Poverty is Bad for Kids’ Brains
Some interesting new research on the poverty cycle:
Children raised in poverty suffer many ill effects: They often have health problems and tend to struggle in school, which can create a cycle of poverty across generations.
Now, research is providing what could be crucial clues to explain how childhood poverty translates into dimmer chances of success: Chronic stress from growing up poor appears to have a direct impact on the brain, leaving children with impairment in at least one key area — working memory.
Not only is poverty incredibly bad for children, but a really large proportion of American children are impoverished. To be specific, in 2007 back before the recession 18 percent of America’s kids were below the poverty line, a number that must be pushing past twenty given the current circumstances. We could dramatically reduce this number with relatively small levels of expenditure, and our failure to do so is creating a serious threat to our future.
Also take a look at these interesting comments.
31 Responses to “Poverty is Bad for Kids’ Brains”
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April 6th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Merit pay, charter schools, and vouchers!
April 6th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
I have a question for MattY’ (the intellectually honest but non-existent version of MattY). About how many of those children are foreign citizens, whether here legally or illegally?
One way to reduce the rate would be to discourage more people from coming here illegally and encourage those who are here now illegally to return home. The vast majority of them can return to a less stressful, lower-cost society. We could even send them a little aid to help them learn how to build better schools and the like.
So, what do MattY’ and CAP say? Aren’t those the outlines of a plan that would achieve their stated objective of reducing the rate and wouldn’t that be the best public policy? Wouldn’t other solutions simply lead to more people coming here illegally, which might result in the rate rising even more?
Uh, MattY and CAP do want to reduce the rate, right?
I have a feeling that plan will get as much of a response from CAP as that open letter to CAP I sent about reducing the number of homeless in Fresno.
CAP and MattY don’t really care about these issues: they just want to use them to obtain power.
April 6th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
So free market capitalism is a fotm of child abuse, although applying childporn and genocide laws are probably out of the question.
What are the legal penalties for advocating policies that cause provable physical harm to children? I personally think a politician or economist that is directly or indirectly responsible for brain damage in thousands of children should tecieve the most severe sanctions possible. What would we feel about someone who hit a 3-yr-old on the head with a baseball bat?
This is how I see Republicans and Neo-Classical economists. New Keynesians now have a chance at redemption.
April 6th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
We could dramatically reduce this number with relatively small levels of expenditure, and our failure to do so is creating a serious threat to our future.
Although I don’t disagree that even modest sums could do much good, what I’d really like to see is a serious national effort aimed at virtually eliminating child poverty. According to my back-of-the-envelope math, this could be accomplished with 3-4 points of GDP. The key would be a universal child benefit coupled with robust universal daycare and/or generous paid parental leave. Programs targeting only the poor inevitably (at least in the US) fatally suffer from lack of political support. A universal program of benefits targeting kids would be, er, popular.
April 6th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
I have a question for whatever human being exists behind the blogwhoring tic-driven knee-jerk white-power existence of Lonewacko: have you seen a psychiatrist recently?
April 6th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
24AheadDotCom: Yes, moving poverty from one country to another does reduce poverty in the first country (at least in the short term). But it doesn’t really solve any of the underlying problems; the poverty still exists, and people are still suffering just as much as ever, they’re just suffering in a different place.
April 6th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
But, surely this just means that IQ is inherited. Just ask Andrew Sullivan.
See, poor people have inferior genes and they pass the inferior genes to their children thus creating a permanent genetically compromised underclass. While liberals explain these things with ‘environmental’ factors such as health care, diet and rich stimulating preschool environment, a subtle (and genetically superior) mind by the way, such as Andrew Sullivan’s realizes that we as a society have to come to grips with the fact that the lower classes are are the Darwinian losers of the survival of the fittest and by implication figure out a way to stop wasting scarce resources on them that could be spent on genetically gifted privileged class.
April 6th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Yes, moving poverty from one country to another does reduce poverty in the first country (at least in the short term). But it doesn’t really solve any of the underlying problems
The only “underlying problem” LoneWackoff is interested in solving is the presence of brown people in his environment.
April 6th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Anon says: the poverty still exists, and people are still suffering just as much as ever, they’re just suffering in a different place.
There are five billion people worse off than Mexicans, the largest group of those here illegally.
Would you let the five billion move here so they don’t live in poverty (according to your logic)?
If not, why do you want to give relatively rich people of Mexico a break while giving the shaft to those five billion?
I suggest finding a thinking cap. The one CAP has is torn in places and has some glue and pureed peas on it, so look elsewhere.
April 6th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
What do you want, 24Ahead? Build a Great Wall of America along the Mexican border? Issue fewer K visas? Comb through restaurants and hotels looking for illegals and slapping big fines on employers who knowingly hired illegals or did so with willful negligence re: their legality? No one can wave a wand that will stop all illegal immigration. What policy proposals do you have in mind?
