Recessions and child poverty

Random animal picture.

Census figures released last week showed that the poverty rate increased to 13.2 percent in 2008. The actual number of people living in poverty now is 39.8 million. The rate hasn't been that high since 1997 and the numbers haven't been that high since 1960.

This doesn't reflect the worst of the recession, which didn't really hit what I hope is bottom until this year. This probably won't surprise anybody, but poverty rates tend to spike along with unemployment rates. As noted here last week, things would have been a lot worse without the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), but states need to act to take advantage of its provisions.

Child poverty is especially likely to increase during recessions. This is serious since even temporary childhood poverty can have long lasting consequences.

To use West Virginia as an example, a new report by the WV Center on Budget and Policy finds that,

Based on an analysis of previous recessions, one in four West Virginians is expected to fall into poverty during the current recession. The number of state children living in poverty is estimated to increase by more than a third to 130,585, or 34.4 percent. Each one-percent increase in the unemployment rate is projected to raise the number of West Virginia children in poverty by about 8,000. The increase is of particular concern because of the harmful and long-lasting effects of poverty – even temporary poverty –on children...

The report cites a longitudinal study of child poverty which found that children who became poor during recessions had vastly different outcomes than their peers who were never poor. They had median incomes that were 30 percent lower; were three times as likely to still be poor; were less likely to finish high school or college; and were less likely to report being in good or excellent health.

The report recommends taking full advantage of ARRA by accessing emergency contingency TANF funds to provide increased or temporary assistance. These funds can also be used to subsidize employment programs. Other measures states can take include maximizing Medicaid participation, modernizing unemployment insurance by extending benefits to people currently excluded from the system, and expanding Childrens Health Insurance Program benefits.

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE, WV's fiscal health is better than most states these days, which may make it easier to take advantage of some of the opportunities mentioned above.

COAL WARS. Here's an op-ed by yours truly on coalfield conflicts then and now.

LEFT OUT. Non profit groups are not happy about being left out of current health care reform proposals.

GO TO THE DOGS here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Moral perfection

The era of the Enlightenment, sometimes called the Age of Reason, reached its peak in the 18th century. It was characterized by a cooling of homicidal religious zealotry and the growth of science and technology and a growing optimism about human possibilities.

Benjamin Franklin, the theme at Goat Rope lately, was nothing if not a child of the Enlightenment. A constant theme in his Autobiography is the quest for self improvement, which became a kind of American mania.

Franklin took to to a degree that probably seems comical to modern readers, jaded as we are by the terrors of history in the centuries that followed. Can you imagine writing something like this (with sincerity)?

It was about this time I conceiv'd the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wish'd to live without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. As I know, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other.

(Where are Augustine and Calvin on those extremely rare occasions when you actually need them?)

He found it to be no easy rowing:

...I soon found I had undertaken a take of more difficulty than I had imagined. When my care was employ'd in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason.

Not being a person to easily admit defeat, he determined to resort to a systematic method, about which more tomorrow.

THE WANING OF THE AGE OF CULTURE WARS? Maybe. Would that it were so.

ALSO WANING, in the wake of the economic crisis, is the well-being of many non-profit organizations. This one hits a little close to home for El Cabrero.

WAXING, the opposite of waning, could happen to labor unions with the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE. Lawmakers in WV are contemplating changes in funding for this program. El Cabrero and others are also pushing for the state to expand benefits in order to be eligible for more federal stimulus money.

MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL mining is the subject of this NY Times editorial.

DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS. A book mentioned last week about Darwin and Lincoln, Angels and Ages was written by Adam Golpik, not David. My bad.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED