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KamaAina

(78,249 posts)
Wed Apr 15, 2015, 01:09 PM Apr 2015

The numbers are staggering: US is ‘world leader’ in child poverty

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/04/the-numbers-are-staggering-us-is-world-leader-in-child-poverty/

America’s wealth grew by 60 percent in the past six years, by over $30 trillion. In approximately the same time, the number of homeless children has also grown by 60 percent.

Financier and CEO Peter Schiff said, “People don’t go hungry in a capitalist economy.” The 16 million kids on food stamps know what it’s like to go hungry. Perhaps, some in Congress would say, those children should be working. “There is no such thing as a free lunch,” insisted Georgia Representative Jack Kingston, even for schoolkids, who should be required to “sweep the floor of the cafeteria” (as they actually do at a charter school in Texas).

The callousness of U.S. political and business leaders is disturbing, shocking. Hunger is just one of the problems of our children. Teacher Sonya Romero-Smith told about the two little homeless girls she adopted: “Getting rid of bedbugs, that took us a while. Night terrors, that took a little while. Hoarding food..”

The U.S. has one of the highest relative child poverty rates in the developed world. As UNICEF reports, “(Children's) material well-being is highest in the Netherlands and in the four Nordic countries and lowest in Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and the United States.”


U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
9 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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The numbers are staggering: US is ‘world leader’ in child poverty (Original Post) KamaAina Apr 2015 OP
Our exceptionalism jen63 Apr 2015 #1
I suspect that the number is higher. I know many families who have food at the beginning of the jwirr Apr 2015 #2
In saner societies, this would be considered evil AZ Progressive Apr 2015 #3
Only an idiot trusts the rich. Money corrupts, and attracts the least ethical of people AZ Progressive Apr 2015 #4
Relative poverty, not poverty. Donald Ian Rankin Apr 2015 #5
And a rerun on homeless teens on PBS last night was also just so disturbing and heartbreaking....... a kennedy Apr 2015 #6
sigh... Cheese Sandwich Apr 2015 #7
K & R because this is significant. lovemydog Apr 2015 #8
They should include nutritional starving daredtowork Apr 2015 #9

jwirr

(39,215 posts)
2. I suspect that the number is higher. I know many families who have food at the beginning of the
Wed Apr 15, 2015, 01:56 PM
Apr 2015

month but are eating very little by the end. WIC provides some fruit - enough for two weeks for a child but what most don't understand is that with a couple of siblings it does not last that long. And then there is no more fruit for the rest of the month.

And when summer comes the family has to make what food money they have last for 3 meals a day and it is not enough to last for 1 meal a day in the school year. I often buy for such a family and go without myself. This is the greatest failure of our time.

Once upon a time George McGovern researched this and then helped to start the food stamp program. It worked then. But the cost of food had gone up a lot and the congress have made cuts. We are once again back in the 60s. And all while the rich get richer.

AZ Progressive

(3,411 posts)
4. Only an idiot trusts the rich. Money corrupts, and attracts the least ethical of people
Wed Apr 15, 2015, 02:20 PM
Apr 2015

America decided to embrace greed and selfishness and these are the consequences.

BTW before this, one only had to look at the rich people in third world nations to see how the rich people would be in America if they were fed with so much money via trickle down economics. The Rich in the third world are cruel and brutal. It shows you what money does to people.

Donald Ian Rankin

(13,598 posts)
5. Relative poverty, not poverty.
Wed Apr 15, 2015, 02:55 PM
Apr 2015

Absolute poverty is defined in terms of some measure of the cost of living.

Relative poverty is defined in terms of a fraction of the median income.

The former is a sensible way to compare societies, the latter - while very widely used - is not.

The reason the USA has so much relative "poverty" is that it has a very high median income. But what it doesn't have is an exceptionally large number of people with low living standards.

 

Cheese Sandwich

(9,086 posts)
7. sigh...
Mon Apr 20, 2015, 11:58 PM
Apr 2015

I was almost going to post this, but did a search for the title and found you've done it. So have this rec.

lovemydog

(11,833 posts)
8. K & R because this is significant.
Tue Apr 21, 2015, 12:20 AM
Apr 2015

It's easy to become immune to this information. None of us should be immune to the suffering of children.

daredtowork

(3,732 posts)
9. They should include nutritional starving
Tue Apr 21, 2015, 02:07 AM
Apr 2015

of children raised on a steady diet of highly processed mystery meat WalMart food. They will grow up to be burdens on the medical system because if the nutritional imbalances and deficiencies of their youth (perpetuated into their adulthood if they continue to be poor).

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