April 6th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Stop wanking over this thread, Lonewacko. You’re neither as clever nor as influential as you think you ought to be. You’re just a obsessive crank with a giant chip on your shoulder, engaged in a ongoing act of reality-distorting projection.
By making it all about Mexicans, Lonewacko wants to make it all about him, the ne plus ultra of Mexican conspiracy theorists. What a narcissistic fuck.
Back on topic:
“This mournful truth is everywhere confess’d,
Slow rises worth by poverty depress’d.”
The social problem is simple enough: when a child grows up in poverty, everyday life is full of small crises punctuated by larger crises, whether it’s paying the bills, dealing with illness, getting the right school supplies, etc.
The cultural problem is more insidious: the fact that a relatively small number of people manage to succeed in spite of childhood poverty is often taken as a vindication of the American Dream myth, and then twisted to say “well, if X and Y can succeed, it’s possible for everyone to do it, so why intervene?”
April 6th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
If not, why do you want to give relatively rich people of Mexico a break while giving the shaft to those five billion?
It’s not a matter of giving anybody a break. It’s a matter of doing what’s in the national interest. It’s easy for people to sneak into the US from Mexico, ergo, making some kind of regulated accommodation with people inclined to do just that seems a better bet than the anarchy of mass illegal immigration. It’s not easy to sneak into the US from Java or Somalia or Uzbekistan, so we’re not under the same pressure to deal with illegal immigration from such places.
April 6th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Poverty correlates with IQ more than any other factor.
IQ is 70 to 80% heritable.
So poverty is primarily a function of who your parents were, or blind luck.
So wouldn’t an equitable society provide for that?
April 6th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Julian Elson What do you want, 24Ahead? and then goes on a strawman building expedition. What we should be doing is simply enforcing the law. In order to do that, we need to discredit those who oppose such enforcement, including politicians and non-profits. Here’s a great way to do that.
As for the ever-wrong Jasper’s comment, 14% of MX’s workingage pop lives in the U.S. now, and 40% of those who remain there would come here if they could. That would be a disaster for both countries, and it’s incumbent on patriotic Americans to prevent it lest we end up allowing, for instance, MX to have some sort of joint dominion over part of our territory.
And, Jasper’s comment doesn’t address the moral failings of those who want to give a break to relatively rich Mexicans while shafting dirt poor Bangladeshis.
April 6th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Jasper said:
Although I don’t disagree that even modest sums could do much good, what I’d really like to see is a serious national effort aimed at virtually eliminating child poverty. According to my back-of-the-envelope math, this could be accomplished with 3-4 points of GDP. The key would be a universal child benefit coupled with robust universal daycare and/or generous paid parental leave. Programs targeting only the poor inevitably (at least in the US) fatally suffer from lack of political support. A universal program of benefits targeting kids would be, er, popular.
In theory you’d think this would be a no-brainer program that even conservatives could get behind. Ensuring that every child grows up with his/her full natural intelligence plus a healthy comprehensive education would do wonders to improve the prospects for healthy capitalism.
April 6th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
lest we end up allowing, for instance, MX to have some sort of joint dominion over part of our territory.
“For instance.”
You’ll be referring to “my wife, Natalie Merchant” and it not being another delusion long before that happens, you sad, sad loon.
April 6th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Isn’t “the poverty line” a rather arbitrary marker here? Why should we think there’s some correlation between “the poverty line” as defined officially and “poverty” vis-a-vis damage to kids’ brains?
Is it relative poverty or absolute poverty that produces stress? If it’s relative poverty, then aren’t we kind of stuck? What features of poverty are most important?
Moving from Point A (poverty bad for kids) to Point B (reducing the poverty rate will be good for kids) trades on an ambiguity in the word “poverty” between the two sentences.
Doesn’t it? What am I missing?
April 6th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
As for the ever-wrong Jasper’s comment
Nice. I’m “ever-wrong” per Lonewingnutto. Nicest compliment I’ve head on the internets in a long, long time.
14% of MX’s workingage pop lives in the U.S. now, and 40% of those who remain there would come here if they could. That would be a disaster for both countries,
Lonewingnutto, please point out where I advocate permitting 40% of Mexico’s population to settle here.
And, Jasper’s comment doesn’t address the moral failings of those who want to give a break to relatively rich Mexicans while shafting dirt poor Bangladeshis.
There’s no “moral failing” flowing from my argument that a quantity of Mexican immigration ought be accommodated because it’s impossible to stop. No country is obligated to undertake actions harmful to its own national interest. YOU of all people ought to agree with that. We simply disagree on what how to go about it.
April 6th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Jasper is, of course, always wrong. A small amount of II from MX is impossible to stop; some people (and some goods) will always make it through no matter what we did.
However, the great majority of II could stop in six months if politicians wanted it to. They don’t want it to because they’re corrupt. They want to profit from illegal activity in one way or another: either through votes or through payments/donations from companies that profit from illegal activity. If most pols realized that their careers depended on stopping II, the great majority of it would stop.
April 6th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
A small amount of II from MX is impossible to stop; some people (and some goods) will always make it through no matter what we did.
