16 Million Reasons for the Candidates to Care about Poverty
Posted October 2nd, 2012 by Hannah MatthewsBy the time President Obama and Governor Romney throw out the first punches in the October 3 debate, many of the nation’s 16 million poor children will be fast asleep. Some of them will have gone to bed hungry. Some of them will be sleeping in homeless shelters or substandard housing. Many of them live in distressed communities with few quality jobs available for their parents and struggling public schools. All of them face certain hurdles in academic achievement, employment prospects, and economic success that threaten the long-term economic competitiveness of our country. Children living in poverty are less likely to be successful in school and less likely to be gainfully employed over their lifetimes. And the longer children live in poverty, the worse their adult outcomes, including employment and earnings.
Those 16 million poor children represent one in five of all children in the United States. Moreover, poverty rates are alarmingly higher for both young children, under age 6, and children of color. The prevalence of poverty among the very youngest children means that during the earliest years of life–a fundamental period of rapid brain growth and development—babies are deprived of the very resources they need to thrive.
These dismal statistics are of great concern to anti-poverty advocates, spurring a recent social media campaign to #TalkPoverty during this election season and beyond. CLASP has joined Half in Ten and Every Child Matters to press the debate moderators to include a question about child poverty in the presidential debates. (And it’s not too late @NewsHour to ask the candidates for their poverty reduction plans.) At CLASP, we will also be live tweeting the debate @CLASP_DC. Tune in to see our reactions to the event.
It’s past time to have a meaningful dialogue about poverty in this country. One in which we recognize that the fate of one-fifth of our nation’s children is our collective fate. One in which we commit to standing together as a country for our children. One in which we admit that our public investments in our future workforce, particularly during the earliest years of life, are woefully inadequate. One in which we acknowledge that government has an important role to play in increasing opportunity and reducing poverty and income inequality.
Solutions to child poverty exist. President Obama, Governor Romney—what do you propose?
Follow me on Twitter @HNMatthews
5 Comments
October 20, 2012 at 9:29 pm by Cleraffairesthugs. I thank God that the National Guard and other American soldiers rerniafed from returning fire. Regardless, civilians are NOT qualified to perform Search and Rescure operations in hot zones even if the enemy are American thugs.* FEMA (and other Federal Authorities) *cannot* get involved until the Governor specifically requests it. This is a (potenitally legitimate) hold over from the Civil War. The LA Governor was probably too busy crying in press conferences to actually initiate these requests.* The State/Local authorities had the resources (aka buses) and the written plan to evacuate the city, but they failed to implement it even *before* communcaitions broke down. Instead, individuals stole the buses and rescued their neighbors. Theft is bad, but letting people die is worse.Now personally, I disagree with most of what Guiliani stands for but on 9-11 and immediately after, it seemed like he had things under control and *most* of the people working under him from the police precinct all the way up seemed to have a clue on how to operate somewhat independently. When he made public statements, he inspired confidence and managed to rally the men on the ground
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October 14, 2012 at 2:14 pm by Paloma Cruz (@palomacruz)What a great article, and so true. I work in public service, where we come into contact with the high-need communities that are so often overlooked. Thank you for writing this. I hope everybody who reads it shares it with their networks and pays attention to the message.
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October 5, 2012 at 9:33 am by HannahThank you! Let’s keep up the #TalkPoverty campaign for the next debate!
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October 3, 2012 at 2:34 am by Kelly SDSuch a great article. Somebody needs to remind Mitt Romney that part of the 47% are children.
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October 2, 2012 at 5:16 pm by AnitaThank you so much for blogging about this, Hannah. So glad that kids have an advocate like you!
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