#child poverty

[politijohn]

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[heterorealism]

[reasonsforhope]

Flint, Michigan, has one of the [United States]'s highest rates of child poverty — something that got a lot of attention during the city's lead water crisis a decade ago. And a pediatrician who helped expose that lead problem has now launched a first-of-its-kind move to tackle poverty: giving every new mother $7,500 in cash aid over a year.

A baby's first year is crucial for development. It's also a time of peak poverty.

Flint's new cash transfer program, Rx Kids, starts during pregnancy. The first payment is $1,500 to encourage prenatal care. After delivery, mothers will get $500 a month over the baby's first year.

"What happens in that first year of life can really portend your entire life course trajectory. Your brain literally doubles in size in the first 12 months," says Hanna-Attisha, who's also a public health professor at Michigan State University.

A baby's birth is also a peak time for poverty. Being pregnant can force women to cut back hours or even lose a job. Then comes the double whammy cost of child care.

Research has found that stress from childhood poverty can harm a person's physical and mental health, brain development and performance in school. Infants and toddlers are more likely than older children to be put into foster care, for reasons that advocates say conflate neglect with poverty.

In Flint, where the child poverty rate is more than 50%, Hanna-Attisha says new moms are in a bind. "We just had a baby miss their 4-day-old appointment because mom had to go back to work at four days," she says...

Benefits of Cash Aid

Studies have found such payments reduce financial hardship and food insecurity and improve mental and physical health for both mothers and children.

The U.S. got a short-lived taste of that in 2021. Congress temporarily expanded the child tax credit, boosting payments and also sending them to the poorest families who had been excluded because they didn't make enough to qualify for the credit. Research found that families mostly spent the money on basic needs. The bigger tax credit improved families' finances and briefly cut the country's child poverty rate nearly in half.

"We saw food hardship dropped to the lowest level ever," Shaefer says. "And we saw credit scores actually go to the highest that they'd ever been in at the end of 2021."

Critics worried that the expanded credit would lead people to work less, but there was little evidence of that. Some said they used the extra money for child care so they could go to work.

As cash assistance in Flint ramps up, Shaefer will be tracking not just its impact on financial well-being, but how it affects the roughly 1,200 babies born in the city each year.

"We're going to see if expectant moms route into prenatal care earlier," he says. "Are they able to go more? And then we'll be able to look at birth outcomes," including birth weight and neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) admissions.

Since the pandemic, dozens of cash aid pilots have popped up across the nation. But unlike them, Rx Kids is not limited to lower-income households. It's universal, which means every new mom will get the same amount of money. "You pit people against each other when you draw that line in the sand and say, 'You don't need this, and you do,' " Shaefer says. It can also stigmatize families who get the aid, he says, as happened with traditional welfare...

So far, there's more than $43 million to keep the program going for three years. Funders include foundations, health insurance companies and the state of Michigan, which allocated a small part of its federal cash aid, known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

Money can buy more time for bonding with a baby

Alana Turner can't believe her luck with Flint's new cash benefits. "I was just shocked because of the timing of it all," she says.

Turner is due soon with her second child, a girl. She lives with her aunt and her 4-year-old son, Ace. After he was born, her car broke down and she was seriously cash-strapped, negotiating over bill payments. This time, she hopes she won't have to choose between basic needs.

"Like, I shouldn't have to think about choosing between are the lights going to be on or am I going to make sure the car brakes are good," she says...

But since she'll be getting an unexpected $7,500 over the next year, Turner has a new goal. With her first child, she was back on the job in less than six weeks. Now, she hopes she'll be able to slow down and spend more time with her daughter.

"I don't want to sacrifice the time with my newborn like I had to for my son, if I don't have to," she says."

-via NPR, March 12, 2024

[truth-has-a-liberal-bias]

The House voted Wednesday night to pass a $78 billion tax package that includes an expansion of the child tax credit, sending it to the Senate, where its path is uncertain. The Republican-led House passed the bipartisan measure 357-70...

...

It now heads to the Senate, where it will need at least 60 votes to advance.

Given the margin in the House, and the scope of the bipartisan support, that might not seem like much of a challenge, but one GOP senator summarized a core problem. NBC News also reported:

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, cast doubt Wednesday on passing a bipartisan tax bill, saying it could make President Joe Biden “look good” and improve Democrats’ chances of holding the White House in the 2024 election. Grassley said re-electing Biden could hurt Republican hopes of extending Trump-era tax cuts.

...

