Research
Survey on Classroom Hunger
Published August 13, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
(Hello everyone, Greg here. This week I'd like to feature a guest post by Stephanie Keller from the nonprofit group Share Our Strength. The organization is asking teachers who have experienced child hunger in their classrooms to fill out a short survey to help Share Our Strength document and raise awareness about hunger in the classroom. If you're a teacher, please fill out the survey (link below). If you have teacher friends or colleagues, please forward this to them. Thanks in advance for all that you do!)
Every day, in classrooms across America, teachers witness the devastating impacts of hunger on the children they serve - problems that we might see as behavioral, teachers know are often the result of children not eating breakfast that morning or dinner the night before. We hear from teachers across the country that more children come to school hungry on Monday morning than any other day of the week, because they didn't eat enough over the weekend.
This summer, Share Our Strength is talking with teachers across the country about child hunger in their classrooms, and we need your help. Through a project called Hunger in America's Classrooms: Share Our Strength's Teacher Report, we hope to raise awareness about child hunger in America and build a movement of Americans dedicated to ending it.
Forgotten Gulf Coast Poverty
Published August 12, 2009 @ 12:57PM PT
Spotlight on Poverty & Opportunity and the LA Disaster Recovery Foundation have released an interesting new report demonstrating that coverage of Gulf Coast poverty has declined dramatically since Hurricane Katrina struck almost four years ago. Gulf Coast states LA, MS and AL had some of the highest rates of poverty in the nation prior to the flood; it's a big contributor to the awful aftermath of Katrina in cities like New Orleans and along the rural Gulf Coast. Turns out, poverty is as big if not bigger crisis in the region since the disaster, as more families have plunged into poverty and those already struggling are further consigned to a life of hardship.
Coverage of Gulf Coast poverty was never a major media theme; it amounted to less than 10% of all post-Katrina coverage even in the first 3 months after the disaster. (In fact, looking at 3 month coverage increments, it looks like John Edwards's Presidential announcement was the only thing to inspire more than 10% of press coverage of the issue at any time.) If you're remotely familiar with the issue of poverty in the US, you'll know that it's not a very popular topic - ever. (One need only look at the membership rates of the Change.org blogs for confirmation of this sad reality.) So this report, to me, is no newsflash, just like the reality of Gulf Coast poverty for anyone who's been paying attention.
That said, here's a couple key factoids that we should keep in mind of the absolute necessity to stay focused on investing in and rebuilding the U.S. Gulf Coast:
- "Only 2 in 5 damaged affordable rental units in Louisiana will be replaced or repaired with recovery
assistance"; - The "homeless population of New Orleans has been doubled by the storm."
- A "public housing crisis [has contributed to] an estimated 37,000 Gulf Coast residents living in FEMA trailers as of August, 2008."
60% reduction in rental units, including the demolition of 4,500 public housing units in New Orleans alone. At least 12,000 homeless just in New Orleans, a city of less than 300,000. Here at Poverty in America we write about the Gulf Coast every Wednesday. According to this report, we're doing the bare minimum.
(Photo of a John Edwards 2008 visit to New Orleans, by Rachel Feierman)
Action Alert: Modernize Poverty Measurement
Published August 11, 2009 @ 01:01PM PT
Two bills have been introduced in Congress to update our federal poverty measure that is based on an extremely antiquated estimated proportion of a family's budget spent on food. Both the House and Senate bills rely on National Academy of Science recommendations in which "the cost of food, clothing, housing, utilities and medical expenses be considered. Income from non-cash benefits, such as food stamps and government tax credits, should also be counted" in an updated poverty measure (right now, these social supports can tip people over the poverty line and deny them much needed assistance).
The linked news piece above shows that by following the NAS recommendations, the new poverty line for a family of 4 (2 adults, 2 kids) in 2007 $$ would jump from about $21k to almost $28k, an increase of almost 25%. To my eye, it still looks extremely low. We really need to make geographic considerations when tying assistance programs to estimated costs of living.
This reform is at the heart of the work we do as anti-poverty activists. So far, the House bill, introduced in June, has 10 sponsors, all Dems, and has probably gone on to a quiet convalescence in the House Ways and Means and House Oversight and Govt. Reform Committees. The Senate Bill is less than a week old, introduced by Dodd and co-sponsored by Sen. Bingaman of New Mexico (D). It's gone on to the Senate Health (etc.) Committee, which might have its hands full right about now.
Healthcare reform or not, this is one issue that can't wait. Contact Your Representatives (and Committee Members above) and tell them to support an updated poverty measure today!
