 9:41 am
Clearly the cause for this is unprotected sex. Everyone is always so concerned with what the goverment did or did not do that may have exaggerated this situation and imigration and Europe,Africa,Latin America. Truth be told only 2 people are to blame for this, the parents. You can not argue that it is the goverments fault for limiting abortions or cutting funding to planed parenthood when last I checked how a baby is make was common knowledge. It is that simple.I will pose the question– If those who can not afford to have children and then more children just simply stoped having sex or at least used some form of birth control how quickly would these numbers change?? This is not a problem caused by the goverment. This is a problem caused by people making bad decissions and then looking for people to blame them on.
January 1st, 2009 at 9:28 pm
As a scientist I must complain about something. What
is the vertical axis? Is it in millions? Is it in
percentage of the country’s population? It is not
honest to put up a graph and not tell people what
the graph really represents.
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