The problem is not that the Iowa Republican opposes the underlying legislation; the problem is that his principal concern is avoiding governing successes that might make President Joe Biden “look good” in an election year.

The longtime GOP senator could put country over party, but by his own admission, he’s reluctant to do so. To hear Grassley tell it, reducing child poverty is fine, but helping the Republican Party’s electoral strategies is better. [...]

[porterdavis]

Poverty is a policy choice

[enbycrip]

Thing to remember if you are writing anything involving class and working class people, including game design: poverty is a major cause of AND a major result of disability and chronic illness.

If you write something where every working class person, every person who comes from a working class background, or every poor person, is healthy and physically strong, and just as much or more so if you bake that into a game system by giving people from those backgrounds high Health or Strength stats, you are making an active *choice* to erase a substantial part of the experience of and results of poverty.

Disabled people exist *everywhere*. In every setting - even when there’s magical healing or nanobots or whatever, frankly, erasure of disabled people and the experience of disability is an active narrative choice to erase us. So we *certainly* exist in *every* real world present-day and historical setting, and the fact that you don’t think so is due to active cultural erasure of disabled people and the experience of disability.

While disability is *absolutely* present in every strata of society, the experiences of disability and poverty are deeply and inherently entwined. Given that the vast majority of people are workers, and primarily physical workers throughout history - and if you don’t think disability massively impairs your ability to do call centre work, let alone food service, care work, retail work, or most of the other low-paid jobs in our current service economy, even if they are not habitually classified as heavy physical work, you need to massively expand your understanding of what disability actually is.

Poverty is generational in all sorts of ways, but one of them is that gestational and childhood poverty affects a person for their entire life. There are so many illnesses that one is predisposed to by inadequate nutrition during gestation and childhood, or by environmental pollution during those times (most likely in poverty-stricken areas). Disability and illness in parents and family members so often sees young children go without essentials and older ones forced into forgoing education and opportunities so they can care for family members or enter paid work. It’s a generational cycle that has held depressingly true in urban and rural areas, and that’s before even considering the impact of genetic illnesses and predisposition to illnesses.

Not to mention that a great deal of neurodivergence is incredibly disabling in every strata of society - yes, bits of it can be very advantageous in certain places, jobs, roles and positions, but the *universality* of punishment for not intuiting the subtle social rules of place and social environment again and again means most ND folk end up with a massive burden of trauma by adulthood. On top of the poverty that means in loss of access to paid work and other opportunities, trauma is incredibly shitty for your health.

Yeah; it might not be “fun” to write about or depict. But by failing to do so you are actively perpetuating the idea that the class system, whatever it is, is “just”. That poorest people do the jobs they do because they are “best suited for them” instead of because of societal inequality and sheer *bad fortune* without safety nets to catch people. It is very much worth doing the work to put it in.

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

Honestly, this country is a disgrace. No child should be in the situation where they don't have enough to eat, or can't access education due to lack of money.

At my current place, we also give away basic stationery, period products etc to students in need. It does put you at a disadvantage when you're the kid in the class who can't afford £10 for a calculator.

There are schools doing laundry for kids, providing them with clothes, even bedding in some cases.

But schools are increasingly running short on money (as are teachers themselves)- having schools as a sort of social safety net of last resort is a situation that's going to fall apart at some point, unless schools get proper funding.

But wouldn't it be better to ensure students aren't in this situation in the first place?

[odinsblog]

This new statistic is just completely heartbreaking and deeply disappointing. It's also a specific choice. A spike in child poverty like this didn't need to happen. Congress had the chance to extend these programs that would keep our children fed and boost working families out of poverty. But it didn't. It's shameful. In the richest country in the world, no child should have to go through this. And now it's on us to fix this problem that shouldn't have been created in the first place.

—John Fetterman, on the new child poverty statistics caused by allowing pandemic response programs to expire

[thoughtportal]

The Philosophy of the Black Panther Party

[mask131]

Here is the video I just saw that echoed this post I reblogged earlier. A simple test: can you get anti-abortion protesters to sign a petition against child hunger? It gives very interesting results. "For the children". Yeah yeah, sure...

[drafty-castle]

Eloquently put.

[reasonsforhope]

"Surrounded by school children, teachers, advocates and public officials, Gov. Tim Walz signed a bill into law Friday to provide breakfasts and lunches at no charge to students at participating schools. It makes Minnesota the fourth state in the country to do so. 

During the signing ceremony, Walz told Minnesota parents this will ease some of the stress on them. 

“If you’re looking for good news, this was certainly the place to be,” said Walz.  “I’m honored and I do think this is one piece of that puzzle in reducing both childhood poverty and hunger insecurity.” 

Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan was also at the ceremony. She said this was the most important thing she’d ever worked on. 

The legislation is similar to a program that was introduced during the pandemic to provide meals for all students, but was discontinued at the end of last year.

It will cost the state of Minnesota close to $400 million in the first two years and grow in price in the future. It covers the cost of meals, but not of second helpings or of separate a la carte items.

Many — but not all — students in Minnesota qualify for free and reduced meals. That program is based on household income, and if families are below a certain threshold their students can receive school meals for free or for a reduced price...

But even with these measures, there are still families who do not qualify for free and reduced meals but who struggle to pay for food. In many districts this year, that has meant mounting school lunch debts in the tens of thousands of dollars because there are families who don’t qualify for free lunch programs but aren’t able to pay.

This bill would cover all school lunches and breakfasts, even if families don’t meet current federal USDA household income guidelines.

Darcy Stueber is the director of Nutrition Services for Mankato Area Public Schools and she’s also the Public Policy Chair of the Minnesota School Nutrition Association. 

Stueber says her district is seeing just over $80,000 in school lunch debt at this point in the year, so there is a definite need families in her area have for this. She says many of those struggling to pay are single-income households that work hard, don’t make enough to pay for meal programs, but make too much to qualify for free meals. Stueber says providing meals is just another basic necessity for learning...

For students in Mankato, Stueber says this will make a big difference in a more relaxed, communal cafeteria. Kids won’t need to worry they’re racking up debts when they eat lunch, she says. And Stueber pointed out that kids aren’t really able to learn well when they’re hungry. 

Students will start receiving school meals at no charge starting at the beginning of the next academic year, which starts in September for most schools."

-Minnesota Public Radio News via 3/17/23

[possiblyunhinged]

Honestly, how can Labour talk about supporting children's futures while thousands of children are waiting years for mental health support, and since they were put in power, 10,000 MORE children have been plunged into poverty? Meanwhile, munching on a boot while Israel's most recent demonstration of its 'right to defend herself' shows is attacking a hospital? How many children's futures have been decimated in the Middle East historically due to British politics? Have we learned anything at all? And how about Britain's spineless approach to their futures now?

Like, what children are they supporting lmfaoooo

[porterdavis]

Child poverty is a policy choice, full stop.

[eaglesnick]

Broken Britain: Labour’s Policy

Homelessness

According to Shelter 109,000 households are homeless in temporary accommodation - up 10% in a year -  including 142,490 children – up 14% in a year.

Labour does NOT include ending homelessness in Keir Starmer’s “Five Missions" that are at the centre of his party's promise to voters.

Child Poverty

4.3 million children were living in poverty in the UK during the period 2022/23 – 30% of ALL the nations children.

Labour does NOT include ending child poverty in Keir Starmer's “Five Missions"

Food Banks

Nearly 3 million emergency food parcels were distributed by food banks between April 2022 and April 2023, 760,00 people using food banks for the first time. The number of children in "material deprivation" wherein families cannot afford to feed themselves was 1.9 million.

Labour does NOT include ending    poverty in Keir Starmer's “Five Missions"

Water Pollution

According to the Environment Agency there were 3.6 million hours of spills of raw sewage into Britain’s waterways and beaches compared to 1.75 million hours in 2022. Not a single river in England is now rated as healthy.

Labour does NOT include environmental cleanup and protection in Keir Starmer's “Five Missions"

Social Care of the Elderly

Chronic under-funding, severe staff shortages and a growing elderly population has brought the social care sector to crisis point and on the verge of collapse. According to Age UK 2.6 million people over 50 years of age have unmet social care needs, while many thousands languish in hospital for lack of a social care plan for living in their own homes.

Labour does NOT include social care reform   in Keir Starmer's “Five Missions"

The Labour Party’s number one priority isn’t to help the poor, the homeless, the elderly or to protect the environment. It is to secure:

…“the "highest sustained growth" in the G7 group of rich nations, made up of the UK, US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan, by the end of Labour's first term.” 

Strangely enough within Sunak’s “five promises” he emphasizes growing the economy above all else. Its all very well “growing the economy", but WHO are we growing the economy for, and who will benefit from any future growth?

After 14 years of Tory government the poor have become steadily worse off while the rich have prospered. The continued redistribution of the nation's wealth from poor to rich is a national scandal, leading to the UK “having some of the highest levels of inequality in Europe.”  Unfortunately, even if Labour should win the next election, this inequality is likely to continue.