POVERTY: USA: Child poverty in U.S. nears 25 percent

Fri Jul 01, 2011 : by Hunter for Daily Kos

CBS News / 60 Minutes:
Unemployment improved a bit last month but it is still nearly nine percent and the trouble is job creation is so slow, it will be years before we get back the seven and a half million jobs lost in the Great Recession. American families have been falling out of the middle class in record numbers. The combination of lost jobs and millions of foreclosures means a lot of folks are homeless and hungry for the first time in their lives.
One of the consequences of the recession that you don't hear a lot about is the record number of children descending into poverty.
The government considers a family of four to be impoverished if they take in less than $22,000 a year. Based on that standard, and government projections of unemployment, it is estimated the poverty rate for kids in this country will soon hit 25 percent. Those children would be the largest American generation to be raised in hard times since the Great Depression.
In Seminole County, near Orlando, Fla., so many kids have lost their homes that school busses now stop at dozens of cheap motels where families crowd into rooms, living week to week.

Comment:
But by all means, let's piss away the time talking about austerity for the poor and tax cuts for the rich. Let's have state and federal shutdowns while politicians insist that no, in this greatest recession since the Depression, we just aren't interested in creating jobs or continuing support for the poor. We're in a nationwide war against public workers and teachers, and a state-by-state rollback of family planning services—now that puts a fire in political pot-bellies, but jobs? It's not even being discussed.
You know something? This generation of kids is going to grow up hating the people who put them in poverty, and then kept them there. The government doesn't give a damn about them. The Republicans have a fit if anyone even tries to give a damn about them. Their own states certainly don't give a damn about them. You think Chris Christie, Scott Walker, or Rick Scott gives a damn about nearly 25 percent of American children now living in poverty? I sure haven't heard a peep out of them.
A whole generation marked by poverty. Poverty caused by wealthy bankers making crappy bets, but then prolonged excruciatingly by a nation of political leaders who literally could not possibly do less to get out of recession if they tried. Poverty that will have long-term effects on these children's future prospects, and in turn on the American economy that will rely on them.
Forget mere disapproval: I think anyone talking about austerity for these children's families, while simultaneously coddling the rich and the corporate, deserves to be tarred, feathered, and set adrift in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The more you hear the hard numbers of how bad this "jobless recovery" actually is for people, the more offensive it becomes.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/01/990256/-The-New-Class-War:-Child-poverty-in-US-nears-25-percent

POVERTY: USA: “Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”

Charles M. Blow
James Baldwin penned that line more than 50 years ago, but it seems particularly prescient today, if in a different manner than its original intent.
Baldwin was referring to the poor being consistently overcharged for inferior goods. But I’ve always considered that sentence in the context of the extreme psychological toll of poverty, for it is in that way that I, too, know well how expensive it is to be poor.
I know the feel of thick calluses on the bottom of shoeless feet. I know the bite of the cold breeze that slithers through a drafty house. I know the weight of constant worry over not having enough to fill a belly or fight an illness.
It is in that context that I am forced to assume that if Washington politicians ever knew the sting of poverty then they have long since vanquished the memory. How else to qualify their positions? In fact, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, nearly half of all members of Congress are millionaires, and between 2008 and 2009, when most Americans were feeling the brunt of the recession, the personal wealth of members of Congress collectively increased by more than 16 percent. Must be nice.
Poverty is brutal, consuming and unforgiving. It strikes at the soul.
You defend yourself with hope, hard work and, for some, a helping hand. But these weapons grow dull in an economy on the verge of atrophy, in a job market tilting ever more toward the top and in a political environment that would sacrifice the weak to the wealthy.
On Thursday, the Pew Research Center released a poll that showed how disillusioned low-income people have become. Those making less than $30,000 were the most likely to expect to be laid off or be asked to take a pay cut. Furthermore, they were the most likely to say that they had trouble getting or paying for medical care and paying the rent or mortgage.
But at least those numbers include people with incomes. A vast subset is chronically unemployed and desperately searching for work. According to the Consumer Reports Employment Index, “In 23 of the past 24 months, lower-income Americans have lost more jobs than they have gained.” It continues, “Meanwhile, more affluent Americans seem to be gaining more jobs than they are losing.”
And the current election-cycle obsession to balance the books with a pound of flesh, which is being pushed by pitiless Republicans and accommodated by pitiful Democrats, will only multiply the pain.
Until more politicians understand — or remember — what it means to be poor in this country, we are destined to fail the least among us, and all of us will pay a heavy price for that failure.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/25/opinion/25blow.html?_r=1