(Difference in NAS and official poverty measures, from The Stanford Ctr for the Study of Poverty & Inequality)
Saving Middle-Class Kids at the Expense of the Poor
Published August 04, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
Ok, this blog post is going to be totally contrarian, so I want to say up front that I like the research findings on which it's based, especially from a racial equity perspective, and am curious to see how/if public-private investment follows from it. But I just have to pick at something; stay w/me here...
A report from the Pew Charitable Trusts came out last week that shows that the #1 reason about half of middle-class African-American kids experience downward mobility as adults (i.e., they are poorer when they grow up) is because they grow up in high poverty neighborhoods. Lots of research has shown that middle-class and low-income Blacks often live in the same or proximate neighborhoods to one another. "Half of black children born between 1955 and 1970 in families with incomes of $62,000 or higher in today's dollars grew up in high-poverty neighborhoods." And the data is not much different today.
The report authors (disclosure: I used to blog with Pat Sharkey at the now defunct Foresight) have this to say:
Sharkey and Morton said policymakers can take heart in one finding: Black children in neighborhoods in which poverty fell by 10 percent had higher incomes as adults than those who grew up in areas where the poverty rate stayed the same. This is a sign, they said, that simply improving the overall economy and quality of a given neighborhood can have beneficial effects on those growing up in it.
But the report also concludes that the data shows that we need more cradle-to-crave, neighborhood based investments, a la Harlem Children's Zone, a strategy that "holds more promise than dispersing poor families into middle-class neighborhoods by giving them housing vouchers, a strategy that has had mixed results and could be difficult to implement on a large scale."
But, doesn't dispersal of low-income Americans, by vouchers and HOPE VI, for instance, make their prior neighborhoods better off for the middle-class kids living there? So doesn't this report suggest that we should sacrifice the poor on behalf of the middle-class?
At a minimum, it points to the need to face the persistence of poverty in the U.S., and its drag on us all.
(Marching band practice in Detroit; photo by Karpov the Wrecked Train)
Annie E. Casey Foundation Calls for Updated Poverty Measure
Published August 01, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT
As I'm scrolling through the weekend poverty news, I see that this week the Annie E. Casey Foundation released its 20th annual Kids Count report on child poverty in the U.S. The information is presented in a user-friendly on-line "data book" that I recommend checking out to learn more about the particulars of your state.
I took a look at the summary brief of the report and was pleased to see that in their recommendations for making better use of data to drive policy, that improvements include updating the US poverty measure to reflect contemporary economic and political realities. Why collect data if it's based on outmoded definitions of hardship? Excellent point! More on this below the fold.
KnoxNews.com has a handy round-up of the key findings in the report, based on data collected through 2006 (the current recession will be reflected in their next report):
The report documented improvements since 2000 in the infant mortality rate, child death rate, teen death rate, high school dropout rate, and teens not in school and not working. Four areas have worsened: low-birthweight babies, children living with jobless or underemployed parents, children in poverty, and children in single-parent families. (my emphases)
Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi - Katrina's darlings, weep - continue to rank worst among states for child well-being.
I rarely do this, but this extensive block quote from KnoxNews.com captures perfectly efforts to redefine the poverty measure is - check it out after the jump.
'Bamboozle' A Golden Rule for Some
Published July 31, 2009 @ 05:19AM PT
I'm a naysayer, a contrarian. I've always been that way. It comes in handy, especially when sorting out the abundant tomfoolery hoisted upon us by "them that have the gold," the Tarnished Golden Rule of Politics. An abundance of news, opinions and blogs about poverty-related issues illustrate how this rule works.
Recent news accounts of Wall Street's audacious behavior and self-interested medical providers illustrate the power of money in guiding (mis) behavior. Follow the money and you'll figure out this nation's and world's woes. Many in Congress and most corporations tend to follow the bucks which gets them in trouble.
Less Crime, More Hunger
Published July 30, 2009 @ 01:26PM PT
I just finished reading a very frustrating article about the impacts of the HOPE VI program's impacts on public housing residents' lives ($). For those not in the know, HOPE VI is a program that since 1992 provides federal subsidies to demolish and redevelop public housing projects as mixed-income communities. Proponents say it improves residents' lives by enabling them to live in less-poor neighborhoods with better-off neighbors and that taken together these changes will bring increased safety, economic opportunities and role models for low-income residents.
The "role modeling" thing always ticks me off, but the bigger problem with HOPE VI is that it pursued a housing demolition and development strategy as the sole means to reduce poverty and inequality. If you know anything about the myriad problems poor people face in terms of job prospects (e.g., health problems, disability, young children at home, etc.), then you'll probably be unsurprised to learn that the most recent HOPE VI assessment shows no impact on residents' economic status. None. Sigh.
But the "choice" residents face between crime and hunger is what really gets me.