On this we agree. What I think you fail to consider, though, is the sheer number of people who would like to — and who eventually attempt to — immigrate to the US in contravention of the country’s laws. The point is, if even a very small percentage of said attempts succeed, we’re talking about a very large number of illegal immigrants. Far better to work with than against market forces when it comes to formulating a workable immigration policy. Americans usually do okay with legal markets. With black markets, not so much.
They don’t want it to because they’re corrupt.
They don’t want to adopt your favored approach mostly because they 1) realize such measures don’t come close to passing cost/benefit analysis; and, 2) it’s not a sufficiently high priority for their constituents (unlike, say, AIG bonuses).
April 6th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
What are the legal penalties for advocating policies that cause provable physical harm to children? I personally think a politician or economist that is directly or indirectly responsible for brain damage in thousands of children should receive the most severe sanctions possible.
So you want to use the force of law to silence those who disagree with you politically, Mr. McManus? Nice.
This is how I see Republicans and Neo-Classical economists. New Keynesians now have a chance at redemption.
Keynesianism has almost destroyed us (see the 1970s). We need Austrianism, now more than ever.
April 6th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
They don’t want to adopt your favored approach mostly because they 1) realize such measures don’t come close to passing cost/benefit analysis; and, 2) it’s not a sufficiently high priority for their constituents (unlike, say, AIG bonuses).
Also, they are not mentally ill.
April 6th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
I have a question for MattY’ (the intellectually honest but non-existent version of MattY). About how many of those children are foreign citizens, whether here legally or illegally?
Thanks for finally dropping any pretense of caring about people breaking the law and making it clear that your real motivation is fear of the swarthy hordes. Why would you care about how many foreigners are here legally otherwise?
Anyway, for some good hearty laughs at Lonewacko’s expense, read this then this.
April 6th, 2009 at 11:40 pm
Jasper: thanks for being you. I.e., always wrong.
There are no doubt hundreds of millions of people who’d like to come here BAMN. However, if – just as an extreme hypothetical – we could install shock collars on politicians that would deliver a nice jolt every time they supported giving non-emergency benefits to IA, or every time they tried to undercut enforcement, or the like, then the situation would dramatically improve. There would be few jobs for IAs, much more effective BP, and most IAs who are here now would go home over time. We could also help MX repatriate the people they’ve sent us.
Politicians can’t wear shock collars, but we can come close by discrediting them on video over this issue. Pointing out the flaws in their policies would be incredibly easy to do; the problem is finding people willing to do something so easy but effective.
And, while there are certainly a tiny number of true believers, the vast majority of those who support the current situation are completely corrupt in one way (votes) or another (money). Here’s a very minor recent example of one instance of following the money.
April 7th, 2009 at 1:21 am
Who’s bankrolling you, Wackoff?
After all, you surely can’t have devoted the last decade to this “cause” without it being paid by somebody.
A failure to disclose any and all sources of funding will, of course, be regarded as a dodge. You’re not a corrupt hypocrite, are you?
April 7th, 2009 at 3:04 am
Matt,
You are smart enough to notice that this study is worthless. If they had given that IQ subtest to kids _before_ they tracked how much stress they were experiencing, then given the IQ working memory test again afterwards, they would have a useful analysis. If more stress correlated with declining IQ, then we’d have learned something.
But they only gave the IQ subtest afterwards, so it doesn’t tell us anything other than that people who have experienced a lot of stress due largely to stupid decisions made by themselves and/or their relatives tend to have lower IQs than those who have had less bad stuff happen to them.
April 7th, 2009 at 8:03 am
Another statement with a complete lack of understanding. All levels of government have been pumping in huge levels of expenditure to fight poverty for decades without any apparent success. So what does the left propose? More government money. More of the same stupidity.
April 7th, 2009 at 11:38 am
If most pols realized that their careers depended on stopping II, the great majority of it would stop.
LOL. And yet, mysteriously, most pols get reelected despite “II” not being stopped to your satisfaction. I just can’t understand it.
April 7th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Also, 24AheadDotCom or LoneWacko or whatever, I’ve seen you commenting for years now and I still have never been able to figure out why you leave out spaces between words so often. Somewhere I got the idea that it’s a Google-baiting technique, intended to draw more attention to your personal bugbears and/or your blogs, but I don’t understand how that’s supposed to work. Why do you do it?
April 7th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
However, if – just as an extreme hypothetical – we could install shock collars on politicians that would deliver a nice jolt every time they supported giving non-emergency benefits to IA, or every time they tried to undercut enforcement, or the like, then the situation would dramatically improve.
A) I doubt it B) We can’t.
So as usual you’re spouting irrelevant, irrational and paranoid bullshit.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Hey. Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
I am from Micronesia and also now am reading in English, please tell me right I wrote the following sentence: “Sg – book air travel,airfare,airline tickets,cheap flights,cheap hotels,budget hotels,singapore hotels,japan travel,hong kong travel,vacation packages.”
With love
, Shelby.